A Puzzle Called Life

I know this guy who has been extremely blessed. He grew up in middle class America with opportunity and promise in great measure. With talents and abilities he has done well by world standards. Surrounded by supporting parents and family he enjoyed life's greatest pleasures, smiles around huge tables filled with good food, hugs and prayers when life wasn't so kind, and words of encouragement in the face of every challenge.



When he was just 17 years old his parents moved him in his senior year from a large school of over 2,000 students in the city, to a country school of less than 200 students 65 miles away.

He was pretty bitter about it and spent most of the beginning of his senior year ditching school and driving back to his hometown to be with lifelong friends. This plan worked until one day while ditching, the hogs got out of their pen and ran wild into the road. When his mother in a panic called the school to send him home to help get the pigs back in their pen, they informed her that he was not in school and had called in sick. Those pigs cost him his car keys and the humiliation of riding the bus for two weeks.



Not all was bad in the country though. On his first day at the new school he ran into a young lady who captured his interest. She was to him the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He accidentally on purpose tried to run into her at every opportunity to try and get a chance to meet her. He saw a guy talking to her who he knew from football practice. He was the new kid but he made a bit of a splash at the school by being a football standout. She happened to be a cheerleader and when he saw Ray talking to her he immediately went to Ray and asked him to arrange a "date" with her. When Ray asked why he simply replied, "Because I want you to introduce me to the girl I am going to marry."



He did indeed make the introduction and they did indeed get married the year they graduated High School. Probably not the best life plan to marry at that age, but destiny was working on many fronts. He would learn the trade of carpentry that would eventually lead him to running a construction company that would build millions of dollars of real estate and develop millions of dollars of property. She became a postal worker but later paid the price for further education and getting a degree in nursing, became a RN.



But on another front in the early days of their marriage, God was at work to implement a recovery program that would set the real course of their young lives for eternity. It is funny how God works. You make plans, you implement said plans, and with hard work and a few breaks things fall in place and your life comes together like a five hundred piece puzzle. But life is more like a fifteen hundred piece puzzle and God is there to help with the pieces and the sections we really never want to see or put together.



For example they never saw it coming but together in their little kitchen they knelt down and asked Jesus into their hearts and had a real encounter with God. You can still see the joy in his eyes as he recounts how he poured all the alcohol he had down the kitchen drain and for the first time in his young life felt the freedom that only God can impart. They were brought into a new freedom that was strange but wonderful, hard to comprehend but was better "felt" than "tellt".



But lacking good teaching, fellowship, and continued application of truth they both slowly lapsed back into their old life after just a few months. To some it appeared to be just a passing phase they went through, but in all truth a mighty seed was sown and more pieces of the puzzle were coming together--like it or not.



Later that year great joy filled the house with the arrival of their first son. My friend could not have been a happier dad and his wife was the best mom he had ever seen. Laughter filled the home as he began to grow and show his own precious personality. I have to say as someone who personally saw this child, even I knew there was something very special about this young boy. Before he was two years old he knew, by heart, the words to over twenty children's songs. He had a memory that was amazing. Once he saw or heard something he could recall it at will. He loved to sing, to say his memory verses, and to laugh.



Oh the laugh! His laugh was contagious and his giggle would break down the coldest, hardest heart. No matter how hard your day was or how difficult a time you were having, five minutes in the presence of this child had you laughing from your belly until it hurt. As a bystander you don't realize nor appreciate, sometimes until later, the special gifts and blessings that some have until they are gone...



It was getting close to Christmas--babies first Christmas! The tree was up early and presents abounded for an eight month old baby who didn't have a clue what all the hoopla was about. But this would be a Christmas that would be bittersweet. Two weeks before the big day, this precious little child was running a 104* temperature. They both began to worry and decided to take him to the small county hospital emergency room. Completely overwhelmed they waited while doctors checked him out. Expecting to hear a report of flu or pneumonia they anxiously waited for the news.



Instead, the doctor asked them to drive 60 miles south to a much larger and better equipped hospital. They said doctors would be waiting and would run more tests. But that is all they said and without a thought they made the trip to another hospital. After arriving, more tests were run and after hours of anxious waiting it looked like they were going to finally get some answers. But that would not be the case. Doctors came out and said they had called down to Riley's children hospital in Indianapolis and arrangements were made for a room to be ready, and be prepared for an overnight stay.



This really gave pause for worry and fear. They left and drove the hour and half to Indy. It was a long drive, it was a long day. Upon arrival they were greeted by hospital staff and immediately admitted to a room. Nothing can prepare a person for this kind of experience but Riley isn't just a children's hospital, it is place with great compassion and great people who help parents as well as kids with life's greatest challenges.



It took several days to get his temperature down and then came the results after days of tests. The parents, and grandparents who came down for the day were called into a small conference room. It was a warm room painted in bright colors with peaceful paintings on the walls. But the warmth of the room would not help with the cold hard news they were about to receive. It was leukemia. Not just the regular kind either. They had a three dollar word for it that I can't spell or pronounce. This news was like a wall falling on them. It was suspected from the start but there were only four reported cases of this type of leukemia in children in the whole country. Diagnosis must be confirmed and reconfirmed before they will utter a word of this to parents. It was a sure death sentence for there was no cure, nor hope for a cure, in the near future. They were honest and candid in the prognosis, yet they offered compassion and all the care at their disposal for the difficult days ahead.



