Puzzle Pieces

Tim Kimmel provided a metaphor to explain parenting in his book Grace Based Parenting that I believe extends to our lives on Earth.

Life is like a great puzzle with three challenges:

• There are a couple of missing pieces.
• There are a few pieces from a different puzzle mixed in.
• You don’t have a picture of the completed puzzle.

In August 2007, I was invited to share some thoughts on this to my church. I talked about the need for grace because no one has all the answers, certainly not me. As I think about it today, I use this metaphor as a reminder when I feel overtaken by current events or my own mistakes.

• It is okay to feel like something is very wrong with my life.
• Frustration is normal; taking out that frustration on others is unwarranted.
• It’s not my fault that there are missing and wrong pieces.
• The picture improves with a willing community.
• Life is a journey, not a destination.

I am a multipassionate person, I am un-nicheable. I rabbit-hole to discover the strangest minutia for just about any topic, but that is not the same as having a niche. This presents great opportunities to look at things from a unique perspective, but it also leads to re-examining the same issues multiple times.

The one thing in my life that ties many of my interests together is telling stories. I call this site puzzle pieces because each story is another piece. It may be a faith piece (and it may not fit). It may be a roleplaying game piece or it may just be a piece from another puzzle. Whatever the picture turns out to be, at least it will be an interesting picture.

Not another puzzle in the world is the same.

Footnote

I am not a fan of Kimmel's other two books. If you want to hear what I said, here is the recording. It may not have aged well, I have changed a lot since then.