God helped me see the importance of finding the edges and staying centered when it comes to love. As I adjusted to life after mama’s death, my heart needed direction. Learning and love go hand in hand and are what the journey is all about. God knows how much I love to learn, and I pray I always will. The best lessons always come from my mistakes, and that is especially true in matters of the heart. I’ve always loved with my heart wide open and pouring out in hopes of being loved. I now see the futility of that plan. God helped me find balance in a way that makes perfect sense now that I get it:) I was searching for the center without knowing where the edges were. Mama loved jigsaw puzzles, but I only tolerated them. She often had a puzzle going and taught me to get the end pieces finished first and the rest would fall into place.
God used that image to help me find the edges of my heart so I could work my way to the center. When it comes to love and my heart, I’ve been searching for the edges all my life. It’s funny that I find that funny considering all the frustration it has brought me:) God is a master teacher and uses humor effectively, so I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve also learned to laugh at myself and see the humor in the situation. My motto when it comes to mistakes is, “Eventually, this will be funny!” Sometimes it’s funny in five minutes, and sometimes it takes a few decades! I’ve wandered in many directions and fallen off a few cliffs, but I always managed to work my way back to the path.
Daddy told me I was like Billy in the Family Circus comic, and he was right. In fact, he used to laugh sometimes when I would take a difficult path and remind me that when I was tiny, I told him I was going “way awound” when I was wandering around the yard instead of taking the straight path to the neighbor’s house. I have spent much of my life going “way awound” when it comes to finding love. From God’s perspective, I know my journey closely resembles those little dashed lines in Family Circus. I also knows He finds the humor in my convoluted path.
Knowing the edges is important, and the image of mama and her jigsaw puzzles helped me move forward, or should I say work my way to the middle of the puzzle I’ve been piecing together for decades. The pieces are beginning to make sense now that I have a framework. I have a framed puzzle that a dear friend gave me when I left the middle school. It is 24” by 36” and is comprised of 50 hearts. They are ordinary objects shaped like hearts. Clouds, flowers, leaves, rocks, and so on… She knew I was obsessed with looking for heart-shaped objects, and she was especially touched by the heart-shaped leaf I found after a special hike. She took the leaf and laminated it for me; I had it professionally framed, and it was beautiful. It decided to give it to the gentleman I had been dating for two years; we had found the leaf on our first date, and he had taken a beautiful picture of it. I searched for the edge and in all honesty told him how I felt. The honesty was too much, and the relationship ended. He didn’t love me, and that broke my heart. I realize now that it was important for me to be honest, but his reaction to my honesty was not what I expected and caused me to run back to the safety of my cage.
Lilly had a similar lesson when she reached for a hot cookie right out of the oven and got burned. My heart felt like her little hand, and I learned not to do that again. Thank God, I have learned since then that honesty and love do go together beautifully. If honesty doesn’t sit well in a relationship, that is a sure sign that love isn’t present. Live and love and learn. My heart is filled with hope because my God is a god of hope. I plan to keep reaching out because it what hearts are designed to do. Sweet the way He used a puzzle to solve a puzzle:) I love it when He does that!
journeywithgigi 