One thing that I have been doing more of during this quarantine of 2020 is putting together jigsaw puzzles.
Since having our sons it has been a while since I have put any together. Putting together jigsaw puzzles takes time and focus and with three boys 18 months apart, they took up most of my spare time.
Many times, putting together puzzles is a solo project for me. It is a great way to close all of the tabs in my head and just focus on one thing. The best time for me to put together puzzles is when I complete them with family members.
Each person has their part to focus on: the sky, the barn, the mountains in the background, the kittens in the wagon… And when everyone is finished with their part, it all comes together in one big picture.
Life is that way. We all have our “big picture” we need to put together.
Sometimes they are big pieces that are easy to place in our picture. We know what to do, how to do it, and everything is straightforward. Life is good with these pieces.
Other times our life is full of smaller pieces to our puzzle. It takes patience, more work, and focus to put these into place. Sometimes these pieces do not like to fit together. No matter how many times you flip the two pieces they do not work. Then you have to search for pieces that will work together.
This past Christmas, my mom had different puzzles laid out in her home for the grandkids to work on when they stayed with them. She was buying new puzzles all the time. So for our gift to her, I found a puzzle that had the same image on both sides of the puzzle but turned 90 degrees. It was called the World’s Most Difficult Jigsaw Puzzle.
There are times in our lives where we feel we are trying to put together the World’s Most Difficult Jigsaw Puzzle. No matter what we do, life just isn’t going the way we planned. Life becomes difficult with no end in sight.
That is when we need to use our support system to put the pieces of our life together. Situations become easier to deal with when we have family and friends to help us put those pieces together. And before you know it, your Big Picture is put together and life is all good.
So when you are having difficulties in your life and everything seems impossible to put back together, Lean on the people in your life that you trust and take some of those pieces (for instance: chores around the house, projects at work, watching your kids, praying for you, advice) and let them help put those together for you.