Puzzling

I’ve been thinking a lot about journey lately. It’s a word that has characterized my life for the past 7+ years.

I’ve journeyed to 40ish countries with a few hundred different people. An, obviously, physical journey that was additionally spiritual emotional and relational – lots of ups and downs!

I’m currently out of country once again, in the Dominican Republic.

I came here with purpose and intention and vision and, as days and weeks pass, every one of those things has shifted, leaving me with many unknowns, lots of questions and very few answers.

In the past 6 months or so, I began viewing this journey as a scavenger hunt, picking up clues of where this journey is taking me along the way. That visual has evolved into a puzzle, which is the subject of this writing.

As I’ve thought about the puzzle analogy, thinking about the pieces I’ve collected and begun to put together, the picture is, currently, very incomplete. Some of my pieces don’t touch each other, or even look like they belong in the same image, but something inside of me knows they belong together in this picture that’s emerging in front of me.

A couple weeks ago, the thought hit me that we – particularly those of us with a western world mindset – often want to arrive. We want the puzzle to be done with all the pieces where they go, in their “rightful” place. We like completion. As I let this though develop, it hit me, “What do you do when the puzzle is finished?”

Since I was a little girl, I’ve loved puzzles. We would often have one on the card table in the dining room and, whenever it would be complete, there was a twinge of sadness – it’s over! There’s nothing left to do but put the pieces back in the box and onto the shelf in the closet.

The process was the best part!

And that’s the point… what if we could learn to enjoy each piece of this puzzle – or journey – that is life?

Enjoy the discover, enjoy when you try to put the piece in the wrong place, enjoy watching the picture emerge, enjoy the process! Because, pretty soon, all the pieces will be where they and, then what…?