Have you ever considered that life is like a puzzle?  Our lives have so many pieces.  Fitting all the pieces together can create a beautiful picture.  Sometimes it takes a while to fit all the pieces into that picture.  Sometimes the puzzle is shaken and comes apart, and sometimes the pieces get lost.  We spend much of our lives assembling our puzzle to make a beautiful picture, and we struggle when the pieces don’t fit.  How is your puzzle coming?  Do the pieces fit, or are you struggling to create that beautiful picture? As you assemble your puzzle, just remember that as you work on the pieces, sometimes you have to change the perspective of the pieces to determine if they fit.

Everyone works on puzzles differently.  Some put all the pieces on a table.  Some look for the edges first.  When you think about your pieces, think about what is important to you.  I would suggest that the edges hold everything together and should be the most important parts of your puzzle.  They might include your life goals.  They could be related to family, children, or marriage.  Whatever they include, sorting your pieces should be the first step.

We all have to define our goals, and they become the edges of our puzzle.  They help us define a picture that we want to create, and by fitting the pieces together, we create a life that brings us joy.  The joy becomes the picture we create, and happiness comes from joy.  Sometimes a puzzle takes hours to create, and other times it takes days.  As we create our puzzle we find and assemble our puzzle over the course of years.  We try to find pieces that work, but sometimes we need to find pieces that we are missing.  Pieces tend to fall off the table, get kicked under the couch or even lodged in the couch.  Finding pieces can be difficult, but the puzzle of life is worth working toward.

Luckily, the puzzle of life doesn’t come in a box.  There is not a finite number of pieces to our life puzzle, and we can find new pieces when some pieces don’t fit.  Sometimes we don’t find all our pieces at once.  At times we need to go looking for them, and we might even need to change them along the way.  When you think of your pieces, do you have all the pieces in your frame?  Have you started putting the internal parts of your puzzle together?  Are you filling your puzzle with things that bring joy?  Is your picture taking shape and starting to look amazing, or are you still working on the plan and the picture?

As you think about your puzzle, remember that putting together any puzzle takes time and effort.  Sometimes it takes a new perspective to find the piece that you are looking for, and at other times, you need to look around for the missing piece.  Don’t stop looking for your missing pieces.  Continue to work on your life puzzle, and find the joy that you are looking for and that you deserve.  Put your puzzle together, and create a picture that you can admire for many years to come.  It’s a part of being happy, for life.