Prologue

Have you ever thought what it would be like to be handed a clear plastic bag filled with thousands of puzzle pieces, each one unique, and asked to put it together with no picture?  Imagine that.  Some dark pieces, some bright.  Some that look like grass, or could it be a tree top?  Some that look like an animal, or is it a carpet?  It is impossible to know, unless you could put a few pieces together.  But even then, you could never know what the full picture looked like, not without knowing where and how all the pieces fit together. 

Now think of your life.  We are given a piece.  We may be able to fit together two or three or even four.  But we will never be able to see our entire life, how we join with others, how things all work together for good.

I was given two pieces of the puzzle so far in my life, but still have not figured out how they fit together or even if they fit together at all.  The one is very bright, with lots of greens and yellows, and oranges.  It’s beautiful, but it’s just a puzzle piece.  It makes no sense by itself.  More recently I received my second piece.  This was very dark.  It’s nearly all dark.  Very dark.  Like a thick blackness that covers the entire piece.  There is no connection with my first piece.  Yet I can see on the one edge of my dark piece a hint of color, ever so vaguely, so foggy, but nonetheless there.  Nothing of either piece makes sense to me.

However, I do know of the One Who does know it all, Who has completed the entire puzzle, and sees how they all fit together.  He knows where my pieces fit, how they fit with other peoples’ pieces, and how the entire thing looks when it is completed.  One day He will show it to us, but for now, we must continue on with our pieces, ever hoping, ever praying for answers or more pieces, but always trusting that our loving Heavenly Father knows it all.  It is not a puzzle to Him.  It is a beautiful, perfect, glorious masterpiece!

For me, the very bright piece of puzzle reminds me of when I first met Todd and the following 17 years.  Life was good.  It was perfect.  God brought us together, and we had the privilege of having seven children, one of which resides in heaven because of a miscarriage.  We had a house.  We had a dog.  We had six living children through those years of bliss.  Every day was a blessing.  I never doubted Todd’s love for me….ever.  I loved him with all my heart, and he loved me with all his heart.  We had a great marriage and rarely “fought,” if you could even call it that.  Todd made life fun, exciting, and bright!  He was a great Dad too.  He loved our children and the children loved him. 

For me, the very dark piece was the time we first heard the word cancer.  It was in December of 2004 and the following awful five months.  It still, even at the writing of this book in 2012 (now 2015) (and now 2017-18), does not seem real.  That dark time has spilled into every day of every month of every year.  I want to attempt to share with my readers what that time was like, and then show that glorious hope, that hint of color on the edge of the black puzzle piece!  There is hope.  It’s there.  It’s there for anyone who is going through a dark time in their life.  My desire would be to have anyone who has endured this kind of darkness, to see the hope in their own life, in their own dark puzzle piece.  It’s there.  The hope is there.