Samaritan’s Corner: Missing Pieces of Life’s Puzzle

Cary, NC — Welcome To Samaritan’s Corner, let’s talk.

Piecing Together the Heart of Jesus

I took it upon myself to gather the pieces of the puzzle that make up the heart of Jesus. These pieces are patient and kind.

They’re not jealous, they’re not rude, and they don’t demand their own way. They’re not irritable, and they keep no record of being wronged. They don’t rejoice about injustice,  they rejoice when truth wins out. They never lose faith, they never give up, they’re always hopeful, and they endure through every circumstance.

I found these pieces in the scriptures of God’s word. These pieces spell out one single word, “Love.”

Jesus died because He “Loved.” His love is made up of whosoever, we, you, anyone, everyone, our and the whole world. To Him, all lives matter, and every soul counts. We all have access to the life puzzle, and we all have free will to choose what we do with them.

There are two piles. The pile that make up His puzzle, and the pile that makes up ours. Unfortunately, we’ve decided to grab a paintbrush and contaminate our pieces with symbols. Jesus died on the cross, not for it. The cross is a symbol of His love and sacrifice.

For us, we’re willing to kill the spirit, and for some even the human body over symbols. And you know what? If you all of a sudden had one of your children diagnosed with cancer, your spouse dies, a parent dies, or you become deathly ill yourself, not one flag, statue, or any other symbol would matter — but that life surely would.

Glue Can’t Replace Grace

We’ve covered our pieces with ultimatums, rules, elephants, donkeys, flags, judgment, blame, resentment, movements, and hatred. Ecclesiastes 10:3 says, “You can identify fools just by how they walk down the street.”

America is walking crooked because of the slippery slope we’ve created. Do you know what’s more valuable than gold? The piece of the puzzle named “agree to disagree.” Don’t even bother looking for it, it’s not in our pile. You have to have a humble heart to even touch it, and we’ve become a little too selfish.

So the Lord no longer trusts us with it, and why should He? If we can’t humble ourselves enough to extend grace to each other, forgive each other, and love in spite of, I don’t blame Him. You can’t choose a side without first choosing an enemy. You’re labeled a sellout if you’re at peace with things and decide not to be angry about something.

We’re trying to force pieces together that are never going to fit. We’re damaging the pieces and without a thought, we toss them away only to look for another piece to get angry about. Glue can’t replace grace. We’re getting so desperate that we’re willing to glue the pieces together because our hearts can’t take anymore.

Working Together, Learning Together

Instead of trying to force pieces together, let’s talk. Let’s take a little time to find out each other’s experience in putting puzzles together. Find out who knows what. I guarantee you that we’re gonna find out that most of us don’t know as much as we think we do about putting a life puzzle together.

In the words of my friend Diane Hillsgrove, “Let’s turn this into a teaching moment.”

Let’s teach, and help each other with our life puzzles. Let’s get rid of all of the old painful pieces. Not forget about them, just put them on a different table. The history behind us can help us with the future in front of us believe it or not. When we see the pieces of history, instead of being vindictive, let’s walk together in victory.

So much of history tried to foil the divine will of God, but He got His glory anyway. He has done so much, for so many of us. My mentor, Mrs. Josephine Farrar said, “God has brought me through too much for me to be bitter.” (RIP Mama Jo.)

Some of the hardest math to do is counting our blessings folks. At some point, we’re gonna have to work together to get these puzzles done. We’re gonna have to learn how to count the pieces if we want to stop paying the price. We can’t live if there are missing pieces of the life puzzle.