The Puzzle

I just got back from a 27-day journey, one that changed my life. I spent a lot of time reading, meditating, praying, talking, pondering, thinking, writing letters, journaling, swimming, and ... doing puzzles... for the first time in probably 5 years. Puzzles were something that my friend Golnar and I used to do all the time together, and so, while I was away from everyone and everything I knew and loved, doing puzzles was a way to feel close to Golnar. And, puzzles are a great way to process things. You can sit there for 3 hours just puzzling away, and your mind is free to think about whatever it wants to. Almost every single night of these 27 days, I would sit down at the coffee table for an hour or 3, and if something was troubling me, or I didn't have an answer to something, I would usually have the answer by the time I stood up again. AND, bonus, the puzzle would be closer to being finished. Finding puzzle pieces that matched was like finding emotional, mental pieces and putting them where they belonged. Truly a wonderful activity.

Okay, but this blog is not overtly about cardboard puzzles. This blog is about the overall picture of my journey, or at least a glimpse of it, and maybe a little bit about the many puzzle pieces of my life. One thing I realized while I was away: Before I left, I was seeking answers in my life, trying to see how all the pieces fit together. Amazingly, I got some answers on this journey. There were many times, probably half a dozen, where I had an amazing revelation about my life. I would just be sitting there thinking, or talking with someone, and something would click in my brain. I would have a life-changing moment where I would see something in a new light, or the missing piece would suddenly appear. So, over the course of 27 days, I had probably 5 or 6 of these major life-changing moments, and these were all interspersed with smaller revelations, things that maybe were not as life-changing, but still pretty amazing. Every day was like this amazing gift, full of new ideas and conversations and people and solutions and revelations, great and small.

And I also realized while I was away that even though in my 31 years of life so far, when I often felt lost, frustrated, even hopeless, I was still always seeking. Even when it looked like I had given up or was going about it all the wrong way, deep down I was looking for the right answer. I wasn't sure how to go about it, what the right answer was, but I was always trying different things and trying to find the best way. And somehow, even the backward steps led to forward progress, eventually. But how much easier it is when we can move forward to go forward, and not do things in such a roundabout way.

I think life is this giant puzzle, for each of us, that we have to solve during our years here. We may not ever get all the answers. We may find that we have some missing pieces, and while we ourselves are whole and complete beings, there may be aspects of our lives that still confuse us or remain a mystery. But for the things that we can find clarity on, it is our responsibility to do so. We have a responsibility to ourselves, of course. But also to others, as we interact with those around us and we want to offer ourselves to them at our very best, with as many of the pieces completed as we can. This doesn't mean we have to be perfect before we can interact with others, but just that we are giving the best of ourselves to our loved ones. And we also have a responsibility to God. We are asked to seek God, to seek Jesus, numerous times throughout the bible. Life is one big puzzle that we never stop working on, in which we never stop trying to gain greater clarity. Otherwise, what is our purpose here if we stop seeking answers?

I am grateful that during this time away, I felt like I put more pieces of my life together than I have ever done in such a concentrated amount of time. There are still so many pieces and mysteries that I can continue to solve (I mean, come on, I'm only 31), but I am so grateful for what was done in my life the past month. Thank God.