When suffering simply doesn't make sense

My 6-year-old son sat at the kitchen table, intently gazing at the picture on the puzzle box, glancing back and forth as he worked. His hands moved the pieces at different angles, trying to make them fit to complete the picture. Occasionally exasperated or frustrated when pieces didn’t fit, he neared the picture’s completion. Only one piece remained. But there were no more pieces in the box. Frantically, he searched for the missing piece. Seeing a meltdown about to happen, I joined the search to no avail. At that moment, no amount of comfort could replace the missing piece.

The puzzle box challenge is akin to developing our self-concept and the experience of defeat and suffering. Like the puzzle box, the goal of being human is to conceptualize a sense of self, finish a complete and fulfilling picture, and hopefully, with no missing pieces. This process usually begins around early adolescence — those beautiful years of “don’t tell me what to do” and “you just don’t understand me.” The teenager explores who they want to be and desperately searches for “the” puzzle box.

The choices of puzzle boxes are endless — sports, artist, geek, religion, party animal, cheerleader, boyfriend, girlfriend, academics, and ragers. Then, you pour out the box and sift through the puzzle pieces, including the right clothes, classes, friends, college, career, marriage, travel, 401k, financial security, and vacations. If you’re lucky, you complete the picture — you have arrived—the American Dream.

As a psychologist, I work with those whose puzzle is missing that one piece. And like my son, it doesn’t matter that the rest of the picture is complete. It may be the death of a loved one, loss of a job, debilitating illness, car accident, divorce, abuse, or loss of friends. Sometimes, it’s just that heavy existential sigh, “I can’t explain it; something is missing.”

You may be thinking, “Okay, this writer is a Christian psychologist; now he is going to tell us that Christ is the genuine picture box, and if we just look for the pieces of the puzzle Jesus provides, we will complete the picture, and life will be as it should be.”

That is different from my experience. God gives us a beautiful picture box but leaves many missing pieces. Moses never saw the promised land and lamented, “For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath, we are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence” (Psalm 90:7). Jeremiah often lamented the difficulty and bitterness of his prophetic mission. In Jeremiah 15:18, he describes his pain as perpetual and his wound as incurable, questioning if God had been the picture box he imagined. King David was given a picture box as the king of Israel but could not control his desires, and the missing pieces caused by sin tormented him. “My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness; I am utterly bowed down and prostrate; all day I go about mourning” (Psalm 38:6). God gave Jesus the picture of salvation. Still, in his humanity, he was not given all the pieces as he wept drops of blood in the garden, crying, “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me” (Mark 14:36). Paul captured the dilemma of the missing pieces to the puzzle when he wrote, “Not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal. Still, I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Philippians 3:12).

God has given us the puzzle box of salvation, but it is meant to help us with the missing pieces, not to complete our picture on earth or the American dream. Like my son, who couldn’t find the missing piece, the challenge was to help him deal with what couldn’t be fixed and not give up on life because it did not give him the picture he wanted. God is not interested in our works, talents, or ingenuity to complete the picture of life; He is interested in what we do with the missing, broken pieces of our human nature.

When the apostle Paul spread the Gospel in Asia, it did not go as he pictured. Many pieces seemed missing. When he wrote of the experience, he said, “For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that made us rely not on ourselves but God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9).

The puzzle box is our belief in Christ, who raises us from the dead. His Gospel is about how to live with the missing pieces, not perfect the picture on earth. He forgives our sins daily, heals our wounds, and calms our fears. He teaches us to share one another’s burdens, grow in His word, pray, sing, and see His inexpressible love and grace in the missing pieces of our lives.