The Missing Piece

Have you ever tried putting a puzzle together, only to get to the end and discover that a piece is missing? You anxiously put the puzzle together, constantly examining the picture of your anticipated outcome, and a piece is missing. Piece by piece you work, only to realize that something is missing -- and only one piece. One piece of the puzzle is missing, and that one piece makes a huge difference because the puzzle is incomplete. That missing piece changes not only the picture, but also the anticipated outcome. You search and search for that missing piece out of frustration because of your desire to complete the puzzle in its entirety.

If you find the piece -- joy and a sense of accomplishment are felt. And if you do not find the missing piece -- frustration and a sense of disappointment set in.

Much like a puzzle, we spend a great portion of our lives searching for that missing piece. Because of our desire to be whole and complete, we search for a missing piece of our lives, sometimes looking in the wrong place. We think that finding a mate and falling in love will make us complete. We think that finding that job with the eloquent sounding title will make us complete. We think that wealth alone will make us complete. But in the end, what we find is that nothing outside of us will make us complete. Wholeness comes only by finding the right piece to fill that void within.

The extraordinary thing about a puzzle is that nothing can fill that void except the piece that is made to go there. No matter how much you try to force another piece into that void, if it was not made to fit, it will not fit. So, the puzzle either remains incomplete, or you search until you find the missing piece.

Search until you find the missing piece. Is there a missing piece in your life that will make the authentic you come together? You have the choice to either search within to find the missing piece, or continue to live with a void. No person or thing can fill that void unless it is meant to be -- and when it fits -- you will know.

Copyright © 2003 by Audrina Jones Bunton. REPRINTING THIS ARTICLE: Permission is granted to reproduce or distribute this article only in its entirety and provided copyright is acknowledged. You can find other articles to choose from at http://www.purposefully-living.com/mailing%20list.htm

Motivational Speaker, Audrina Jones Bunton was born the seventh of eight children in her household in Pinehurst, North Carolina into a loving and committed Christian home. As she has 2 children, over 40 nieces and nephews and great- nieces and nephews, it is not unusual to find her under the same roof with many of her maternal five-generation family on weekends and on holidays. In her youth, she fondly recalls traveling throughout the U.S. with her family, as her parents ministered from state to state year after year-helping people as they traveled.

A graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a Bachelor's degree in Sociology, Audrina is a Competent Toastmaster of Toastmasters International and serves as the North Carolina District Sergeant At Arms. She is a former counselor of the Durham Pregnancy Support Services, a Christian-oriented crisis pregnancy center in Durham, North Carolina and is currently a Social Research Assistant at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Audrina is currently studying at the Master's Divinity School in Evansville, Indiana with a combined concentration in Biblical Counseling and IABC certification.

She also serves as the Youth Director at the Come As You Are Evangelistic Center in Aberdeen, North Carolina where her mother, Lydia Jones is the pastor.

Modeling after a song that her mother so often sings, and one that Martin Luther King, Jr. often quoted, her life and speeches are based on the following lyrics, "If I can help somebody as I pass along, If I can cheer somebody with a word or song, If I can show somebody he's traveling wrong, Then my living will not be in vain."

Audrina resides with her husband William, and 2 children, Audrina Lorraine and William Woodrow.