Think of a puzzle.

Don’t think of one of those four piece puzzles made of really thick plastic that you give to two year olds, but one of those 25000 piece babies that take up the dining room table for years, the kind where pieces get lost in the carpet. Its not a simple picture, it’s a collage of pictures and all the pieces seem to look the same at the start. And, I almost forgot, you have no idea what the final collage looks like.

The puzzle is starting to take shape. The top edge is done and in a few of the corners are recognizable shapes which make you think of your childhood. There’s a part of the puzzle that hasn’t been touched in a while. None of the pieces that you have tried to join seem to fit. There were a couple that looked right at first, but when you tried to put them in the puzzle, they had to be forced in.

Sometimes you get stubborn and leave a forced piece in there just for spite and try to build around it. It may work for a little while but pretty soon it ends up causing more problems than it was worth, and you have to rip the forced one out of there.

These little detours take up time that you could have spent on another part of the puzzle. They can distract you from a section that was starting to take shape.

Everyone knows that if the outside of the puzzle is completed first, it makes the inside so much easier to put together. The outside of the puzzle always has an edge that is perfectly straight. It is something you can count on. That’s why concentrating on the edges and building inward is so much easier than picking a random piece and then searching for a piece that works with it.

The Puzzle Maker

There was one other thing I forgot to mention about the puzzle. The wildcard. The reason you don’t know what the final result is supposed to look like is because of your father. He is the one who created the puzzle and has this idea that if you knew what the final picture looked like, you wouldn’t get as much joy out of the puzzle.

Every once in a while, he picks up a piece, puts it in your hand, and points to the place it’s supposed to go. He only does this on his time, and most of the time, he’ll point to a part of the puzzle you really haven’t been working on or thinking about. Whenever you feel you have all the answers, he sits back and shakes his head while you waste your energy forcing pieces together. He keeps telling you that if you put your trust in him, everything will work out the way it is supposed to.

He tells you that patience is a virtue. Sometimes you just need to enjoy what has already been created. When you sit back and look at the sections that are put together properly, they are absolutely amazing. You see that some of the most incredible parts were the hardest to put together.

While you are working on your puzzle your friends come over. Sometimes they pick up a piece out of the carpet that you had forgotten about and it’s the exact piece you were looking for. This happens a few times and pretty soon, you let them force the pieces in your puzzle, even if they bend in the process. But eventually, this leads to anger, fighting and puzzle pieces flying all over the room. And while this is going on, your father just sits there, shaking his head. Sometimes he cries at the way you have neglected his advice and wisdom, but he won’t force your hand.

The Salesman

From time to time a traveling salesman shows up at the door. He claims that your father is lying to you, that he didn’t actually create the puzzle. He tells you that you are wasting your time when you believe what your father says. The salesman is charismatic, looks sharp and seems to have all the answers. He only sells one thing — magic puzzle pieces — and claims that his puzzle pieces can fit in any spot in the puzzle.

He always seems to show up when you are really frustrated with the section of the puzzle you are working on. It is so tempting when he comes knocking at the door. The only problem is that you can’t buy one of his pieces. He only takes trades. He trades the pieces he makes, for the pieces that your father made for you. It’s so tempting. Eventually you trade a piece that your father made specifically for your puzzle, for a counterfeit.

At first, the magic piece seems to fit perfectly. It looks like you think it should, and seems to adjust to fit other pieces. But then you run into problems. You can’t help but notice how much easier and faster the magic piece fit into the puzzle. But soon you run into problems. The counterfeit piece starts to heat up. It boils over onto the other pieces, causing them to lose their vibrant color and start to peel. Realizing you made a mistake you try to hide it. You rip the counterfeit piece out of the puzzle, off the table and try and wipe off the pieces where it boiled over. This only makes it worse and causes the mess to taint more of the puzzle.

The Solution

Eventually, the mess is so bad you have to get help. You decide to go to your father. He made the puzzle so maybe he can fix it. You expect him to say that you are a screw-up and that he shouldn’t have given you the puzzle in the first place. But when you tell him what happened, to your surprise, he starts to cry. He tells you that he has a special solution but you have to understand that it is absolutely free. It is a gift and you cannot try to earn it or it will lose its value.

You stand there for thinking, “What a weird request. It can’t actually be free. That doesn’t make sense. I screwed up! I have to pay the price!”

Then he tells you, “If you try to add anything to this solution, it will lose its power.”

