Puzzle Pieces

My Friesen family has a tradition of doing a puzzle during Christmas holidays. We try to get together at Mom and Dad's for multiple days during the holidays, not always consecutive, and one of the constants is some huge, thousands-of-pieces puzzle. We leave it set up in a corner somewhere; we come and go, putting a few pieces together; some of us a little more patient than others. When the end of our time together is near, we sometimes find a few staying up well past bed-time to try to finish it.

Sometimes we don't finish it...I kinda hate it when that happens.

As our plans haven't always gone the way we thought the last several months, Emery has sometimes likened the whole thing to a puzzle. Every once in a while, we seem to find another piece. There have been some stretches where we can't seem to find any pieces that fit together.

This week, we think we found another piece for our "Why Are We Not in Spain Yet?" puzzle. One of our very close friends died suddenly and tragically. And we are here, in Canada, so we can be there for, and mourn with Ray; so we can celebrate Deb's life at her funeral. Her death, however, is one of those puzzles that may never be finished; some of the fact pieces, the why and how pieces, may never be found, never mind fit together. Remember, I don't really like those kinds of puzzles?

Today I thought back to something I heard from a speaker that I was able to hear because we aren't in Spain yet. God didn't call us to be "fine". He called us to faith. And faith is what we exercise when things are not humanly explainable or understandable. When things are not humanly explainable, that's when we can choose to trust in our all-knowing God. He may not explain it all...maybe not ever. That takes another dose of faith. But when we continue to trust Him with these things, and other things, and ev.er.y.thing, every minute of every day, that's when we really get to know Him, and begin to experience all of the benefits He wants us to have: among them peace, contentment, and inner strength that is not humanly explainable. I just don't know how people live WITHOUT HIM.

Not 12 hours after the phone call confirming Deb's death, we got a phone call from Spain that our visas have been approved! Now all we have to do is wait for the approvals to arrive in Canada. We're hoping that means we can fly to Spain within the next two weeks...yes, we've hoped things before and look what happened? But we haven't given up hope, we continue to have hope...because that is how people live WITH HIM.