Today I was at the hospital waiting on the elevator. I was half paying attention to the conversation I was part of and half paying attention to the Seeing Eye dog feet away from me. I was debating whether or not it was appropriate to ask the owner to pet her dog (she was such a sweet and beautiful dog) when she said to her companion come on, the last elevator is going up. As she said this, I thought WOW a lady with a visual impairment knew which elevator was going up. Still half shocked, I entered the elevator and as I was holding the door to make their entrance onto the elevator easier she again gave a command to her dog. She prompted him to wait at the door to the elevator and then gave him permission to enter. At this point, I am convinced I am being recorded and this entire moment is a joke. How else would this lady(who was walking with a dog wearing a vest that stated: my owner has a visual impairment) be able to see a light indicating which elevator to get on and the entrance to the elevator? Once on the elevator, I begin talking to this woman and to her dog waiting for the camera crew to come out and reveal the surprise. And then she said what was probably obvious to everyone else around me…”Sorry she (her dog) gets scared on an elevator, we are trying to get her ready for a permanent placement.” I wasn’t being punked and this lady clearly wasn’t blind: my brain was just being my brain, leaving me puzzled at a situation and laughing at the outcome.
My brain plays tricks on me all the time; I like to blame it on too much caffeine and too much studying. (I’m clearly still in denial that my brain was playing tricks on me long before my coffee addiction got out of control and before I started PT school)Ok, my brain and my heart become puzzled more than I like to admit but I don’t just get confused when a situation doesn’t make sense or when I make up words that don’t exist. When I think about my life and try to answer questions about the future, or wonder how am I possibly going to be able to do that; my brain is like an empty filing cabinet containing only a few blank sheets of paper. I don’t possess enough strength or knowledge to answer the unknown questions of my life but I do possess the faith to trust the one who does. When my brain resembles an empty filing cabinet, the few blank sheets of paper represent the minimal tools God has given me to sustain myself as He fills up all the empty space with His understanding and his mastery. And as He turns each “puzzling” moment in my life into something I can comprehend and endure, He stores it in my filing cabinet so I never have to have to be left searching for the answer again.
Our lives represent one giant puzzle and to us we just see thousand of jagged disfigured pieces that couldn’t possibly yield a beautiful work of art. But to God, our lives make perfect sense and He is the only one who can strategically fit the pieces together. We can’t look at our lives and expect to see the finished product when God has only begun to assemble the pieces. And when we think He is assembling an elephant that turns out to be a submarine, we need to trust Him because He is the one with the blueprint; we just have a bag of pieces. Any good puzzle builder knows that you begin a puzzle by putting the frame together first. Our frame is comparable to our filing cabinet. As God begins to build upon the frame, filling in the pieces, store the mastery of His perfection in your heart and mind. When all you see is empty space, be patient and know that God has already given you the pieces you need as you wait for your puzzle to be completed. My brain may always be trying to fit a square peg in a round hole but the puzzle pieces of my life will always fit together because I have given control to the one who laughs as I pronounce epitome 3 different ways before finally grasping the true context of the word.
Verse to remember: 1 Corinthians 3:10-11 10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11 For no one can lay any other foundation other than the one already laid which is Jesus Christ.
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