(Pixabay.com photo)

There are quite a few things we can learn from broken relationships and pain in our lives. I talk to quite a few women monthly and it amazes me that they all want the same thing. To be pain free from their circumstance.

Yes. That is an important thing to want but, how to get it is all together different.

As you are walking through the pain of a broken relationship you have to remember that you are walking through it, not stuck in it. This includes any other pain in your life as well.  You can’t go back to the way the relationship used to look before it was broken. Why? Because you are now smack dab in the middle of transition.

You are going to a higher calling in the middle of your messy situation. You do not want an improved version of the mess but a whole new thing that God will do. You want it to be what God intended it to be. Right?

But, some of you are afraid.

Fear gains power when it  is in the dark. When we face the fear for what it is, and illuminate it in God’s light, fear’s control over us begins to dissolve. It will hold no power.

Try as we may, we keep trying to fix that broken problem only to find it usually gets worse. How about this. Try not to fix the problem but put your focus on something else. On God.

GOD’S LESSONS OF LIFE ARE SO PERSONAL

Take a puzzle. Some have hundreds of pieces for the puzzle you may be working on. The puzzle you are fixing is complicated. It has a lot of intricate details. But, let’s say you get tired of working on that puzzle of a city night scape because you can’t find some pieces. You look and look and you can’t find the right piece. So, you decide to go to another puzzle of flowers and coffee cups. You now look at your new puzzle of flowers and coffee cups and and you take a piece of that puzzle in your hands. You try and try to get that coffee cup puzzle piece to fit your own night scape puzzle.

Do you see what is wrong with that? It won’t fit. It won’t work in your puzzle no matter how much you make it fit or how much an empty space is similar to yours. It’s not for your puzzle.

But this is what we do in our situations. We try to get another solution to our problem instead of looking at our own puzzle and refocusing on what is there.

Well, what is there? God is there. In the darkest and most confusing state…God is there. Somewhere under all the other “puzzle pieces” you will find your piece to your puzzle but you may have to step back and refocus to see it.

You may have to move some other puzzle pieces out of the way to see the next piece you need to fit the space you are looking for. But, sometimes you bypass that piece and go to a whole different section of the puzzle.

What if your situation was just like that. Maybe you need to stop focusing on that one piece you keep trying to find and work a different part of the puzzle. You know that in order to finish the puzzle that piece will be found but, not right now.

What if you need to step back from your situation and work on a different area of your life instead the area you keep trying to fix or “find”. What if you looked further out from your problem, from a different view and put the pieces together there. What would the puzzle or your life then look like.

I would say it would look like it is coming together, piece by piece.  Just like a real puzzle. Even that broken situation you keep trying to fix it will someone how come together.

Give it up to the Holy Spirit. Let Him help you find out how to put the pieces of your life back together again.  I remember when I felt all I had were pieces of my life. It didn’t resemble a whole life or “puzzle” at all. I had no clue what pieces went where or how they fit. I was going through an unwanted divorce and all I could see and say was….

“I can’t be divorced. I can’t be divorced. I can’t do life alone. I can’t be divorced.”

But, I was divorced and those thoughts echoed so loud and my heart pounded so hard in the dark of night in my bedroom alone. I wanted to die. It wasn’t that I didnt want to live, I just didnt want to live like this. Divorced. The word has a horrible sound in the ear or at least to my ear  it did.

At the time, I didn’t know what I know now about putting your life back together and looking at your life from a different perspective. All I saw was a pile of puzzle pieces. All the pieces were there to make it a beautiful life but sifting through and putting them in some kind of pattern or order felt impossible. But, to get to the place I am now, I had to let the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth help me and show me how to find the next piece. One piece at a time.

The one hurting is looking for those pieces that fix the situation. God is looking for a lifestyle that overcomes the situation. I had to learn to live differently. That was jus a fact. I had to learn to wait expectantly for God’s next set of directions. This was kind of like looking for that next piece of the puzzle. You just don’t know where or when it will show up. But it will.

You can’t have a complete puzzle without it. Just as you can’t have a complete life without the Holy Spirit guiding you.

He knows where the next piece or “step” is you need to take. He will show you. Learn to wait expectantly for God’s next set of directions.  Let Him put your pieces of the puzzle back together.

Walk in the light God has given you: no more and no less. God releases His instruction in His timing and in the right amounts so we can gain the most from it. It’s like traveling in the fog; you can’t see beyond your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.