Something I'd written a while back...

The following is a short essay I'd written years ago in college. It was about putting together the pieces of our lives into a meaning. Hope you enjoy it.

The Puzzle

Walking in a barren field one day, I found the pieces of a 3-D puzzle on the ground. The pieces had no pictures are parts of a picture on them, simply words and concepts, such as "inner peace" and "purpose." Having a world of time, I began putting the pieces together, trying to make what I could. It was easy at first, as I quickly constructed a statue; tall, strong, intelligent, handsome, and driven my statue looked. But when I had finished, I found I had used up all of my pieces on the outside, leaving little more than a well-made shell of a man.

So I took my statue apart and tried to make a face to fit my desires. So incredibly beautiful was this face, so tender and warm with penetrating eyes that bore through to the deepest part of my soul. I turned away from that captivating countenance, full of shame and anger against myself for not being good enough to return the gaze of that face.

I took the face apart and knew now what I must do; I built a judge's bench and a gavel, that with them I might proclaim myself innocent and judge others according to my own interpretation of the law. With the first pounding of the hammer, though, I knew this creation, too, was not the shape these pieces were supposed to take, for I could never lie in peace if I lied for peace.

One more thing I thought I'd try: I took the pieces and built I knew not what, but it seemed good to me and judged no one else. A strange object was my creation, able to mold itself to suit the tastes of all who saw it and to make them allow for the views of all others. This plan also fell through, for this object had neither form nor shape nor consistency. One push on it would poke a hole in it, a hole easily repaired, but the object would never be quite the same as before.

In my despair, I tore this last creation apart and walked dejectedly away, leaving the pieces of the dove where I found them, for I had not the heart to try again.


Thankfully, I have changed since I wrote this. When it was penned, I knew, as you might guess from the last paragraph, what was the right answer in my head, but my heart was steadfast in its rejection. In a way, even though God has helped me build that dove in my life, I still reject Him at times, opting for the beautiful face most often, but sometimes for the strong statue or the judge, and once in a while for the amorphous shape when I get discouraged.

The problem is that the pieces of our life can build only one thing at a time. We must either be building what God wants us to build or tearing it down to build what we want to build. Fortunately, He is able to help us repair what damage we've done much faster than we ever could, but still, every piece we remove from Him is a piece that is used to a bad purpose and a piece that has to be replaced. And some of that replacing takes a long time if the piece has been broken or if we are fighting Him on where to put it.

What pieces in your life are you withholding from God? Which ones have you broken and need Him to repair?