I enjoy puzzles...

but rarely complete one. Many years ago when we would go our friends house for Thanksgiving she would always put a puzzle out for us to work on. It stayed out the entire Thanksgiving weekend. We had many wonderful conversations over puzzle piecing. It was relationship building.

When Chuck and I began having Thanksgiving at our home several years ago, I adopted her puzzle idea. My mom and I would shop together for one to set out. We did it the first two years we held Thanksgiving, with the same relationship building results that we had at Mark and Jane's. The last several years we've gotten away from putting out a puzzle because we've always played new games that people have brought, like Apples to Apples (thanks Carla), instead. Games were fun relational building tools too.

Today I had to attend a teacher workshop and I left the boys home alone. Oh MY!! I was a bit nervous but prayerful. The first time I called home there had been a scuttle over chocolate milk. Don't ask. The boys solved the problem and moved on. I believe there may have been another small scuttle, but they called Chuck and he helped them and they moved on.

When I arrived home, I was truly impressed with how the boys had behaved and interacted with one another, given the small conflicts they had and that they solved them without violence. I took them to lunch to say thanks for being so mature and responsible.

On the ride to lunch I found out that Wesley and Clay (The modern Cain and Able) had worked on puzzles together for several hours. I wasn't sure I heard them correctly so I said "Wesley, you and Luke worked on puzzles? Or did you say Luke and Clay worked on Puzzles?" "No mom, Clay and I worked on puzzles." Clay said "yeah mom Wesley and I worked on puzzles." Like it was an everyday occurrence. I was trying not to show my shock at this possibility, so as not to ruin the idea that it could happen in something other than my dreams. I said "thank you Lord" and praised the boys for their maturity.

Then I recalled this post by Patti Sikes on her Momstransformed blog, from last Friday. I thought it was appropriate that my boys worked well together, one week after Patti's post on a Family Fellowship Friday (one of Patti's daily themes) about puzzles. Please read her post about puzzles as education tools. She did a wonderful job of making puzzles an analogy for problems in life and how God is the great problem solver.

Today the Great Problem Solver answered my prayers beyond what I even asked. I just wanted to the boys to get along (how small is my faith). God had the boys interact in a productive activity, and in a manner I thought was years away in their maturity.

Thank you Patti for laying the ground work last Family Fellowship Friday, so I could see what God would do this Friday.