Update from the Precious Blood Renewal Center, April 2025

“Life is like a jigsaw puzzle,” says Fr. Garry Richmeier, C.PP.S. “We are thrown into life with all these pieces — talents, weaknesses, illnesses, specific relationships, etc., which we haven’t asked for. Like a jigsaw puzzle, all the scattered pieces look like a mess, chaos. 

“We know all pieces have to fit together, somehow, because the puzzle maker (God) made them.” Our life task is to fit the pieces together, Fr. Garry explains. The challenge is that “God didn’t give us the box that our puzzle came in with the picture on it, so we have to put the pieces together the best way we know how.” 

The jigsaw puzzle analogy is one Fr. Garry has come to over 40 years as a priest and 30 years as a licensed counselor and marriage and family therapist. Over the years, Fr. Garry says, the people he has worked with “have taught me much about living life, especially what works well and not so well.” 

Fr. Garry shares the insights he has learned from helping people fit life’s puzzle pieces together in a video series titled “Assembling God’s Puzzle: Reflections on Health and Wholeness,” which the Renewal Center hosts on its website and YouTube channel. Each video runs under 10 minutes. Here is a short list of some of the video titles and the topics they cover: 

• Decisions, Decisions — what to do when torn between options. 

• Help! Save Me! — the best approach to helping someone in need.  

• Take a Risk or Play It Safe? — learning to deal with hurt effectively. 

• How to Catch a Monkey — learning to let go. 

• Imagination — the two-edged tool in the human toolbox. 

The Assembling God playlist can be found here: www.pbrenewalcenter.org/blog/category/assembling-gods-puzzle/. 

“Our faith tells us — even though we see only the puzzle pieces and not the whole picture — that God knows the picture because it is God’s plan for us,” Fr. Garry says. “With that faith, we can be more at peace and more hopeful as we are dealing with the puzzle pieces.” 

Lent is always a busy season at the Renewal Center. By the time you read this, our Lent programs, a five-week study of Pope Francis’ reflection on the sacred heart of Jesus, “Dilexit Nos” (He Loved Us), and the last series in our study of Thomas Merton will be nearing completion. We have many programs planned for the spring and summer, many of them offered over Zoom. Check the website for details. www.pbrenewalcenter.org/events/.