Life is a Puzzle...

             Currently, it's.a 750 piece puzzle. This particular puzzle is pretty, colorful, and with a theme-"Wheels." Santa brought it to us to provide enjoyment through the bleak winter...enjoyment in cold, wet, nasty days. That Santa knows it's important to select a theme appealing to a man and colors appealing to a woman. Clever guy!

                  The puzzle contains a zillion (ok, 750) pieces in weird shapes and sizes. My eyes move toward the color...Marvin's toward the shape. We make a good team. I see a piece that might fit and hand it to him. He turn it just right and "Voila!" It fits!

                  Another way I work is to find a motif within the puzzle that intrigues me. I then group the similar colors, and go for it. I've found Coca~Cola signs, road signs, license plates, and a gas pump! To me, putting the pieces together for these images is fun and relatively easy, because my interest is high and I choose the pretty colors, the neon, the ones that catch the eye. I leave alone the brown, motley flooring colors, for now.

                 The complete picture shown beautifully on the box is a motivator. Knowing the finished picture will match the beauty of the model is encouraging. That's where Faith comes in when we ponder how this stage of Life will turn out and how it works in "the big picture." Some stages in life are prettier than others, but when all the pieces fit together, we see; we understand.

                 Perseverance will bring the puzzle to completion, though working through the details will be tiring. I doubt we will employ a 2 AM session this year, but we'll definitely put in the hours since neither of us can leave a challenge alone.

                  Clever planning helps us this year.I do not dump all the puzzle pieces onto the table at once. No, sir-ee!  I'm an organizer. I know we need the edges of the puzzle first, so I dump small portions, 4-5 different times, and pull out the edges, even the tiny edges. Then, I sort the color groupings from each set.  Finally, I pour out the mix-n-match portions. It's orderly. It's workable. It's not overwhelming.

                 Working a puzzle together is revealing of styles and ways of problem-solving and trouble-shooting. It's our various ways of navigating life and its complexities. The combination of styles, finding coordinating patterns, recognizing the strengths of the other: life management skills.

               A Puzzle is a beautiful thing...as is Life.