Daily Thoughts

Uplifting Daily Christian Thoughts

Monday, August 7

The Missing Piece

A story was told of a circle that was missing a piece.

A large triangular wedge had been cut out of it. The circle wanted to be whole with nothing missing, so it went around looking for its missing piece.

But because it was incomplete and therefore could only roll very slowly, it admired the flowers along the way. It chatted with worms. It enjoyed the sunshine. It found lots of different pieces, but none of them fit. So it left them all by the side of the road and continued searching.

Then one day the circle found a piece that fit perfectly. It was so happy. Now it could be whole, with nothing missing. It has incorporated the missing piece into itself and began to roll. Now that it was a perfect circle, it could roll very fast, too fast to notice the flowers or talk to the worms.

When it realized how different the world seemed when it rolled so quickly by, it stopped, left its found piece by the side of the road and rolled slowly slowly .... away....

Moral of the story:

In some strange sense we are more whole when we are missing something. The person who has everything is in some ways a poor person. He/She will never know how it feels like to yearn, to hope, to nourish his/her soul with the dream of something better. He/She will never know the experience of having someone who loves him/her give him/her something he/she has always wanted and never had.

There is a wholeness about the person who has to come to terms with his/her own limitations, who has been brave enough to let go of his/her unrealistic dreams and not feel like a failure for doing so. There is a wholeness about the man or women who has learned that he or she is strong enough to go through a tragedy and survive, who can lose someone and still feel like a complete person.

You have been through the worst and come through intact.

Life is not a trap set for us by God so that he can condemn us for failing.

Life is not a spelling bee, where no matter how many words you've gotten right, you're disqualified if you make one mistake.

Life is more like a baseball season, where even the best team loses one-third of the games and even the worst has its days of brilliance. Our goal is to win more games than we lose.

When we accept that imperfection is part of human being, and that we can continue rolling through life and appreciating it, we will achieve a wholeness that others can only aspire to.

And at the end, if we are brave enough to love, strong enough to forgive, generous enough to rejoice in another's happiness, and wise enough to know there is enough love to go around for us all, then we can achieve a fulfillment that no other living creature will ever know.

Some people walk in the rain. Others just get wet.

Author Unknown

Praying with the Psalms
by Eugene H. Peterson; Price: $10.01 (-23%)
Customer Review: If you're familiar with "The Message" by Eugene Peterson, you will enjoy this daily devotional. I love what he says in his introduction, "We are most ourselves when we pray" and "When that deep, deep center of our lives is exposed -- our core humanity, which biblical writers so vigorously designate as "heart" -- [read more]



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