In my family of origin, we were Do-It-Yourself-ers before D.I.Y. was cool. Long before HGTV inspired envy and Pinterest boards overwhelmed us with promises of what could be, my tribe was made up of people who promoted in-home haircuts and changing their own motor oil. We were aghast at the thought of paying someone else to do something we could easily do ourselves, like decorating a birthday cake or painting our toenails or ripping off the roof and building an additional story on to our house (never mind the fact that the builders were mostly made up of college professors, salesmen, and a geologist). While I still enjoy making things from scratch, I can also see the beauty in not doing everything myself, even if it goes against my nature to allow it. Adding a child to your home is a perfect example of a time when you must admit that you need help. Though my initial reaction might be to turn away offers of meals and help with the older siblings, DIY parenting is a big mistake. Pretending you don’t need the help of others and going on as usual will result in a 24/7 eye twitch—and that’s the best case scenario. Who are we kidding? When friends offer help, especially the “no-strings-attached, exactly-what-you-need” kind of help it should be a no-brainer. But this isn’t just about the receiver of the help. It’s also about the ones who get to give it. When we deny others the chance to bless us with help and casseroles, we are preventing them from experiencing the joys of servanthood. We are stopping them from doing what they were made to do—acting like Christ, the ultimate servant. Besides the satisfaction of helping others, the giver also gets to be a part of something outside of himself. When we help people in times of sorrow, we share in their mourning and bring a bit of it inside ourselves so we can practice empathy. When we help people in times of joy, we get to rejoice, too, as we walk back to our car thinking of the meal we just dropped off and the newborn baby we just held. (Ah, that new baby smell!) If there is one thing I’ve learned about including others in our dreams and failures, it’s that the story is so much sweeter with a larger cast of characters. When we allow people to walk the journey with us, it makes the journey better, bearable. There may be a one letter difference between “me” and “we” but that one letter can make a life-changing difference. Sometimes it’s just better to Do It Together. #community

When I tell my son of his homeland, I will describe the busy Kinshasa streets—the women with enormous bags, bowls, and boxes easily perched on their heads as if they are straw hats. As they walk slowly down the road, they sell their bread and fruit from these containers. I will tell him about the storefronts—sometimes crumbling buildings, sometimes bright beach umbrellas shading wooden tables. The people sell most anything you can imagine: food, clothes, car parts, cell phone chargers. A man walks by us with a board covered with a hundred sunglasses for sale. In the heavy traffic people peddle their wares through our open car windows: folded fans, bags of water, travel sized packs of tissues. The air is full of engine exhaust, horns honking, people shouting, and the soda sellers clinking their glass bottles together to bring attention to their colorful drinks. In large intersections, there are robot traffic lights, but we are the only ones transfixed by these metal giants. The drivers and pedestrians jockey for position as they ignore lane dividers. Organized chaos. When I tell my son of the city where he was born, I will tell him of the heat and the rain. He will know a piece of it from the summers he will spend in Tennessee, but he won’t understand the scope of its enormity and longevity. I will describe the giant avocados grown at our hotel and the tropical flowers, bursting like fireworks from the vines along the gravel walkways. I will tell him about the lizards, like the gray and orange one that visited us everyday. It would climb to the very top of the hot, tin roof and move up and down in jerky movements like it was doing push-ups. When I tell my son of Kinshasa, I will list the Congolese people we have met along the way—the woman who worked at the hotel who also adopted a little boy and translated for us when things got frustrating for our son; The friend who took him to the hospital when he broke his collarbone and each time he had malaria; The orphanage director who found creative ways to put food on the table for so many children; The foster mother who made sure he had what he needed and cried when she said goodbye to him. Though I was only there for such a short time, I will try my best to explain that the homeland of my son is a broken place. It is not a place where people go to feel comfortable and live an easy life, but it is a beautiful place. It has promise. There is potential. I will try in my own imperfect way to tell him that the Congo is a part of him. And no matter where we are born, we are all parts and pieces of good and bad, brokenness and potential. When he asks me about where he came from and who gave him birth, there will be many more questions than answers, but I will do my best. I will tell him that his Congo Mama gave him a gift, the gift of life. Then I was given the gift of being his Forever Mama. There is sadness in his story but there is also redemption. And I am grateful that we are a part of his story. #adoption #Congo