They all left the room except for the parents and together they sobbed for what seemed like hours. How could this be? Why is this? What is the purpose of this? After a time my friend's wife stood up and said "I know what I am going to do. I'm going to God, He is the only One who can help us. I am going to call your grandfather(who was a preacher), and get them praying and then I am going back to God". She walked out the room and did indeed do exactly what she said, she went to God and never looked back. My friend stayed in the conference room and buried his head in his hands and cried more and asked more questions and became more overwhelmed. But a loving Father was still putting pieces of this puzzle together. Pieces that were hard to fit, difficult to see and discern, and pieces that no one wants to touch.



First Christmas! For this family all those presents sat under a tree at home unwrapped, untouched for this Christmas would be spent at Riley. It took that long to get his white count down to a safe level where he could go home and remove the infection from his small helpless body. What started as a run to the emergency room turned to be a two and a half week stay through Christmas. They went to a store and bought a Glo-worm for a present so he could have something until they got home. The hospital also gave many toys to all the kids who couldn't go home and they also gave a voucher for a nice meal out for the parents to enjoy.



This was taking time to process and internally the truth was they were just hurting. This eight month old baby had an incurable disease and had a limited time on this planet. How long? No one knew. A few months, a few years, no one could or would dare to say. But this much was sure, his death was certain. There would be weekly trips to the hospital for a blood test to keep an eye on the white blood cell count. Too many white blood cells and he would not have the ability to fight off simple infections and could die from a simple case of the flu. Way too many and his blood would clot in the tiny vessels in the brain and have a stroke.



Careful monitoring of his blood just became a way of life. Bouts with pneumonia and the flu were encountered like enemy invasions trying to take a nation. More trips to Riley, more needles, more pain, more ugly pieces to this puzzle. More questions than answers, and more pain than peace. More brokenness and more sorrow but breakthrough was coming because the Master builder was working on the BIG picture. We get lost in the moment, in the small part of a momentary loss or hurt, but He has a way of blending that into the picture of life that has another side altogether. Yes, there are shades of darkness in every life. But like any picture the darkness is there for contrast. If the darkness defines the light you have a very fuzzy and unclear picture. But when the light defines the darkness it puts darkness in its proper perspective.



It is really hard to understand darkness. Its' purpose, its' role in our lives. You know the age old questions. "why does evil exist?" "how does a loving God allow it?" There is no context to answer life's questions outside of the Light. To see this one piece of the puzzle without the whole picture makes for a miserable and hopeless existence. Yet we do it every day in the human condition.



For months after returning from that initial experience, my friend tried to act as if he could handle this. He put up a strong front of a man doing what strong men do--bury your hurt and buck up an be strong! His wife returned to God and pursued Him with all her heart. He became harder, more stubborn and more determined to do this on his own. It was vain but again, it was a necessary part of the picture. He started drinking more, trying to dull the hurt. He played his music more staying out all hours of the night and then came the moment of truth.



After a Saturday night out where his rock-n-roll band performed out, he crashed on the couch after coming home at three-thirty in the morning. His wife got up while he slept off the night before and went to church. As he lay out in a state of unconsciousness, the television blared on a religious show. It was Jimmy Swaggart, an evangelist from Baton Rouge Louisiana. He awoke out of a deep slumber in time to hear that preacher say that it was time to quit running. It was time to run TO God and not away. He said God knew the hurt, the pain, the sorrow, and that He wanted to save, heal and forgive.



It struck a note in his heart. He began to cry. He went to the bedroom and dug out a Bible his preacher grandfather had given him earlier after his first brief encounter with the Lord. With tear filled eyes he went back to the couch and let the book fall open. It fell open to the book of Revelation chapter two. He began to read, " Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works...."

He mind went back to when he first met Christ, the joy, the forgiveness, the freedom, and the peace. What happened? How do you walk away from that? He cried out to the Lord on his knees right there at his couch in the living room. He experienced the love of God again forgive his sin and take him back. He made a commitment to walk with Christ and love and serve Him if He would forgive him. He felt the very peace and presence of God roll over his soul and wash away every sin in his life. There was no doubt in his mind what God did and what it meant to him. This prayer meeting went on for about an hour amid tears of joy and shouts of victory.

When his wife came home from church that afternoon he met her at the door. He smiled and asked how was the service. A strange question cause he never asked before. She looked at him and then did a double take. She knew immediately something was different. That he was different. She asked him what was going on. He began to weep and laugh all at the same time as he told her of his experience of coming back to Jesus. They embraced and wept together as a new part of the puzzle had just been filled in by the Master Builder. A piece of great light and revelation had come forth and the picture was getting clearer.

He did do his first works again. He got water baptized, found a local church to get involved in, where he could grow and be fed, but best of all he fell in love with Jesus all over again. This isn't a fairy tale. It's not ...and they all lived happily ever after... In fact things just now get interesting as there is much more of this puzzle to come.

Part two of this will continue next week as the puzzle called life came together. I want to share it with you because I believe it could help you in your journey. You may be puzzled by this puzzle called life. I am not sure I can help you with answers but I want to help you see the BIG picture so you don't get lost in the pieces....God Bless!