The ABC’s of God
(Lessons from my children)

“The Missing Piece”
by Cara Hanson

I remember reading Curious George Goes to the Hospital [1] when I was a child. The man in the yellow hat is unable to finish his puzzle because the impish monkey, who of course represents children everywhere, has accidentally swallowed the missing piece. Being a single man who is just a little bit too invested in his monkey (and not enough in his wardrobe), he rushes George to the hospital. At the taxpayers’ expense, mind you. Not to mention violations of the hospital health codes. Apparently no one on the hospital staff even notices the difference between a monkey and a child, which is somewhat alarming.

At this point it becomes obvious that the man does not have many children. When you have your first child (or you are a single man living with a monkey), every mishap scares you into thinking you must call 9-1-1. A swallowed puzzle piece leads to a trip to the hospital. By the time other children come along, you would just tell the child to be thankful for the extra fiber and go on your merry way. As I once heard, when the firstborn swallows a dime you rush to the emergency room. When the third child swallows a dime, you deduct it from his allowance.

My children own many puzzles, but when they were very little they decided it would be a good idea to mix all of the pieces together. By the time they were done playing with all of these pieces, half of them were gone forever, either swallowed by the chasm of darkness under their beds or perhaps even swallowed by the kids themselves, à la Curious George.

Now that they are old enough to be interested in actually doing puzzles, they wanted to sort out all of the pieces and match them to the appropriate puzzles. This activity was a valuable learning experience. The kids learned sorting and cooperation skills, and I learned that it really has been a long time since I have had a decent vacation. By the time we were done, we had ten incomplete puzzles spread out across the floor.

Missing a puzzle piece does not seem like a big deal until you have spent days, nay–weeks, trying to assemble the puzzle. It’s like reading hundreds of pages of a crime novel and discovering at the end that the last page is missing. It’s not as bad when you start out with a child’s wooden puzzle. The pieces all have raised red pegs, as if to say, Here, let me help you find me when you step on me in the dark. Plus, the puzzles only have six pieces, so if you lose one you have only invested five minutes of your life.

As we scoured the house for missing pieces, I was reminded of The Parable of The Lost Coin. Jesus taught about a woman who had ten silver coins and lost one.

Luke 15:8
“Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?”

Yes, in the same way you would search for a missing puzzle piece.

Jesus described how such a woman would then gather her friends and celebrate in the same way that there is rejoicing in heaven when one sinner repents. When the kids and I found missing pieces and set them in their proper places, we skipped the neighborhood party, but we rejoiced over the sense of completion.

Jesus has an ability to look into someone’s heart and find the missing puzzle piece. When a rich young man approached him and asked him what he needed to do to inherit eternal life, Jesus was able to look at him and tell him the “one thing,” the missing piece, that he lacked:

Mark 10:17-24
(17) As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
(18) “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.
(19) You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
(20) “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
(21) Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
(22) At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
(23) Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
(24) The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!

The heavenly realm rejoices when we care enough to light a lamp, sweep out our hearts, and seek the Lord diligently for those missing pieces in our lives which are preventing us from perfection. For some of us it might be one huge wooden piece with a red peg. For others it might be many smaller, complicated pieces. Whatever it is, The Master is waiting and willing to help us find the missing pieces. If we choose inaction, our puzzle will remain dusty and incomplete on the shelf of life. But if we choose to complete the puzzle, what a day of rejoicing that would be!

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My brother in law stormed into the bathroom and demanded sex

I am a girl aged 18 years and I had just been accepted at University to study medicine.

The problem is my brother in law who is an engineer. When I was processing my papers for university I was staying with my sister. Now her husband has been on me for some time now, he wants to have sex with me, he has on several occasions stormed into my room while I am either sleeping or dressing demanding for sex, one day he stormed the bath room while I was naked and demanded for sex, he usually goes for work around 06: 00 a.m, meaning I would be up by 05:00 am to prepare food and water for him, during this period he would be all over me wanting to touch me but I would either run away from him or threaten to scream.
One day around 02: 00 pm my sister was away at the market, we were the two of us at home plus his son. He chased the son aged 8 years to go outside and he started watching a porno movie, when I was passing through the sitting room to go outside he held my hand and forced me to sit next to him to watch the porno movie but again I threatened to scream and I left.
He sent me an SMS saying “Your sister (his wife) since she is pregnant, she produces a lot of water from her vagina and I don’t enjoy sex so I want to be having sex with you and you will always be having money in your pockets,” I have these SMS with me and after I realized that it was becoming too much, I had to run away from town.
I told my mother who is a nurse and my brothers and dad everything what her son in law has been doing, she was and she is still shocked but she advised that we must not inform my sister who was then pregnant saying her BP can easily go up and anything can happen. True to my mother’s words, my sisters BP went up during delivering, she almost died. She had to undergo a lot of medical requirements when giving birth. People my brother in law would around 03: 00 am call me or send me SMS to go to the other room or sitting room so that we can have sex, it was just too much.
Recently, I visited them, they are keeping my cousin who is 17 years, I asked her if my brother in law has been doing the same to her, she said he has been doing the same but that she warned him that the entire family knows his behavior and that we no longer respect him that is how he stopped.
I overheard him on the phone talking to a woman saying “you must come, I will book you a room and I love you very much”. Here are my questions, did we make a mistake by not telling my sister about her husband’s behaviour and could it be that he is seeing another woman?
My mother has maintained that we must not tell my sister about this issue. I still have the SMSes he has been sending to me and I am not comfortable with my brother in law any more.
Sue