When I was growing up, my sisters and I loved to look at Highlights magazine. Our Aunt Jo would renew our subscription every year so that the magazines would keep showing up in our mailbox each month. We liked to read the short stories and the jokes. We marveled at the drawings made by kids from all over the country. We shook our heads at Goofus and his bad choices in the “Goofus and Gallant” comic strips. We fought over who got to circle the answers in the “What’s Wrong?” and “Hidden Pictures” sections. When my own children began to receive Highlights magazine, I realized some helpful tricks when looking for those sneaky “Hidden Pictures.” For instance, scanning the picture for things that seem slightly out of place usually leads to a hidden item—often a toothbrush, a pencil, or a bell. If only everything we search for was found so easily. When Moses had received the Ten Commandments and God was ready for him to lead them on to the Promised Land, Moses asked for some assurance of their success. He said, “If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.” It wasn’t as if Moses was unfamiliar with God’s ways. He had seen God’s power played out on a very large scale in Egypt. Even with his unusual access to God, he knew that much of God’s glory was hidden. The parts of God he couldn’t see were frightening to Moses. He felt that in order to rely on Him and truly lead His people to and through Lord-knows-what, he had to improve his understanding of God, thereby distinguishing the whole group as something special. To Moses, God revealing His glory equaled God bestowing His favor. Even if Moses didn’t/couldn’t comprehend what he was asking, God did. And God knew Moses was in for a real shocker. The Lord told Moses He was pleased with him and He would grant his request, but with one caveat. The only way Moses would survive being exposed to such glory would be at an angle. The Lord said, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live…There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.” There is something so intimate and gentle about God covering Moses as he stands, trembling, in the crevice of a rock. It isn’t a forced showing of God’s splendor. After all, Moses asked for it. It’s a fatherly, protective action. I wonder at times if God hides things from me for my own protection. There are elements of His character and motives behind His actions I will never, ever, ever understand. But the best possible response I could ask for is what the Lord told Moses: “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” and “I know you by name.” Then, if I’m brave enough and my trust is in Him, I can respond like Moses and say: “Now show me your glory.” #Trust

When I was little, my mother would buy each of my sisters and me a pair of brown, leather sandals every year. She would caution us to take care of them so that they would last the summer. They had thick, yellow, rubber soles and brass buckles on the side. For some reason, we hated them. I don’t remember reaching this opinion on my own, so I’m guessing I was convinced of their utter ugliness by my older sister. Not satisfied with only corrupting our opinions of the leather sandals, she also convinced us to methodically destroy them. Behind our house, along the property line where our backyard met our neighbor’s backyard, there was a ditch. When we received very much rain, this ditch would become a shallow creek of grass and muddy water. When it was high enough to cover our feet, my sister would instruct us to put on our sandals and wade out into the water. Her diabolical plan was to get the sandals wet enough that they would fall apart and it would all look like a harmless accident. (Everyone needs an older sister like this.) So we would do it and over time, our sandals would fall apart. I can’t remember what shoes we wore after that or how my mom reacted to the news, most likely completely frustrated since she was trying to make ends meet on a preacher’s salary with three young kids. What I do remember is the feeling of standing in the ditch with those wretched sandals on. I felt a mixture of guilt and delight as I wriggled my toes and felt the cushion of the insole fill up with water. Why does disobedience often feel good at the time? I knew I was disobeying my mother when I blatantly disregarded her instructions and didn’t