Piece By Piece

I firmly believe that deep down everyone is fundamentally damaged in some way. We all have brokenness deep down inside of us that hurts. We have all gone through things in our lives that have impacted us, we've all experienced unwanted trauma. Sometimes it can be really easy to complain and ask God why he would put us through an unwanted experience, but we forget that God has a reason for everything, even those traumas.

Those traumas were part of God's plan, the big picture, to make us into the people he needs us to be. If you think about it, we are all like a puzzle; we come in many pieces that are supposed to fit together to form one big and complete picture. We know that we are supposed to be put together, but we can't see the big picture so we don't know which pieces are supposed to fit together. God is like the person putting the puzzle together; he can see the whole picture. He has the original box and knows what the final product is supposed to look like.

It's all a matter of trust. As he starts putting us together, we need to trust that he knows what he's doing. We have to believe that, when he tries to put hard pieces together (pieces that might hurt, like trauma), they are actually meant to fit in the long term. In the end, God knows that all the pieces that hurt going in, all of the missing pieces he had to look for, everything that looked like a jumbled mess, will turn out right. He is slowly taking each piece of us and turning us into the final, beautiful picture. Piece by piece he is putting us together into the people he needs us to be; he's building us to his original blueprint, shaping a person he know will change the world. We only need to let him put us together.

Embrace the trauma in your life even though it hurts. Hold it proudly, remembering that God put it in your life for a reason. He knew that this trauma would mold you into his most perfect creation; he has a plan for your life through the pain. Hold it out to the world proudly and shout, "Look what God has done! He has a great plan for this, though I don't know what it is!"

Often we like to micromanage what God is doing even though we can't see how everything is supposed to fit. We whine and complain that "this piece doesn't fit there; try another," "that piece looks weird; it can't possibly contribute to the final picture; it's too ugly," or "I never asked to be put together this way; just let me do it!" Every time we complain we are only delaying God's final product; he will finish it eventually, but he loves us so he takes the time to answer every one of our questions and address each and every one of our complaints. Like a father, he takes us on his knee and explains that everything has to happen in order, his divine order, to function properly. He knows how it will all work out, but we need to be patient. Let him to his work so that his final plan can be realized sooner.