It just doesn’t fit what you know about life. There is always a string attached, right? Since you were a child, you’ve been taught that good boys and girls get gifts. The bad, well, they get coal for Christmas. There has to be something he’s not telling you. Suspicious, you ignore your father’s solution.

The Search

You decide to call your friends. They tell you that you need an alcohol-based solution. You pour alcohol on the screwed-up puzzle, but all it does is cause pieces that were put together properly to wash off the table. It does make you feel good for a bit and it makes you forget the original cause of your problem but it doesn’t last. A few minutes later, your problems are worse as now there are pieces that seem to have faded and some of your hard work has been undone.

Alcohol wasn’t the solution. Other people tell you that if you tried asking other people than your father, you could earn a solution from them. Someone even suggested that there really isn’t a problem with your puzzle at all. All you have to do is clear your mind.

In spite of all the advice, days later, the puzzle is still in bad shape. Pieces are all over the place. The alcohol is actually eating away at some of them and you can’t even look at the counterfeit piece, as it seems to be mocking you when you do.

Where do you turn to now? Your father keeps holding out the bottle of puzzle cleaner for you, telling you that all you need to do is accept it. You want to be able to say you have fixed the puzzle yourself. His way is too easy. You start to blame your father. You tell him that if he had only given you the piece you needed, when you needed it, you wouldn’t be in this mess.

Your father, although obviously stung by your words, doesn’t withdraw the solution. Instead he tells you that when you change your mind, all you need to do is ask. He doesn’t yell or scream at you. He just waits.

Finding Yourself

Someone suggests that you just need to find yourself. Yes! That does make sense. Obviously, more sense than a solution that is free and already provided for. When you find yourself, everything will be OK. You can fix this.

So you try to find yourself. Nobody actually explained to you exactly what that meant but you go on your journey anyway. All you can think about is your father offering you his solution. It still doesn’t seem like it could be true. Would your father really give a free gift to fix a mistake you made? Although it is possible that your father loves you enough to do it, your need to be in control makes you refuse his offer. You would need to pay him back in some way. Who knows what he’d ask you to do?

Eventually you realize that the other solutions that people gave you didn’t work. Maybe it is worth trying your father’s puzzle cleaner?

After all the searching, you return to the dining room table and look at the puzzle. The stain looks back at you, condemning you. The puzzle is a mess. The pieces are faded, torn and warped. “What is this puzzle worth now?� you think to yourself.

As you are standing there looking at it, tears in your eyes, your father comes up behind you and says gently, “It doesn’t have to be like this. All you have to do is believe that I am your father, that I love you and that my solution is the only one you need.”
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The Gift

You realize that you’ve tried everything else and they just made it worse. You’re at a dead end. You can give up your pride and accept the gift your father is offering, accepting that it is not earned and that you couldn’t fix it on your own. You fall on your knees and accept the solution with trembling hands.

The solution is a dark red color, quite thick in consistency and seems to have a life of its own. Your father helps you clean the puzzle with the solution and you see that when the solution hits the stain, it burns with a white flame. Your father tells you that purification is occurring. When it dies down, you can see that the whole puzzle is clean and to your surprise, where the puzzle is not complete yet, you see that there are guides to where the pieces are to fit.

You never saw the guidelines before and ask your father where they came from. Your father tells you, “When your trust is in me, I will give you the guide. However, when you try to do things on your own, although the guide is there, you won’t be able to see it.”

The Finished Puzzle

The puzzle takes a lifetime to complete. Your father is true to his word. As long as you trusted him, the guide was there. Occasionally, you tried to do the puzzle on your own. There were also times when you were distracted by your friends or by the salesman at the door. You ignored the guide and began forcing pieces of the puzzle into places they should not be.

The guide disappeared until you returned to your father and confessed your mistake. Then, by some miracle, when you turned around, the puzzle was clean. You didn’t even have to pour any of the solution on it.

Your puzzle is a masterpiece. It was created for you and your father says it was unique. The process of putting it together took a lifetime. When you look at the completed puzzle you are amazed at the beauty of it and the detail in it. You turn to your father and tell him, “It’s beautiful! It’s taken a long time to complete but you have always been here to help.”

Your father just smiles and puts his arm around you and says. “I knew you’d like it, I’m glad we were able to work on it together.”? In that moment you realize that the puzzle isn’t the important thing. The important thing is the relationship with your father.

The End