take care of my sandals but I did it anyway. The knowledge of my disobedience didn’t stop me, and in some it ways it was actually thrilling. Now that I’m the mom correcting the disobedience of my own children, I have a new seat to watch this disregard of carefully spelled out instructions. I must sometimes witness their disobedience and deliver consequences for their actions. As the parent, I have more information and experience to back up the instructions I give my children—information and experience they don’t always feel justifies my right to correct them, but in the immortal words of my sister, “Tough noogies.” We can identify with King Solomon when he wrote in the Book of Proverbs: “At the end of your life, you will be sad that you ruined your health and lost everything you had. Then you will say, ‘Why didn’t I listen to my parents? Why didn’t I pay attention to my teachers? I didn’t want to be disciplined. I refused to be corrected. So now I have suffered through just about every kind of trouble anyone can have, and everyone knows it.’” Perspective. Obedience doesn’t always come naturally, even for wise kings, but the consequences aren’t far behind. I discipline my children because I love them and I have to cultivate a trust in my Lord who also disciplines out of love and wants to me to be obedient, even when I can’t see it from His perspective. #choices #obedience

How often do you say the following: “It seems like just yesterday” or “This is the longest week ever”? A minute will always last 60 seconds and an hour will always last 60 minutes but it doesn’t always feel like it. Time should be a concrete concept but it seems so fluid. I have a friend who recently told me about an out-of-body experience she had while holding a new mom’s infant daughter. A precious 4-month old sat in her lap and my friend was instantly transported more than 17 years in the past to the nursery of her own now-teenaged daughter. The years disappeared in a mist. Suddenly she was the new mom with the tiny daughter. The sweet, baby smell, the touch of soft baby skin—it felt like it was just yesterday. Tearful, my friend felt that time had passed too quickly. When you’re anxiously waiting for something to happen, time seems to slow to a crawl. It was true when you were a kid, waiting for summer vacation or Christmas morning, and it can still be true for adults. Time stretches out in front of you like an endless horizon. It’s January, bleak and cloudy, and you look at your covered swimming pool, thinking, “We’ll never get through with winter. Summer seems so far away.” Then there are periods of time and phases of life that seem to go quickly and last forever simultaneously. The anniversary of something tragic like the death of a loved one or a long illness or the day a spouse moves out and moves on, can create a desire for introspection. Upon examination, you might realize that while you’re living through it, your heightened feelings make time tick slowly. Your anger and frustration burn so brightly that little else enters your mind. This concentration slows everything down. But when the phase is over, you look back at the towering mountains you climbed and the raging rivers you crossed, and you wonder how you got through it in the amount of time that has passed. Intellectually, we know that time is a fixed thing. We check clocks and watches and cell phones often throughout the day to gauge what we should be doing and where we should be going, and we rarely question what we see. But emotionally, time is not fixed. And our perception, however unreliable, can become our reality. It’s okay if time feels fluid. In the Book of James, we read that “To the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day.” He measures time differently, too. So maybe, in the end, it’s not the quantity of time we’re given—the number of seconds and minutes and hours that pass in a lifetime, but how we spend those minutes that really matters. #time

There are a lot of positives to having a baby: the miracle of birth, the revelations about the preciousness of life, the somber bestowing to parents a new purpose and responsibility. The epiphanies go on and on. But the real beauty of bringing home a new baby is the free meals. When my twin daughters were born, our church family fed us three times a week for two months…two months! We ate casseroles and lasagnas and chicken potpies. They brought their best, for-company recipes, complete with desserts. It wasn’t a great plan for shedding those pregnancy pounds, but it was a load off my mind (though not off my thighs and rear end). Being a first time mom was excruciating at times. I had dreamed of being a mom my whole life but the reality of it hit me hard. We had no family in town and I had convinced myself that it was all on me. The pressure led me to one afternoon, alone in the house with two squalling infants, crying and telling