For those who are facing struggles this holiday season, I empathize with you. June of last year, my mother unexpectedly passed away at the young age of 61. Being an only child and having no relationship with my earthly father, because he does not want one, I was numb to life. I was in disbelief. See The Lord- said to draw near to him and he would draw near to me and I knew that I needed to, in order to receive comfort, because he is the God of all comfort…BUT I could  not move.

I didn’t want to pick up my bible. I didn’t want to go to church because my momma sat next to me on the pew. Here I am…a mother with 5 children, the wife of a pastor, business woman – what was I going to do? I hid my tears from my children so they wouldn’t cry. Some days I cried to sleep. Other days we smiled and laughed about things Nanna would do and say; Some days I fell in the arms of my husband with no words and just cried. Many days, I picked up the phone to call my momma, only to realize that she would not answer.

Have you ever put together a puzzle with a lot of tiny pieces? it was so big you took a piece and someone else took the other pieces to work on it. Once you finished your pieces, you would connect them to make the puzzle complete.

The outside of box the puzzle comes in gives a visual of what the puzzle would like once done, but you still have to go through the process of sorting through the pieces, picking them up, maneuvering them in different angles, placing them where they would seem to be a perfect fit; but what happens if you are missing a piece of the puzzle?

Maybe the person who is working on it, needed it for their portion but That missing puzzle piece still does not change what the appearance of the puzzle should look like.

It still should look like the image on the box, right?

The loss of my mother is like that missing puzzle piece. I cannot hear her voice or her laugh but she is not missing. Although my life has a physical missing piece -this does not change the fact that I still must carry out my purpose. It does not change the fact that I have a family to care for.

My pain was affecting my perspective and so I had to change my perspective.

Pain affects your ability to reason and to think clearly. It affects your perspective on life.

The missing pieces of my life’s puzzle are not missing. It was just time to connect a portion of my pieces to God’s puzzle pieces. God simply needed a piece of my puzzle on the section of the puzzle HE is working on.  And his puzzle, just so happens to be that of a building fitly framed and joined together.

The missing piece to YOUR life’s puzzle is not missing either. There’s just a piece of the puzzle that you can’t see because you are not responsible for putting it together.

I encourage you on today to continue to push through. Cry when you need to and how long you need to. Then, After you’re done, go wipe your face, and finish working on the piece of the puzzle God gave you. You have a purpose to fulfill. You got some stuff to do. You may be snorting, snotting and crying while you’re doing it but keep doing it. God’s strength is made perfect through our weaknesses.

• Maybe you loss a job. It’ll be fine. That job did not fit your piece of the puzzle.
• Perhaps you lost a loved one. That’s okay – that person was needed to aid in completing God’s big puzzle.
• Maybe the relationship ended abruptly. It’ll be okay! You are a part of the puzzle that is creating the head; maybe that person was a part of the tail. There was no connection. he or she had to be moved to the correct location in the puzzle.

As we prepare for the Christmas holidays and a new year, I encourage you to seek peace and pursue it. Change your perspective. Find the good in every challenge, trial, heartbreak, misunderstanding, and negative situation. There is good. Because God is good.

The enemy desires to distort the image God has of you and the visual he created for the huge masterpiece of a puzzle- a view that the enemy can’t even see.

The green pastures you desire in 2019 require a completely different mindset than what you carried in 2018.

Your greatest hurt will be your greatest ministry. There are some things you can only learn in a storm. Be careful what you say about yourself and to yourself because yourself is listening. There is power in your words Change the narrative.

Start saying:

• I will get through this.
• I may cry, but I will get up, and keep it moving.
• I will be frustrated but then I will cast my cares on the Lord because HE cares.

Remember…even those most challenging puzzles have a solution. Just because you are missing a piece, does not mean that it is lost. God has it in the palm of his hand.