a piece of the puzzle

It was cold. I should have guessed as much, seeing as how it was winter in Bolivia. But I walked out onto the balcony that morning barefoot and without a jacket, more intent on feeling the way I way I was feeling than worrying about the fact that I would be shivering in all of two minutes.

I sat and took in the view. El Cristo stretching out to the west, the city a few miles north and the sprawl of the neighborhood coming to life in the morning hour before me. All of it had become a part of me- the mountains, the city, the people, the language, the days of laughter and tears and discovery.

I sat feeling the conflict between my present reality and everything that had been reality before our plane landed in La Paz. How does one reconcile the two? In those moments it seemed unbearably impossible.

When my friends, my community there asked why I could not just stay, why I had to leave at the beginning of August, my answer was always the same. My rudimentary Spanish didn't give justice to the intent of my words, but I tried nonetheless to explain.

Porque, porque tengo una vida en los Estados Unidos, I would say. Porque tengo una familia. Amigos. Trabajo. La Universidad.

Yet somehow my life had stretched to include all that lay before me that morning on the balcony. Those moments, those people, those experiences, both the good and the bad, were as much a part of me as my memories of growing up in Pennsylvania.

Coming back to Pennsylvania after time away at school always reminds me of how these different parts of my life begin to feel like puzzle pieces that don't or can't always fit together. Just like in Bolivia, I struggle because I'm not always sure how to make them all fit.

I've had the incredible blessing of being able to do lots of visiting in these weeks of Christmas break. I've spent time with both sides of my extended family, as well as with friends from elementary school although the way up to high school graduation. Each one is a link to a part of my past, to memories and to the place they now hold in my present.

I was pondering the fit of all of these pieces of my life, praying over how they are to come together, wondering if there was a way for all of them to make sense together, when I came across this:

And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
-Ephesians 1:22-23

My puzzle, the various pieces of my life, make sense and fit together because of Christ. He "who fills everything in every way" fills the cracks and crevasses, making sense of it all because it's all a part of his plan for me. He is the current that runs through all of the communities of people, the places, the moments, the lessons that make up my life. And in him, all the things that I cannot make sense of, fit together because he is the purpose, the reason, the focus of it all.

Tengo una vida...Una vida con el.

And because of that, everything makes sense.



(I should note that as I wrote this my dog snuck into my room and begged her way onto my bed. She has now stretched out, fallen sound asleep and is dreaming so hard her snores are shaking my bed. One passed out pit bull+ a twin sized bed = me probably having all of 1/4 of my bed to try and sleep on tonight)