Putting The Pieces Back Together How Real Life And Real Faith Connect

Putting the Pieces Back Together Copyright © 2005 by Mel Lawrenz Requests for information should be addressed to: Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lawrenz, Mel. Putting the pieces back together : how real life and real faith connect / Mel Lawrenz. p. cm. ISBN 0-310-25477-9 (hardcover) 1. Christian life. I. title. BV4501.3.L396 2005 248.8'6-dc22 2004020893 ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25477-5 This edition printed on acid-free paper. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189 USA. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920. Interior design by Beth Shagene Printed in the United States of America 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 /.DCI/ 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 P a r t 1 Our Pieces All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again. -Nursery rhyme Life would be easier, wouldn't it, if all of its pieces held together. If they always made sense. If nothing ever broke off. If no part were ever lost or twisted or detached. Imagine life if you could glide smoothly through the day from one of your roles to the next: mother to wife to co-manager to next-door neighbor to aunt to friend; or brother to supervisor to dad to son to church leader. Is there one person in there somewhere? Is it possible to live as the same person at home as at work, instead of civil Jekyll in public and monster Hyde when you're alone? Imagine life if no one ever left, if illness never caused loved ones to drop from our lives, if the people we care about never died or deserted us. Imagine life in Paradise. Eden was the wonderful opening chord of life, a complete harmony. Nothing in excess, nothing missing, nothing broken. But when that break did happen (and what an awful shattering sound it made), when human beings said, "We think we can do this on our own," all of creation shuddered and cracks spread throughout. Our only 1 PIECES OF LIFE 15 hope from then on was that someone, somewhere, would help us put the pieces back together. But even when things aren't broken, life often seems to be a pile of pieces we stand looking at, wondering how they all fit together, or if they do. Does what I believe about God have anything to do with how I behave as a citizen? How does my understanding of humanity's purpose fit with my everyday experiences with people in all their glory and shame? How can God be loving and accepting and angry at the same time? How can horrible things happen to people who seem to be no more than innocent bystanders? How does this speck of dust that we call Earth fit in the vast universe? Where is this world heading? What does God want me to do with my life? Does a person's belief about life after death change the atmosphere in the chapel before a funeral starts? DEATH'S SHATTERING BLOW I was just four years old when my father suddenly died. What I remember is being at my grandfather and grandmother's house inLawrenz, Mel is the author of 'Putting The Pieces Back Together How Real Life And Real Faith Connect', published 2005 under ISBN 9780310254775 and ISBN 0310254779.