I am working on the puzzle that is life. Somedays, it’s smooth sailing but other days, it’s a struggle. What puzzles are you working on? Perhaps you have a story about a puzzle. If you choose to take up the challenge, please add a pingback to this prompt.

Life is like a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece fits together to create a perfect whole. But the pieces of life don’t always fit together the way we expect them to. Or want them to. And one subtle change can launch the whole puzzle into disarray, ensuring the pieces will never quite fit the way we want them to. Because there is no perfect whole where life is concerned.

The process of life… it is a living, breathing puzzle, very different from the cardboard pieces we fit together to create a two-dimensional image. Life, and its piece, are constantly changing, evolving, and growing. People come into your life, and you fit them in with the overall picture. People leave—for whatever reason—and you readjust the life you are creating. Some people leave a hole that can never be filled, and because of that hole, your puzzle has to take on a new shape.

Jobs change, locations change, hobbies come and go, and you are left to make sense of it all. As a human involved in the game of life, you are expected to continue your work on the puzzle, creating beauty not in spite of the constant movement and change, but because of it.

It is the changes that bring us to life. Our reactions and the way we handle the situations we are given, these contribute to the beauty in the overall image we create. Our reactions bring color and vibrance to our life picture. They demonstrate our growth over time.

And so… as you continue to work on your own life puzzle—to determine how to fit the pieces together—know that the puzzle will continue to change, to shift, and to challenge at every turn. But it will also bring love and peace and joy, both in the present and in your reflection on the past, on the things you have done, on the people you have met.

Choose your pieces wisely. Those thoughtfully chosen will add the most beauty to—and be a better fit with—the many pieces you cannot choose.