puzzles

We've all heard the analogy of the darkened path, you know the one where God lights each step as He sees fit? A good analogy, to be sure...but it's always left me with a bit of uncertainty since nobody could ever tell me what to expect at the end of the path. Did it just end? Stop at some cliff and disappear into oblivion?
So I was introduced to a new analogy. What if we looked at our lives like a jigsaw puzzle? Each shape is already defined, the shape and color of every one predetermined. Even before it is put together, I am sure that even a young child could look at a big messy pile of puzzle pieces and conclude that when put together, it would form a beautiful picture of perfectly fitting, interlocking pieces. However, if we picked up just one piece, and looked at it without considering the remainder of the puzzle, it would probably just be one huge mystery--it would be nearly impossible to tell from that one tiny fragment what form the big picture might take.. We can only see the portion of the picture that has already been put together, so the one piece we are looking at may very well still look like a big giant blob of, well...nothing. But does that make the fact that it will indeed form something any less of a truth? Absolutely not. The finished product was determined at the very beginning; before the box was opened, before even one piece was set in place. We can find comfort i that, in knowing that our life is a beautiful picture in the making...and of course, in knowing that the one placing it together loves us far, far too greatly to allow a single one of those pieces to be misplaced.

If you're like me and in a huge period of transition right now (which I know many of us are, having just graduated high school) then you may very well have felt like I have been feeling at one point or another: lost, hopeless, afraid, and at some points maybe even abandoned. But in the words of our loving Savior, "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33)
Put your hope in him. Rest in him. He wants to answer your questions, and if it is your heart to follow him and do his will, YOU WILL HEAR HIM. There is no need to fear. And trust me, I'm talking just as much to myself as to any one of you who may care to read this ;)