my girls, “I’m so sorry I’m your mom! I don’t know what to do!” My hormones were at Threat Level: Inferno. Soon after that break down, a woman from church brought us a meal. When she brought the food and laid it out on the kitchen counter, she stepped into the living room to check out the babies. Then she sat down beside me on the sofa and said, “I know this is hard but it’s going to get better.” I must have had HELP ME written all over my forehead. Her few words of kindness were a succor to my soul. I couldn’t tell you what she brought for supper that night other than a loaf of banana bread. Months later, when I was a little bit more myself, I asked the woman for her recipe. The taste of the bread, paired with her sweet words had remained in my mind. I’ve been making the bread ever since. This recipe makes two loaves. When making the banana bread, it’s become our family’s tradition to keep one loaf and ask the Lord who should get the other loaf. Over the years, we’ve had lapses into greediness and we’ve tried to eat the second loaf, too. But like the Israelites who were warned not to gather more manna than they needed, the second loaf never tastes as good as the first one, convicting us that sharing really is caring. Find a way to share with someone today. It doesn’t have to be baked goods or handmade quilts (no wonder grandmas are so beloved!), but there will be a multitude of opportunities available to you, if only you keep watching for them. In case you would like to share a loaf of this banana bread, I’ve included the recipe below: Share-a-Loaf Banana Bread (makes two 9×5 loaves) Ingredients: 3½ cups all-purpose flour 2½ cups sugar 2 tsp. baking soda 2 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. salt 4-5 ripe bananas (makes about 2 cups mashed) 1 T lemon juice 1 cup vegetable oil 4 eggs ½ cup + 2 T buttermilk 2 tsp. vanilla extract Whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Puree bananas in a blender. Add lemon juice, oil, eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla. Blend until smooth. Add to flour mixture and mix well. Grease and flour two 9×5 loaf pans. Pour the batter evenly in the two pans. Bake at 325-degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes. #caring #friendship

A new study finds that very tiny chameleons—like the ones from Tanzania that can sit on the tip of your thumb—compensate for their small size with incredibly long and incredibly fast tongues. They may seem like harmless, little lizards but bugs should consider themselves warned. Scientists assumed there would be some sort of adaptations for these tiny creatures but they were surprised by what they found. When I heard about those chameleons and their super-stretchy tongues, I thought of that feeling you get when you’re stretched to the limit. One more thing, even something as small as a stubbed toe, would push you tumbling head-first over the edge. It also makes me think of my friend who received bad news about her daughter’s health last week. There has been physical and emotional pain, sleepless nights and difficult choices. My friend has been stretched to the limit and beyond. She saw the sign THIS IS YOUR LIMIT as she passed it then kept on going. But the truth is she does have a limit. We all do. We hear well-meaning people tell us that God won’t give us any more than we can handle, but I’m here to tell you that sentiment just isn’t true. In fact, it’s a lie disguised as a scripture you won’t find in the Bible. The Book of Psalms is full of people who were given more than they could handle. For instance: “I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart.” And then there’s: “I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.” This is not from a person who is in control of the situation. This is definitely someone who cannot take it another moment. My friend has been like the Apostle Paul, suffering hardship on top of hardship. When Paul said, “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself,” he thought they wouldn’t survive. So if there are times when we’re given greater burdens than our capacity to bear them, how is God good? Maybe our understanding of goodness isn’t Biblical either. God never promised this life would be easy but He did promise He would never leave us. Again and again in Scripture He says: “I will never leave you or forsake you.” So my friend is allowed to be mad. She’s allowed to do the very Biblical act of crying out to God. She’s allowed to ask “why?” And through it all, the Lord will never leave her. He’s a mighty God. He can take a few accusations and some angry finger-pointing. He will send comforters, both spiritual and physical, to meet her needs, also both spiritual and physical. He will weep with her and rejoice with her. And His Son will say to her: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” My friend will be stretched farther than she ever thought was possible, and if the tension becomes too great and she snaps, God will be there for her at that moment, too. #suffering

