Cookie Puzzles

Last night was the first night a long while that I woke up unable to sleep because of work.  In my dreams I was trying very hard to fit heart cookies of assorted sizes perfectly into a box.  They weren't shift around, and if the box tilted, they were not to disentangle themselves and break.  No matter how I tried I could not fit them in.  There was still too much space in the box.

Sometimes when my mind goes like this, nothing can stop it but to go down to the shop and solve the problem in reality.  As dreams go, it stemmed from reality:  the boxes had arrived the previous day, in the wrong size, and the cookies I had already painstakingly baked.

In church on Sunday, I was volunteering in the age 3-4 room where puzzles are big deal.  They don't like it when you put the puzzle together for them so you watch their precious little hands move pieces around and around until they fit just right.  Some give up, but some work at it, even if it takes awhile.  And I sit beside them, ready to help.

Nicely, there is a set pattern for each cardboard puzzle; a picture to follow and only one way to complete it.  Unfortunately, this makes it very disappointing when, after all of your work, a piece is missing.  At least with cookies, there are different sizes to work with - at least in my batch.

I realized while laying their looking at all the possible mathematical arrangements of cookies on my bedroom ceiling, that there are several things in life that involve putting pieces together to fit.  And I do not mean linen closets.  People tend to fill in those missing places in our puzzles, sometimes surprisingly.

In running a business, I know where I am gifted and where I am terrible.  An employee or two, may be gifted at those places in which you are lacking.  Voila! Puzzle pieces put together.

Marriage is a huge example.  Two people from different ways of life, come together, and with hard work, they make it fit.  When it's working, it feels like a well-oiled machine.  When one is down, the other is up (and can pick their partner up!)  When one is tired of the kids (and this never happens to me), the other can step in.  And when it comes to extended families, sometimes it's the grandmother who steps in take up the extra piece, or an aunt or a really great babysitter (or wow! even a housecleaner)!

But I know the biggest piece of the puzzle in everything is our Heavenly Father who is watching over us and divinely guiding us to the right people for the right needs.  He wisely designed us with unique gifts and talents, whether to help run a business, sit in Sunday School, or be a part of a family.

And since it is He who made my never-sleeping brain, I put it to you:  Who is the biggest cookie in your box?