Life Is Like A Jigsaw Puzzle

One of my favorite pastimes at this time of year is solving jigsaw puzzles. As the daylight hours grow shorter and the temperatures are not as conducive to spending long periods of time outdoors, I turn to indoor activities that nurture my heart and soul. One of these indoor activities is solving jigsaw puzzles.

Jigsaw puzzles are interesting creatures. My favorite jigsaw puzzles are bright and cheery, and will have people, movement, and action in them. During the Holiday Season, I enjoy puzzles that depict holiday gatherings of merriment and joy. Landscapes are also a favorite of mine, so long as there are people in the puzzle.

While working on a recent jigsaw puzzle, an awareness came to me that life is very much like a puzzle. There are many pieces to our lives, one might say an infinite number of pieces. Each of these pieces of our lives is put together to create a beautiful picture or mosaic.

One of these intricate qualities of the jigsaw puzzle of our lives is that each and every piece is located and put in its rightful place at exactly the right time—exactly when we need it. Allow me to share an example.

I enjoy going for walks at this time of year. I get bundled up and off I go for walks through the forest and along the banks of a nearby river. On one of my recent walks, I was thinking that I wanted to speak to someone about apartment renting. I wondered who I could speak to. As I thought about it, I realized I had a good friend who lived in an apartment and that this friend would be the perfect person to speak to. Who did I bump into on this very walk? That’s right, the friend I was thinking I needed to speak to! I asked my friend my questions about apartment renting and got exactly the answers I needed. The preceding is a simple, yet perfect, example of how the pieces of our jigsaw puzzle life get put together as we make our way through life.

The one interesting quality of life as a jigsaw puzzle, that I am fascinated with, is that we never actually get to see the completed picture or image. We do complete our jigsaw puzzle of life, but we are not able to see our completed picture. As we are living our lives, we are not able to see the bigger picture and how it all fits together. The best puzzle solvers of life are those that develop a trust in life—a trust that the pieces are all falling in to place exactly as they should and/or need to. The best puzzle solvers are those that realize every situation unfolds exactly as it should and that we are brought the pieces of our puzzle when we are ready to find it.

Yes, there are seeming ups and down in life. But each up and down is a piece in the jigsaw puzzle. And each piece does come together to create a beautiful picture or mosaic. Enjoy piecing together your puzzle of life. Enjoy making your own, unique creation.

Robert Meagher has been ordained as an Interfaith Minister and certified as a Sacred Attention Therapy (SAT) Therapist. Robert is the Founder and Spiritual Director for Spiritual Guidance and Co-Founder of the Center for Human Awakening.