During the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, my family and I visited the Knoxville Zoo. On Saturday, my kids were lounging all over my in-laws’ living room furniture like there was a gas leak in the house, full of turkey and a bit grouchy, but they perked up when their grandmother mentioned there were two baby gorillas recently born at the zoo. I mean, who can turn down a chance to see baby gorillas? In my experience with zoos, there are many times when the animal doesn’t live up to the hype: the bear just lies there like a rug or the monkeys are quiet and standoffish. This visit exceeded my expectations. When we reached the glass enclosure for the gorillas, both mom gorillas cradled their babies. One mother-baby duo sat in a hammock, suspended from the ceiling high in the air. The other pair sat inside a long tunnel, also hanging from the ceiling. The baby in the hammock peeked over the edge several times, tiny fingers then precious face peering meekly at us. Each time the baby looked like he would climb out of the hammock, the mother would pull him back in, safely nestled on her stomach. When she finally decided to climb down, the baby wrapped his arms and legs around her arm to ride along. Now on the floor, the baby picked up a stick. The mother took it and placed it back on the floor. When a male gorilla got close to them, the mother gorilla picked up the baby and moved a safe distance away. Everything the mother gorilla did for her baby seemed intentional but it was done so slowly, like she was moving through water. The expression on her face was one of complete confidence. I expected her at any minute to look at me and say, “Kids…am I right?” without any exasperation, only commiseration and acceptance. As I watched in awe of her maternal skills, I thought that if that mother gorilla was on Facebook (which I don’t think she is), her pictures would be of elaborately decorated birthday cakes and links to her homeschool blog and posts about her kids’ achievements, like their innate ability to memorize Scriptures while simultaneously feeding the homeless and solving complex math problems. I wondered if the other gorilla mom, the one who had barely moved from her hanging tunnel while we stood watching, felt inferior to this super mom. Did she constantly compare herself and her baby to them? But then I saw the reason momma gorilla had climbed down from her comfy hammock. She needed to pee. She turned her back to all of us at the window, and let loose a stream of urine while her baby played with a plastic bowl nearby. She was not a superhuman (or super-ape) after all. She did her best to make decisions for her baby to keep him healthy and safe, but there comes a time when every mom has to take care of a few things for herself. Because, in the end, we’re all just imperfect humans (or in her case, gorilla) doing the best we can with what we know and until we know better or differently. Comparing our parenting only creates distance when what we need most is the closeness of community. #parenthood

I’ve always been impressed by resourceful people. When things look bleak, these amazing pioneers show imagination and gumption. They don’t let the negativity of the situation determine their attitude or the eventual outcome. Sometimes I worry this skill set may be disappearing. Take my childhood, for example. When my sisters and I got bored in the grocery store or in the line at the bank, we would entertain ourselves. We didn’t have mom’s phone to play games or watch videos. Instead, we would make up activities. We would take turns pretending that we were blind so that the “sighted” sister could guide us around the clothes racks. (“Oops, sorry” was an oft-repeated phrase from the “sighted” sister as the “blind” sister ran into mirrored columns and walls.) Another favorite pastime during the hours of errand-running boredom was to tie a string into a circle and play string games like “Cat’s Cradle” and “Soldier’s Bed.” When there wasn’t a string nearby, we would pull the elastic from the waistband of our underwear to make one. Now that’s resourceful. (Our mom might have preferred we had less saggy underwear instead of bugging her while she shopped at Castner-Knott. Actually, it was probably a toss-up.) Back in the 1990’s there was a show called MacGyver. In every episode, MacGyver would get into a pickle—often bound and gagged in a locked room—and he had to keep his wits to get out of it. At some point, everything looked hopeless: the timer on the bomb counted backwards to zero or MacGyver heard heavy footsteps of the armed and angry villains just a few feet away. MacGyver had to ignore the desperateness of his circumstances. He had to still his fear long enough to take stock of what he had