Did you ever wonder how events in our lives connect to each other?
I think God created a giant universal puzzle. Each of us is a piece of that universal puzzle. When we fit our pieces, we obtain certain results. God uses pieces from individual “life puzzles”, to provide solutions before you even realize you need it. Here is a simple example from my childhood:
From the first grade to the middle of grade 5, I attended a Catholic school in Brooklyn, NY called St. Malachy’s. Then my family decided to move to Valley Stream, Long Island, NY. The local catholic school was on the other side of town, my mom didn’t know how to drive yet, and there was no school transportation available from where I moved to.
As a result, I went to the RW Carbonaro Elementary public school that was a block and a half from home. During my first day at the new school, I was surprised to learn that Spanish was taught as a separate subject from first grade onward. My previous school had no foreign language classes. How great was that!
Being Puerto Ricans, my family spoke Spanish at home, but I could not read nor write in Spanish yet. I learned that day that if you know the vowel sounds (which compared with English, there’s only one sound per vowel), you could practically read anything in Spanish. A great discovery on my first day. I already knew many words from speaking it at home.
In the lesson of the day, I remember reading a Spanish conversation between 2 girls walking home from school. I was thrilled to finally understand reading in Spanish! I ran home to read the day’s lesson to Mom, and she laughed at how the conversation ended on a funny note. It was an awesome moment! We shared a true connection between a mother and daughter that I will never forget!
My Spanish classes continued until the end of tenth grade at South High School. Then I moved to Puerto Rico because my parents divorced. Mom wanted to go back to her “homeland” where most of her siblings lived.
I believe God led us to Valley Stream where the school district offered Spanish class from an early age. This experience of learning to read and write Spanish provided me what I needed to adapt to a Spanish-speaking environment. Had I not moved to a new school, this wouldn’t have happened.
But it was still hard, I had two new friends (Jazmin and Zaida) who helped me better understand what was happening when the teacher spoke too fast for me.
Even though my parents divorced, I did not want to leave Valley Stream, but of course as it always does, something good came out of moving from NY to Puerto Rico. This move triggered a spiritual awakening in me that once again I would not have experienced had I not moved.
While finishing high school, I attended and fell in love with a Catholic youth group. These were the best times ever. It led to sharing with other like-minded youth, while learning more about God and the world.
God guided me to a better spiritual life – planting seeds that have been growing slowly throughout my life. If I had stayed in New York, I don’t believe I would have lived through this amazing spiritual growth.
It wasn’t until years later that I recognized how these puzzle pieces lined up. Of course, at the time I had no idea. We rarely do.
God is cool about things happening to you. That’s just the way He works. Our job is to open the door to our hearts to God, ask for help and leave the rest to Him. That takes faith. You might not see things happening and you might not get what you want. However, my life has shown me that we always get what we need in a way that we might never have dreamed of. God is the great universal puzzle maker.
My faith has been a roller coaster with ups and downs all my life. One thing I can say is, that the higher the “roller coaster”, the deeper my experience with God has been.
In this blog, I am on a journey looking for all the pieces that God has placed in my life. Pieces that have shaped my faith, my person, and those around me. I want to share with others that God is real. God really has a hand in your life if you let Him.
God respects your wishes. He gave us Free Will as a gift. He won’t do anything unless you open up to Him. This gift can be – good or bad… it depends on you!
I wonder what “pieces” God has worked on in your life? Have you let Him do so? Please share your thoughts below!
On my behalf, He has done wonders whenever I open up to Him and let his guidance take me where I need to be.
