Puzzle Pieces

This past weekend we visited my mother in the hospital. She had cancer several years ago that was removed surgically, but later metastasized to her lungs and now to her spine/spinal cord. They are doing 10 days of radiation to try to shrink the tumor on the spine and get some of her mobility back. She can move her left leg, but it has areas of numbness. She can't move her right leg much and sometimes not at all, so must have a lot of help. Even if the radiation works, it is only temporary; these problems will recur, and eventually the cancer will take her life.

Down the hall from her room is a small lounge area with several tables and some chairs. One table had a puzzle started; a lot of pieces were still scattered about on the table. Mom loves to do puzzles, and my husband, our two sons, and I spent some time with her working on this particular puzzle. The picture showed a building with a lot of flowers around it--on the ground and hanging. We got the majority of the pieces put in, but then were having a lot of trouble. Finally we realized that a number of the pieces were in the wrong place! The fit was close, but not close enough, and often they didn't match up right. Once we got those taken care of, we were able to continue working on the puzzle and managed to get all but two pieces in.

It reminded me of what Jerry Bridges said in Is God Really in Control? about how we often try to figure out exactly what God is doing or trying to teach us in a particular situation/trial--and often try to do it in regard to others as well--but God is not accountable to us to have to show us what He is doing and why. We may never know in this life, though God may graciously choose to show us. That doesn't mean we don't watch to see what we can learn during those times, and there will be times when it may be obvious what God is doing. I do not know why God has allowed this cancer to come into Mom's life, or why He allowed it to attack her spine and take away her ability to walk. It would be easy to speculate and try to fit my "puzzle pieces" into the picture, but I may not get it right.

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are My ways higher than your ways, and
My thoughts than your thoughts."
(Isaiah 55:8-9)

We cannot see the entire picture, and we may put in some wrong "puzzle pieces," but God knows exactly what He is doing, and every piece will end up in the right place, without our help. Our responsibility is to trust and obey Him. The finished "puzzle" will be far more glorious than we could have imagined while looking at the pieces from our earthly perspective.

"Remember the former things of old; for I am God,
and there is none like Me, declaring the end
from the beginning, and from ancient times
the things that are not yet done, saying,
My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure."
(Isaiah 46:9-10)