Delores Liesner
Activating Faith in everyday life
After Losing a Child – All the Pieces of My Life
It is January and the 23rd is Laurie’s birthday. I have no doubt that is why I’ve been feeling the absence of a piece of my heart.
I’ve also been loading the music she played in her car onto an old phone so I can play the music in mine. It’s well mixed with songs that lifted me up, made me feel loved, and gave me guidance and direction. Laurie often would send a brief email, or text to say on the way to work today, I heard this song by Selah, or Keith Green, or Amy Grant, or…and prayed it for you.
Music has always calmed the beast of my emotions when I could not focus. I’ve found a unique (to me, anyway) way of really listening to music as a form of devotion. As I play the music, I type the lyrics. That may seem crazy, but it forces my mind and my hands and my heart to work together, and creates a focus of intense listening. Sometimes, like today, I found I’d missed a word, or missed understanding a word or two.
Yes, the song today was All the Pieces of My Life – by the Imperials – from their legacy album 1977-1988. Eons ago. 🙂
So I’ve listened, sung along, and yes, prayed this song many many, times. I’ve also built puzzles, and enjoyed solving many puzzles, which perhaps made this song resonate so much with me.
I first pray for those who minister to my heart through this music. Next, I listen and type at least twice, then I look up the actual lyrics.
The image of an unfinished puzzle, with pieces piled up and jumbled – the puzzle unformed, is before me. Though I’ve obviously tried to gather and sort them—tried to make sense of it, I was discouraged. It had come to the point where I realized some of the pieces are gone, and I cannot complete it again. For some reason, all I heard at the end of the verse was again – and it brought my mind back to the desperate knowledge that lost moments are gone – a reminder that I could not put it (my life’s puzzle) together again.
But – the phrase I’d missed was more than ‘again’ – it was in the words of Jesus, responding to my frustration, and anguish at this puzzle of life with the gaping holes from missing pieces:
“He said, pieces, pieces – I’ve got all the pieces to your life
A thousand tiny fragments of every single day
I can put them all together, and there will never be another one who can.
I can’t — but He can!
Such a simple truth, but it belted out in my heart!
The pieces may be gone from my sight – but they are not LOST – Jesus said,
He’s got them. He said they are in the Father’s hand! And He confirmed (see John 18:9 below) He’s not lost a single one of them!
He’s the creator of the design of that puzzle. I finally heard the complete message of the song
He spoke with great compassion — as he put one hand on me
And in His other hand he held what I could never see…
(spiritual that is not visible to me)
So that
Every little memory, of every single day –
And He alone can put them all together
And there will never be another one who can.
Silly me for trying to do what only He can.
John 18:9 that the word might be fulfilled which He spoke, “Of those whom Thou hast given Me I lost not one.”
John 10:28 and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.
John 10:29 “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”
Be the Miracle! – with journaling pages
Delores Liesner: Author
American Christian Fiction Writers Association
Delores Liesner 