jigsaw puzzle of wistful loveliness

Every once in a while I get glimpses -snapshots- of the life I hope to have one day. There are all sorts of pieces to it, and every once in a while I stumble on another piece that I think I want to add in. I just don't know quite how it all goes together. It's like finding a bunch of puzzle pieces that all have to potential to create a beautiful picture and not knowing how to put them together or even if they all go to the same puzzle. Take the beautiful homesteads that I've seen on some people's blogs. All that gorgeous green beauty all around stirs my heart, yet I doubt Allen and I are going to end up taking our family out to the country to live. Either that piece doesn't go to my puzzle or it fits in some way that I can't see now. Then I find a flickr photo album of someone's artsy, vintage, eclectic urban residence, and something on there really clicks with me. Now I have a pastoral vista and a downtown flat both tugging at me in their own way. Add in a couple of cute pigtailed girls in pinafores, an all-American love of blue jeans, my enjoyment of cooking, and my distaste for dishes.Throw in my desire to dabble in all things handicraft when instead I often settle for link chasing or novels, and there you have me. Left staring at a bunch of puzzle pieces and wondering just how the odd shaped one I'm currently standing on connects up with the beautiful panorama at which all the other pieces silently hint. I love to cook. I love kids and old novels and great big tree with the sun drifting down through the leaves. I like those funny little designs made with flowers and doodles in odd colors that don't look quite modern or quite vintage. I have blue berry patterned dishes sitting on a baker's rack near a little shuttered window draped with a string of miniature paper lanterns. I yearn for a house where big windows let vast puddles of sunlight into every room. Everywhere I turn I see scraps of what my life could be, would be, will be. Then I look at my little apartment furnished and decorated by fits and starts. Cleaned the same way. My desires sometimes seem so myriad and often opposing that I don't know where to begin in the effort to move forward, to accomplish, and to be. Of course I suppose therein lies part of the problem. "For it is God who works within us both to will and to do for His good pleasure." I don't suppose it really is my job to put everything together and make my piece fit the puzzle. Like as not neither the piece nor the puzzle are yet in the shape they need to be, and I just need to patiently wait for God to put all things into their proper order in His time. Still can't say I really no what do though. I suppose I just keep collecting my puzzle pieces as they come my way and trust that someday God will turn them into a vision of shining loveliness.