Making Puzzles a Picture

I like puzzles.

I mean the board puzzles- not puzzling situations that I have no control over. The great thing about a board puzzle is that you have control over making the bigger picture come to life, and then you can see it finished after some time. Sometimes many hours of long staring and trying to fit the right pieces together is what it takes.

Then, you clean it all up and destroy the masterpiece you spent so long on, sweeping it back into the box. Somehow, getting a sense of accomplishment from the silly little pieces of cardboard.

The significance of life to a puzzle is big to me. I am a piece to someones life puzzle. Someone else is a piece to my life's puzzle and all of us have various amounts of pieces.

Our lives are a huge puzzle, laid out on the table. Some pieces are already found and connected and those are the past. And the future? Those are the those pieces that have yet to be spotted and fit together.

We all contribute to one another the same way a puzzle works. All people we come in contact with are constantly adding to our life's story and and who we are becoming. Sometimes we think that doing something small for someone else will be insignificant, But what if that 20 dollars you gave  was the last 20 dollars needed to save a life?

What if, the time you stopped to help a stranded woman on the side of the road with her car, was just the hope the woman needed to keep going in her daily life?

What if, the kind words and large extra large tip you gave the waitress or manager, was exactly what they needed to be encouraged after a hard day?

What if the truth said to a family member or friend was that pivoting point in making the right choice?

Most often, we don't know how our lives and choices effect someone else. Sometimes, we might see where we contributed to someones life, and many times, especially in the case of strangers and people we will never meet face to face, you won't ever see the outcome, of how you added a piece to their puzzle.

But you did.

You added to someone else's life in a mysterious way.

We all add pieces to help finish the big picture of each others life puzzles. And at the end of our lives, our stories show the final completed puzzle of our journey.

I recently saw some pictures someone had posted of their mothers coffin in the final moments above ground. As a last goodbye, the family members and close friends set their hands in various colors of paint and stamped their hand print upon the white of the coffin. What a beautiful significance this picture painted of just a few of those this woman touched and all the different shapes and sizes of humans and the lives she added too.

Cardboard puzzles aren't for everyone. My husband hates them... And thats ok.

But the significance of what they are to how we touch each other and help each other become who we are, is for everyone! I always need to think, that whomever I come in contact with in the many different ways of contact, is joining a piece of their puzzle together. And how can I help make their completed picture more beautiful?

~Prudence