available to him. Wrists and ankles tied up? No problem. He can melt the plastic zip ties with a wire coat hanger and space heater. Giant missile about to explode and destroy a Russian orphanage? Don’t sweat it. He can diffuse a missile with a paper clip and a wad of chewed gum. The show has been satirized for its unrealistic ridiculousness, but you still have to appreciate this guy’s abilities. For me, even more than his knowledge of lock-picking, safe-cracking, and bomb-diffusing, I’m impressed by his unrelenting optimism. There are times when I can get pretty low. The news tells me that we live under a constant threat of danger for our lives and our way of life, and it’s only getting worse. It tells me to fear everyone and everything around me. But what if I take a page from MacGyver’s life? What if I look around at what’s available to me and then I act? I don’t sit in a corner and give up in despair. And I don’t waste time casting blame on others. Instead, I look for ways to make things better. I don’t run away from problems, but I stay and save others from harm. Let’s use our resourcefulness to make this world a better place. #change

Moses was tired. He was old. His belly was full of his breakfast—wafers of manna and the water that poured from a rock. As he climbed to the top of a steep hill, he reflected on his life. In his mind, Moses saw mistakes and wrong turns. But he also saw miracles—a vast sea parting in two, a brilliant light high on a mountain. Now Moses sat on the top of the hill, flanked by his brother Aaron and his friend Hur. Below him, a battle raged, the Israelites and their attackers, the Amalekites. Throughout the long battle, Moses came to realize that if he kept his arms raised—the staff of God firmly grasped in his hands—the Israelites would succeed. But as soon as his arms became too weak to hold his staff in the air, the favor would turn to the Amalekites. The pressure to remain strong was depleting Moses. His arms shook. He closed his eyes, tears and sweat trickling down his cheeks. Aaron and Hur saw their friend’s exhaustion. They saw him gritting his teeth, trying to be strong. They moved to help. They held up Moses’ arms, one on each side. They kept him going until sunset, until the battle was over and the Israelites won. If you have ever been the recipient of this kind of support, you can appreciate the value of friends like Aaron and Hur. To have people willing to stand with you, lifting you up when you know it would be impossible to find the strength on your own. Moses could’ve shrugged off their help. He could’ve told Aaron and Hur to leave him alone. He could’ve said he was capable of doing it by himself. Instead, Moses allowed their strength to fill in the gaps and crevices created by his weakness. Moses let his friends pour into him. At times, I have been on a hill overlooking an intimidating battle. No Amalekites are clashing swords in a skirmish in the valley below, but the overwhelming trials still sometimes feel like I’m waging a war. So, a few nights ago, when life handed me a moment of “It’s-just-too-much”-ness, a group of women surrounded me. They supported me and lifted me up. They held my hands and stroked my hair. They prayed for me and gave me tissues. We don’t always have to have it all together and there is no shame in needing support. This need is only the evidence of our universal human frailty and a testament to the blessing of true friends. I don’t enjoy the crumbly feeling of falling apart but I will be forever grateful for my own personal “hilltop friends.” #friendship

It’s after lunch and I’m in a high school algebra class. Chin propped on hand, trying to stay awake, I’m staring at a poster stapled to the center of a square bulletin board. There is a photograph of a soaring eagle in the middle of the poster framed on all sides by a thick, black border. Printed at the top are two words in bold: “Dream Big.” Below the picture is a quote from businessman/motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” If only that applied to solving complex algebraic equations. More than twenty years later, I consider the validity of Zig’s argument. How far can attitude get you? How far can dreaming big take you? And when is dreaming not enough? When I think of someone with big dreams who followed through with those dreams, I think of my friend Staci. Years ago, Staci literally had a dream. One night, she dreamt of a woman—possibly in Africa—carrying a child, struggling to survive. Staci woke with a feeling of urgency and concern for the child and mother. The dream shook her and wouldn’t let go. It pierced her in a way that was almost painful. She felt called to act. Then, like déjà vu, Staci’s dream materialized before her when she learned of a plan by a missionary supported by our church to build an orphanage in Tanzania. This orphanage would be called Neema House. At this