For those of you who enjoy jigsaw puzzles, you might like to know the history behind their development. All the credit goes to Londoner John Spilsbury in 1767. He was an engraver and cartographer who wanted children to learn geography in a fun way. Taking a world map, he mounted it to a piece of wood. Using a marquetry saw, he cut out the different countries and states. The kids now had a puzzle and the solution helped them learn where each country could be found.
By 1865, the fret treadle saw was invented, making the production of the puzzles easier. The term jigsaw became popular about 20 years later and was used to refer to a variety of saws. Calling the puzzle a jigsaw puzzle came about in 1906 and the name has stuck ever since.
Today, a paperboard material is used to make most puzzles. They were originally cut with hydraulic presses, but this became cost prohibitive to mass produce. The roller press is now used for cutting the pieces which is more economical. Laser cutting is used for wood and acrylic puzzles.
If you aren’t sure that you would like to do puzzles, start small and work your way up. A 1,000-piece puzzle is way too much for a beginner. Start with a 100- or 300-piece puzzle. Sort the puzzle by finding all the outside edge pieces and build the frame. Then, divide the pieces by color and work on connecting smaller “scenes.” As you do this, begin integrating the smaller scenes into the big picture. Before you know it, you will have completed your first puzzle, and you will also have determined if there is going to be a second.
My wife and I get a whim every once in a while to do a puzzle. After it’s finished, we realize we didn’t enjoy it quite as much as we thought, and it will usually be a couple of years between puzzles. If you need a little nudge to begin this puzzling adventure, you might want to consider that today is National Puzzle Day, a day started in 2002 to celebrate all sorts of mind-stretching puzzles from the jigsaw to crosswords, seek-a-words, sudoku, or the spot-the-difference puzzles.
All of these puzzles share something in common. There’s only one solution. The numbers in the sudoku puzzle will only fit one way. You have to have the right answer to fit the blanks in the crossword. And there is only one tab that fits the notch in your jigsaw puzzle.
Have you found the piece of the puzzle that fits you?
We are told in Genesis 2:18, 21-23, “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him… (21) And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; (22) And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. (23) And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
One of my pet peeves is when someone (preachers are TERRIBLE at this) will refer to wives as a helpmeet. Look carefully at the Scripture. It’s not helpmeet. It’s help meet – two words with a space in between. The same is true in the Hebrew: ‛êzer neged. The first word means one who helps. The second word means counterpart. Merriam-Webster defines counterpart as a thing that fits another perfectly; something that completes: complement.
Eve perfectly fit Adam. She completed and complemented him. She was the notch, and he was the tab. Only one tab fits a particular notch, and she was the counterpart created specifically for the part – Adam.
God could have created a puzzle box full of pieces and told Adam hunt for the right piece, sifting through and trying all the other pieces. But that’s not what God did. He made one woman for one man and brought them together in His perfect timing.
Do you suppose God is still building marriage puzzles like that today? Marriage IS a puzzling adventure. But when you go through it with the person God made specifically for you, a beautiful picture is completed, God is honored, and our marriage can be blessed.
If God has marriage in your future, you don’t have to worry about finding the right piece to complement you. Relax and let the Lord bring that individual to you. Spend the waiting time preparing yourself for the puzzle of a lifetime!
