Crafted Together

      I was working on a puzzle. I'd just started; it was a picture of a human faerie maiden playing music in a moonlight wilderness of ruins. The edge was a golden gilt frame, studded with jewels; I was sorting pieces, picking out the ones with the straight edges, listening to Sara Groves. The song died and I heard it; the crying.
     It was coming from my parents room; it was my sister, struggling again with the decisions my parents had already struggled with, discussing what is best. My Dad's work phone beeped; he had to go to work. The charged meeting would soon be over. She came out later and played the piano; it's her release.
      What changed me was in-between. I heard the crying and started praying, praying, praying, pouring out all I had to Father, who has sovereign control, Son, who saved us, and Spirit, who changes us and can work peace in us. Three in one; I am new to praying to three in one, at least this way--Sunday's sermon was on it. Minor details I use to give my mind something to focus on other than pain.
     But I struggled with praying, keeping my mind fixed on Him. He's been helping me with it; praying for His will, praying for more than ten seconds without drifting. Here, what distracted was the puzzle pieces. I wanted to cry. I was exchanging focus on souls, people I loved, souls, immortal, the most beautiful things in existence, for cheap cardboard imitations of gaudy golden gilt. I traded pleading with God to play with a falling apart picture. And it wasn't just once. Pulling my mind back, it would travel again; I saw a new edge piece, it's greener-than-teal back tugging at my vision. This, while I prayed for a crying sister. It's an apt metaphor for what usually distracts us from God.
      But pray I did; hear, God certainly did; the results, God alone knows--and God alone is responsible for. But the once piece I did put in place reminded me that, while I may struggle to put together the pieces of painted cardboard, God has crafted together every event, making miracles in moments, and holding helpless souls who cry in pain. Even those who come out a few minutes later and pretend everything is fine, practice a music piece for a friend coming over (it must be done), and my Dad who comes out and gives us goodbyes as he goes to work. It's my family; we hide. But never successfully from the God who makes true beauty, who shapes the lives of the broken, falling apart children into something beautiful.