When I completed the puzzle in January 2022, I was elated I would finish the project before my goal of December. The rest of the year was spent individually picking up pieces and Gorilla gluing each one to its final resting place. I severely underestimate how long this painstaking process would take. In the summer of 2022, I downloaded a software that read my book to me. At this point, I had stared at every single puzzle piece thousands of times processing their arrangement in my head, but hearing them allowed was eye opening.
Our lives are analogous. We often mull over scenarios in our heads but we are rarely satisfied and don’t reach concrete conclusions. When we externally process our lives out loud with a trusted friend, therapist, priest, ect we tend to find the answers to the questions we have been asking in our minds. When I listened to my manuscript out loud I cringed at the subtle interruptions in the flow and quickly made adjustments. When I share a situation aloud with a friend I notice things I would’ve never considered in the crowded darkness of my mind.
Bringing your life into the light makes life lighter!
As I wrote Seas the Day I continued to pray and read sacred scripture daily. Making my way through the Bible I was amazed at all of the prophecies that come true in the New Testament. A quick Google search described the Bible as “humanity’s first hyperlinked book” with 63,779 cross references (not sure who’s counting but that’s impressive). This moved me to a new appreciation and understanding of a book written by 40 authors, from fisherman to physicians, over 1,500 years. I was convinced more than ever that this work was divinely inspired.
The wild looking graph at the top of this blog is the visual representation of the cross references in the Bible. The alternating white and gray sections at the bottom represent the books of the Bible, each tiny bar represents a chapter, and the length of that bar shows how many verses are in that chapter. The super long outlier in the middle of the chart is Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible. Every cross reference is depicted by a single arc, and the color corresponds to the distance between the two chapters. Are you not entertained?!
Just as Seas the Day will constantly remind me of the journey God has brought me on, scripture should remind us that we are a part of the greatest story ever told and God values you as the greatest of all His creations.