500 pieces all over the dining room table.  That’s how it starts. The puzzle box is opened and all the pieces get poured out in a jumbled pile with no order.  How in the world does this form a picture?  It’s just a bunch of broken pieces representing an apparently hopeless task of restoring the image the puzzle maker first imprinted on the cardboard.  You have great faith that all those pieces actually do form an image.  They just need to be put together.

To complete the puzzle, you take the box cover and set it somewhere visible.  On that cover is the picture  the puzzle maker envisioned when the puzzle was first made.  It was imprinted as a beautiful image worthy of someone’s admiration and effort to recreate.  But after it was created whole, the picture was cut into small pieces – broken.  It is beyond recognition and a lot of folks don’t even care to see the imprint restored.

But you believe there is an image.  You desire to see it made whole again.  It’s worth the price you’ll need to pay in time, effort, squinting, and back pain from leaning over the table.  So, in faith believing there is truly a beautiful image in that pile of pieces, you set about painstakingly putting it back together. Finally it’s done.  It’s complete, whole, restored.  It’s a perfect reflection of the image on the box originally – except a few lines that scar the surface where the cuts of the pieces show.

The broken pieces of your life are worth the price Jesus paid to restore the image God the puzzle maker first imprinted upon you when you were created in His passion and creativity.  God’s salvation through Christ is a wonderful gift of being made whole so that the original image and reflection of a holy God is once again pieced together out of a pile of broken parts.

Thank you Lord for inviting us into the wholeness of your holy image.