story of transformation
I’m a puzzler. Dump out the box and show me all the little pieces and I get hypnotized. Usually for hours. Watching the transformation of individual, incomplete pieces into a single image inspires me. So sometimes I find the illusion of a puzzle helpful when I think about life, especially my own life, and how all of my experiences fit together into a story of transformation.
At times puzzles, and life, come easily: pieces of the same color and shape seem to fit together. There are coherent themes that guide me and life lessons that seem to run through and between different experiences, relationships, and adventures. The whole image forms fast and clear.
And at times you find the puzzle pieces that, no matter how hard you try, don’t seem to fit the puzzle. The ones that seem to come from a different puzzle box entirely. Sometimes my life feels like puzzle pieces that don’t always fit together.
This past year, for me, has been full of different pieces, each with rugged edges, in different colors, different themes, and found on different continents.
In the fall, while at school, I found myself engaging passionately with issues of justice, equality, and humanity in all aspects of my life. I was trying to find an ethical story for everything: whither my food, my clothing, my classes, or my relationships. As often as possible I re-wrote the stories around me, supplementing cafeteria assembly line cooking for home baked bread and local garden produce, or new- brand name - store bought clothes for my friends’ casts offs and mcc thrift store finds. I spent time dialoguing beauty, feminism, radical discipleship and biblical shalom. The lessons I was learning in school complimented those I was learning in life, and the pieces of my life’s puzzle seemed to fit together beautifully into a holistic vision.
In December, I left for Chad, Africa. There I found puzzle pieces that didn’t fit as easily into this holistic life vision that I had been forming in the fall. Instead of passion, I learned to fight for contentedness as my goal focused self adapted to a culture much more focused on being than on doing. I had to grapple with the less than idyllic reality of development work in post-colonial Africa. I struggled to find support from a much narrower community than the one I had access to in the States. My personal faith and experiences clashed with the prominent protestant theology. And my ideals about justice, equality and humanity, were pushed aside by simple exhaustion. The heat, the daily exposure to extreme poverty, violence, and corruption, and the common Chadian mentality that survival, not progress or development, is more than enough were all so foreign and exhausting for me.
This is not to say that I didn’t find beauty, and joy, and inspiration in Chad. I did, in multiple places. But the puzzle pieces I found there seemed to be from a different puzzle entirely than the one I had been forming in the fall.
And in April, I began my journey onwards. I stopped for a few weeks in Virginia to debrief with mentors, professors, and friends, and realized more clearly just how different these new puzzle pieces were. And then I found myself back in Winnipeg, spending a summer working, resting, and finding every opportunity to work through the contrasting experiences of my last year.
I’m still not sure how the pieces fit together. But I am trusting, that somehow, maybe with enough patience, open-mindedness, and additional puzzle pieces, God is transforming this individual experiences into something much larger and much more meaningful than I could ever imagine.
At times puzzles, and life, come easily: pieces of the same color and shape seem to fit together. There are coherent themes that guide me and life lessons that seem to run through and between different experiences, relationships, and adventures. The whole image forms fast and clear.
And at times you find the puzzle pieces that, no matter how hard you try, don’t seem to fit the puzzle. The ones that seem to come from a different puzzle box entirely. Sometimes my life feels like puzzle pieces that don’t always fit together.
This past year, for me, has been full of different pieces, each with rugged edges, in different colors, different themes, and found on different continents.
In the fall, while at school, I found myself engaging passionately with issues of justice, equality, and humanity in all aspects of my life. I was trying to find an ethical story for everything: whither my food, my clothing, my classes, or my relationships. As often as possible I re-wrote the stories around me, supplementing cafeteria assembly line cooking for home baked bread and local garden produce, or new- brand name - store bought clothes for my friends’ casts offs and mcc thrift store finds. I spent time dialoguing beauty, feminism, radical discipleship and biblical shalom. The lessons I was learning in school complimented those I was learning in life, and the pieces of my life’s puzzle seemed to fit together beautifully into a holistic vision.
In December, I left for Chad, Africa. There I found puzzle pieces that didn’t fit as easily into this holistic life vision that I had been forming in the fall. Instead of passion, I learned to fight for contentedness as my goal focused self adapted to a culture much more focused on being than on doing. I had to grapple with the less than idyllic reality of development work in post-colonial Africa. I struggled to find support from a much narrower community than the one I had access to in the States. My personal faith and experiences clashed with the prominent protestant theology. And my ideals about justice, equality and humanity, were pushed aside by simple exhaustion. The heat, the daily exposure to extreme poverty, violence, and corruption, and the common Chadian mentality that survival, not progress or development, is more than enough were all so foreign and exhausting for me.
This is not to say that I didn’t find beauty, and joy, and inspiration in Chad. I did, in multiple places. But the puzzle pieces I found there seemed to be from a different puzzle entirely than the one I had been forming in the fall.
And in April, I began my journey onwards. I stopped for a few weeks in Virginia to debrief with mentors, professors, and friends, and realized more clearly just how different these new puzzle pieces were. And then I found myself back in Winnipeg, spending a summer working, resting, and finding every opportunity to work through the contrasting experiences of my last year.
I’m still not sure how the pieces fit together. But I am trusting, that somehow, maybe with enough patience, open-mindedness, and additional puzzle pieces, God is transforming this individual experiences into something much larger and much more meaningful than I could ever imagine.
I like your writing. It gives me hope for life.
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