Recently while in meditation and intending for some inspiration, I was given this metaphor for looking at life as a jigsaw puzzle and I thought I would share it with you.
Since I was a small child I have loved to do jigsaw puzzles. Some of my fondest childhood memories are sitting at a card table in our "Reception Room" and spending hour upon hour working on a puzzle. I loved the challenge and loved the feeling I felt upon completion, or just finding that "one" piece I had been searching for.
For the sake of this article I would like to take you on a journey into the jigsaw puzzle of your life. Let's say someone (God) has just given you a beautifully wrapped present. You untie the ribbon and rip off the paper and there before you is a box that says "Jigsaw Puzzle of Your Life". You see a picture on the cover of this box that can only be described as "your life, you, moment by moment". As you look at the cover of the box you see all the choices you have made up until this point. You see yourself as a small child that has grown into adulthood. As you you look at this picture you may feel too scared to go any further. You do not want to uncover and piece together your life up to this point and into the future and so you politely thank the person who gave it to you and then put it in the closet never to be looked at again. Many people do this. They live their life in a form of rote mechanical function. Day in and day out they walk through life without looking at how the pieces fit together. They don't look to see the magic and miracles of the pieces. They are not awake to the beauty of the puzzle.
To more fully create your life through Surrender:
1) Take your puzzle pieces out of the box. Sometimes you just need to take your life "out of the box" and look at it with new eyes. If you never take the pieces of your puzzle out of the box then you are walking blindly through life. You will go through life as though things are" happening to you" instead of understanding that you are the creator of your own puzzle. You create the picture and outcome of your life as you accept and Surrender to the goodness of God. So take your life out of the box and Surrender to a new picture if you don't like the picture you see.
2) Next place your puzzle pieces upward in a positive direction (positive thought). Picture facing up! If you place your puzzle pieces face-down in a negative direction (negative thought), you will be working harder and harder to find the pieces that fit together. It helps when you can look at the "picture" on the face of the puzzle piece and match it to a picture that is similar in nature.
3) Next you might want to put all the pieces that are similar into groupings. As a metaphor, these groupings might be relationships, health, finances, career, and spirituality. I put all the perimeter pieces (the ones with straight edges) around the outside so I can begin to create a frame for the puzzle. In this metaphor these perimeter pieces are your hopes and dreams and the goals you have for your life. This is the frame for your life. Make sure there are no holes.
4) Over the course of putting the puzzle together, there are inevitably one or two pieces that you will have trouble finding. In my own life of puzzle piecing, I find that I may be looking for the wrong shape. It might have fallen to the floor and be lost within the carpet. I search and search, spending way too much time looking for that one piece. Eventually I might just give up and walk away and do something else or I might start looking for another piece to the puzzle. What happens more times than not, is that when I finally stop looking, the piece magically shows up right in front of my eyes. I may have looked a hundred times at the same spot on the table, my eyes scanning and scanning for that one piece, but only when my eyes were ready did they see the piece. All of a sudden I look down and there it is right in front of me. Or I look to the floor and there it is gently hidden in the patterns of the carpet. I am again reminded that I was trying too hard. I needed to Surrender and put my intention into finding the piece and then, let the piece "find me". When we let go of the attachment to the pieces of the puzzle of our life, we are allowing God to find us and meet our needs.
5) As you work the puzzle you will begin to see different patterns to the picture. You might have to concentrate on a certain portion of the puzzle in order to get to the next part. Your relationships, your health, your finances, or your spirituality. Try not to let the puzzle get too unbalanced. Work from all directions at once being ever open to new opportunities in all areas. In the same breath, the puzzle will be harder to complete if you jump around from one place to the next. Spend time on a section and put the pieces in place but remain open and give time to all areas. Sometimes when I am working on a puzzle I find that "lost" piece when I begin to work on a different area.
6) Finally you will begin to see a pattern to your life. What is your pattern? You may see that your life's pattern is all of your making, controlled by you. You may see a mixture, times you had faith and allowed God to create the patterns and times when you did the controlling. In the world of spiritual Surrender it is best to be a co-creator with God and the Universe. Actions are your creation. Outcome is Gods. Open your eyes to finding the pieces to the puzzle, completely trusting that they will be there as you look for them. Walk through life knowing and believing that you are truly held in the palm of God's hand and your puzzle is falling into place as you co-create with the Divine Puzzle Creator.
Lisa Sullivan is the creator of the altar tool and law of attraction method "I Surrender This". She is available for one on one coaching as well as inspiration and motivation in releasing fear through her website http://www.isurrenderthis.com
Source: www.isnare.com
