In Pieces Pt. 3

I love puzzles.

That's no secret.

I talk about puzzles often.  But that's because I love them.

I had been in England for less than 12 hours and I decided to go for a walk through the town of Harpenden (for the purpose of just going to Sainsbury's and Boots because I could) and I walked passed several charity shops on my way to the post office to exchange money.  Obviously I should just go in.  So I did and I found a 4,000 piece puzzle.  For £3.  (That's like, $5).  I was unsure if I should invest so I walked on.

Then I decided investing was the way to go.

But I couldn't find it again after going through all the charity shops 2 more times so I settled on a 3,000 piece puzzle for...wait for it...99p.  (That's about $1.50)

A quality investment.

So I now have a very large puzzle to do which covers about 1/3 of the floor of my room.

I have to do this particular puzzle a little bit differently then I usually would.

Reason being - there's 3,000 pieces.

I sorted through them all and did the outside edge as is the usual beginning.  For the inside pieces, if I flipped them all over and laid them all out on the floor so I could see them all, I would be ridiculously overwhelmed and I would have no idea where to start. (Plus I wouldn't be able to walk over to my wardrobe...)  It would be hard for me to focus on any one section because then I would see a piece that I would know fits at this other place and then another piece that goes over there and so on.  My mind would be so scattered.

So this time, I first decided to start by separating major colors.  If you can see from the picture, there's a lot of blue pieces: sky, mountain and water.  So I sorted through all the pieces yet again to separate the blue pieces from all the other colors.  Once that was finished, I then started sorting all the blue pieces between ones that just have blue (that part will take, umm, forever...) then the water pieces and water with leaves, and then the blue pieces that have bits of trees and leaves and mountains.  I started to get more and more detailed so I could put them together without being overwhelmed by all the other ones that go elsewhere.  This process will continue until I have it finished.

Now some of you may stop here and think I'm just ridiculous for doing this and loving every moment of it and some of you may be getting frustrated at the thought of taking this on.  Understandable.

But I love it.

There is a great sense of accomplishment when one puts the final piece of a puzzle in place.  When the pieces get put together, I can say that I have successfully achieved something.

God speaks to me when I do my puzzles.  (Read a bit about that in In Pieces Pt. 1.)

Doing these puzzles is how I process things.  It's how I can think through things that are flying through my mind.  It's how I can take the next steps.  And as I do that, I realize things about myself through what I'm doing and how I'm doing it.

I'm in a season right now of really needing to sort through a lot.  When I look at all of the pieces floating around my mind and my heart, it's easy to be overwhelmed at it all because there's just so much and I don't know how to put them all together.  But when I can start to narrow it all down and start to look at the smaller details, it becomes much more manageable and I'm able to focus more.  When one area gets put together, I can then move onto the next because I'll recognize the pieces that then connect to what I just finished.

And the process goes on.  

To some, the separating of puzzle pieces, especially so many, seems like such tedious work that requires patience.  This is true, but if it helps to put the puzzle together without being overwhelmed and stressed, it is well worth it.

I think this puzzle is going to mean a lot more to me than I realize now.  

In doing this, my hope is to actually finish this by the time I leave England in about a month or so.

Challenge Accepted.