point, many people would give money to the orphanage. Some might just think, “Huh? That was kind of like my dream. Weird,” and stop right there. But Staci dreams big and she decided to act. She called together like-minded friends and family and cleared a space on her dining room table. Staci laid out plans for a Thanksgiving Day race to benefit the orphanage. There were hurdles to jump—permits from the city, t-shirt designs, port-a-potty placement—but she and her team continued. She had never planned a race before, but this would not deter her. Her dreams were bigger than the list of reasons it looked too difficult or even impossible. By 8:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning 2010, more than 1,600 runners had registered to compete in Borodash. The directors of Neema House would be shocked by the donation they would receive before Christmas that year. In the years since that first race, Borodash has grown and flourished and continues to bless the children living at the orphanage. The success of the race has exceeded anything even Staci could’ve imagined. She is quick to call the success a result of divine intervention. Last year, Staci traveled all the way to Tanzania to visit the Neema House. She finally saw the culmination of her dream fully realized. She rocked the babies who now had a home. She played with the children who were safe and loved. She learned what happens when you dream big and act. And what happens when God blesses your dreams. #dream #orphanage

In the Kingdom of Nerds, there is a special place for those of us who enjoy a good jigsaw puzzle. I’m not especially talented at assembling them but—in just the right circumstances—fitting two tiny puzzle pieces together can be pretty exciting. For instance, take my recent experience with a 500-piece puzzle of the Grand Canyon my mother-in-law gave us. My daughter and I dumped out the tiny irregularly shaped pieces and sorted them. We stood the lid to the puzzle box against the box so that we could reference the picture from time to time. Seeing that we’re highly developed humans, we started by constructing the edges of the puzzle. (Only a Neanderthal would begin a puzzle any other way.) Finding a piece with a flat edge is like panning for gold and finding…a flat-edged puzzle piece. (As exhilarating as the find can be, it’s probably not the same as actually finding gold.) After the bottom and sides were mostly done, we worked on the blue and white pieces that made up the 1-inch strip of sky along the top. Everything was rolling along until we hit a snag. We realized that the remaining 400 pieces were variations of brownish-orange and orangey-brown. Suddenly, the puzzle became less of a fun treat and more of an obligation. My daughter—the only other one in my immediate family who would help me with the puzzle—abandoned me for other activities. Now the puzzle has sat there, on the living room table for the last couple of days, mocking me with my failure to follow through and finish what I started. I’ll give it a few minutes throughout the day, attempting to join two seemingly compatible pieces together only to find that they are just millimeters from connecting. But all my brute force won’t make them fit. The only way to complete this puzzle is to sit down and do it, piece by piece by piece. As I trudge on to defeat the jigsaw puzzle, I do have a very important advantage (unfortunately it’s not patience). I have the lid to the box. I have the picture I’m trying to recreate. I have the explanation for the darker pieces (shadow) and the greenish pieces (tree branches). With the information the lid gives me, even though it may be difficult, it’s not impossible. If only I could see the whole picture more often. Maybe then I could better understand suffering and loss. Maybe I could have some grasp of the why’s and the how’s and the when’s I ask every day. But I don’t have the box lid to the jigsaw puzzle that is my life. I don’t have all the answers and it’s frustrating because I can’t see how this is all supposed to end. Without any type of guidance, I just sit down and get to work. I find a piece and try it at every available, logical spot until it fits. Sometimes that works, and sometimes that piece gets thrown into a pile of pieces I can’t figure out. Pieces that seem to have no place or purpose. We may not have the full picture but we do have a Lord willing to live out each step with us. When the Psalmist wrote: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” He should’ve added “and a box lid to my jigsaw.” It’s my responsibility to walk along the path but He offers to be our guide. He wants to sit by me as I construct the puzzle, reminding me where to place each piece if only I’m willing to listen. I won’t give up just because things are confusing and unpredictable and difficult. I am stronger than this jigsaw puzzle. I refuse to be defeated. #Trust