A Missing Piece… or Peace

Of late Doug and I have enjoyed putting together puzzles, mostly 1000-piece puzzles. Not sure how this came about other than politely accepting one to take on our winter holiday two years ago. We never bothered doing another one again until this past winter when we put three together while we were in Florida. And then we went out and bought three more to bring home! It seemed that the bug of puzzle-making had bit!

But now that spring is here—and my summer respite to Muskoka Bible Centre hovers beautifully in the near future—it’s time to finish our latest puzzle and put our puzzle-making away until the snow flies. And, in truth, I’m okay with that since our latest puzzle has been a bit of a stretch for me. I kept insisting that there were pieces missing. (I’m in the habit of saying this with every puzzle!) But I wasn’t enjoying this latest one. Too many pieces were the same colour and shape. Nevertheless, I stuck with it until it was finished and it was only then that a problem became evident.

The expression, the missing piece of a puzzle became all too personal! A piece was indeed missing!

We searched on the floor, under the carpet, and in the creases of the sofa. We even searched in places that didn’t even make sense to search! All to no avail. The piece was gone… or in fact it was never there! 999 pieces should have been written on the box! And I felt cheated!

I’m a closer. I need to see things through to completion. Then I can move on. But to see a ‘hole’ in my puzzle makes moving on very difficult… alright, maybe just annoying. Now I am left with crumbling it all up and putting it back in its box which now has an area circled and marked, Missing.

Earlier on as I was typing the word ‘piece’ my fingers chose the spelling ‘peace.’  As I corrected it, I couldn’t help thinking about my typo: a Missing Peace, and my thoughts gravitated to something well beyond puzzle-making.

There are times in life when we allow acidic bitterness, unforgiveness and resentment to filter into our lives. And peace is missing. Needless turmoil, worry, fear, and low self-worth become dominant. Peace is missing, and we find ourselves ignoring the One who can supply a peace that “surpasses all understanding.”

I read a chapter title in a book recently that said: Why Pray When You Can Worry? In a cursory glance at the chapter, the reader was asked, On a scale of one (no problems) to ten (representing “panic”) what would you register on the worry chart? And then further on I read, How does worry affect your sense of worth before God? The immediate thought I had was that worry is a cancer that destroys peace.

Joseph M. Scriven wrote What a Friend We Have in Jesus and when he did, he wrote some amazing words. Many are familiar with this song, but others have missed out in not knowing the One who provides—better still, personifies—Perfect Peace.

What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!

I decided not to dwell any further on the missing piece of the puzzle. I will just put the puzzle away, maybe even give it away, (with a warning, of course). After all, it is just a puzzle! Life is too short and I don’t want to waste my time on things I cannot change. I want my life to count for something of value. As the repeated stanza in C. T. Studd’s poem says, “Only one life, twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.” 

Philippians 4:7
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.