I’ve spent the last several weeks working on my book, sorting through old journals, blog posts, and memories from the first year after Terry died. It has been a little like opening a giant puzzle box and dumping thousands of pieces onto the table.
Some pieces are easy to place. They belong exactly where I remembered them. Others have surprised me.
There have been stories I was absolutely convinced belonged in one chapter. The tone matched, the timing seemed right, the memory fit the theme, and I was certain I knew exactly where it belonged. Yet every time I tried to place it there, something felt off. It wouldn’t quite fit.
Like any stubborn person, my first instinct was to make it fit. So, I rotated it. I looked at it from different angles. I tried again.
If I’m being completely honest, there were moments when I would have happily reached for a hammer.
But puzzles don’t work that way.
Neither does Life.
Sometimes we need more pieces before we can see where one belongs. A memory that makes no sense standing alone suddenly becomes clear when another piece is placed beside it. A difficult season reveals its purpose years later. A friendship, a move, a loss, or an unexpected blessing finds its proper place only after the surrounding picture begins to emerge.
On many days, writing reminds me how often I have done this in life. There were seasons when I thought I knew exactly how my story was supposed to unfold. I had plans. Expectations. Certainties. Then life quietly picked up the piece I was trying to force and placed it somewhere entirely different.
At the time, I didn’t understand.
Looking back, I can see that life was right.
Losing Terry felt like the piece that shattered the entire puzzle. Nothing made sense. The picture I thought I was building disappeared overnight. Yet over time, new pieces appeared. Winterpast. New friends. A church family. A blog. Writing. A deeper faith. Love and laughter where I never expected to find them again.
None of those pieces were visible when I was staring at the empty spaces before me.
The same thing happens in the garden. A bare patch of dirt looks hopeless until spring arrives. Then, suddenly, tiny shoots appear where there seemed to be nothing at all. What looked empty was simply waiting for the right season.
Perhaps that is true of life as well.
We spend so much time focusing on the missing pieces that we forget to step back and look at the picture as a whole, becoming frustrated by what isn’t finished. We worry about what doesn’t make sense and try to force things into places they were never meant to go.
Meanwhile, God sees the entire picture.
He sees the pieces we’ve already placed. He sees the ones still waiting in the box and knows how they fit together long before we do.
Faith isn’t about understanding every piece. It’s about trusting the One who holds the picture on the front of the box.
Today, I’m grateful for the pieces I understand. And I’m learning to trust the pieces I don’t.
After all, the puzzle isn’t finished yet.
