After Mass on Easter Sunday, Mom wanted to accompany me while I went to the hospital to distribute Holy Communion and pray with the patients who were in need of Jesus’ presence that day. She decided to stay in the car while I went in to do my service because it’s difficult for her at age 91 to walk around the halls of the hospital—although I could feel her presence with me spiritually when I was in each room. It was a very welcome presence, indeed. When I came back out to the car, I expected to see her praying a rosary or chaplet because that’s a passion we share—the power of prayer. But nooooo, she was indulging in another passion we share—she was figuring out one of the puzzles in MY puzzle book! The nerve! (haha) I love word games and puzzles. They keep my mind sharp (relatively, anyway) and take me away from the stress that my job sometimes presents me with.
But the episode got me thinking about how my passion for puzzles and word games is strangely connected to my passion for prayer. I feel very pleased with myself when I am able to take (in most instances) very subtle clues and come up with the solution to some very difficult problems.
There are times when I am stuck for the answer to a particularly difficult clue. I even sometimes get so frustrated at my inability to “get” an answer from what is a very obscure hint that I “cheat” and look at the solutions in the back. The key to having fun with the puzzles though, is to look at the answer to only the clue that has you stuck. Then keep going on from there. If I just copied the answers from the back of the book, I wouldn’t learn anything or get anything out of the experience! When I learn a new word or definition for a word, I usually remember it and it comes in handy a few months later when that clue pops up again in another puzzle. It’s very satisfying to get through a puzzle without looking for the answers, or looking for one or two “hints” but it’s also gratifying to know that all of the answers are there at the back of the book—one just has to be humble enough to know when to look. There have been plenty of times when I have been so stubborn about not wanting the help provided that I just don’t do the puzzle. Then I feel like I let myself down for not trying, and stupid for buying a book I couldn’t finish.
It’s the same with life. We learn from our experiences, but sometimes we come up against what we think are insurmountable obstacles to our happiness and prosperity. We lose a job, we get sick, we worry about our kids, and on and on and on. If we’re lucky, we get through the obstacles without help. This is just like finishing the puzzle without looking in the back. Sometimes, we need others to help us out of a jamb. Maybe someone else has been through the same experience and is able to guide us to a quick resolution. This is comparable to looking for “just one little clue” to help us keep going through to the end. But for our most difficult problems we have to realize that the “answer” is at “the back of the book”—the Good Book, the chronicle of the Good News, especially the New Testament, which is not just a narration of historical events, but a prayer in and of itself.
The answer is that our Father is always with us, whether in good times or bad. We just have to be humble enough to admit our failure to “see the clues” and ask for His help.
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