Everything was perfect.  My five college girlfriends and I met in Tulsa for our annual reunion.  Diana lives there.  Diana, the one who was prescribed Statins and now cannot walk and barely can feed herself.  Diana, the one who lived in a 5-Star retirement facility until her husband choked on a piece of steak in the dining hall while the employees watched in horror as he died.  Their hands were tied.  “Only medical personnel can assist in a life-and-death crisis.”

Our friend moved from that facility, bought a one-story house and hired two aides who tend to her needs.  Since she no longer can travel, we go to her.  Every year, our celebratory dinner is a bone-in prime rib.  “No peekie, roast beefie” it’s called because after cooking it in the morning for one hour, the oven is turned off and it sets all day in the closed oven.  This year was no different, except Diana had purchased an enormous piece of meat with five large bones protruding from its side.

After setting it on a cookie sheet, Keller lathered it in her homemade rub and placed it in the oven.  Correction: she tried to place it in the oven.  It was too big.  The bones needed to be removed.  Which is where “Everything was perfect” changed.  And which is where I came in.

The bones would need to be sawed off.  After I found a jigsaw in the garage, Cathy volunteered to hold the end of one bone as I—after calling on Jesus to help—jackhammered away. The slab of meat jumped with each jolt, and everybody (and I do mean “everybody”) had an opinion on what we needed to do to keep me from amputating Cathy’s fingers.

In the end, thanks to Jesus, the jigsaw and a hammer, our mission was accomplished.

I needed a shower.

Let’s face it.  Sometimes, things just don’t fit.  They are square pegs in round holes, and they need to be “trimmed” to contribute effectively. Think 1500-piece jigsaw puzzles; sometimes, the only solution to make them fit seems to be scissors and glue.

I’ve known people who don’t fit.  They are social misfits who blunder through conversations, step on toes and speak when they should remain silent. Having them as friends can be tedious, if not impossible.

We all have a desire to “fit in,” don’t we?  Walk into a middle school or high school and you will recognize the need for students to look like everyone else. And then there are those people who insist you have to fit into their mold. Some churches are like that. They cut off those who don’t dress like them or plug them in where there is a need, not where they are gifted.  The homeless, prostitutes, drug addicts need not apply.

There were early Christians who had bought into this lie. They thought that, because they didn’t have certain spiritual gifts, they didn’t fit into the body of Christ.  In 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, Paul confronts the argument.   Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.  Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.                                                                    

And yes, we all need a little spiritual trimming every now and then.

Hopefully a jigsaw is not the answer.