Making the Puzzle Complete: Disability in Community

The 'puzzle piece perspective' for community allows us to talk about the gifts and 'hot spots' (weaknesses) in each person and how we complement one another within community.

Just as every teacher in the school has the potential to change someone’s life, every student has the potential to shift the air just a little bit and change the culture in a school. As a Christ-centered community, we “learn what it means to love and to receive love from all of members,” as John Swinton shares in Becoming Friends of Time (p93).

At All Belong, we use the ‘puzzle piece perspective’ to demonstrate this lens for community tangibly.

Every person in that puzzle piece was knit together by God (Psalm 139), and we like to color code our strengths with green for growth and pink for our “hot spots” or weaknesses.

Similar to a jigsaw puzzle, the whole community loses when one person is absent from community.

We hold up these puzzle pieces together and talk about how our strengths and weaknesses in community create a pleasing picture to God. There must be a reason that no one consists entirely of strengths, after all! (At least, that’s what I tell myself when I am frustrated by my ‘pinks’.)

Perhaps you’ve experienced this feeling when assembling a jigsaw puzzle. If you’re like me, you know the frustration of assembling a puzzle only to discover you’re missing a piece! On the other hand, there is always a fight in my house to put that last piece in the puzzle – the satisfaction of knowing exactly how and where it fits and sliding it right into place.

That’s not to say the human puzzle pieces all fit together naturally, without struggle. Including persons with disabilities in our communities requires perseverance, grace, knowledge, and funding. Sometimes, we must try new ideas and exhibit flexibility in response to one puzzle piece.

"God's Giant Puzzle", as demonstrated in 1 Corinthians 12, is a beautiful picture for community.

At All Belong, we have been helping puzzle pieces fit together in Christ-centered community for more than thirty years, and we have yet to find a puzzle piece that tells us we have reached the definitive border of what is possible.

Thank you to all of you who daily assemble puzzles. Our parents, our churches, our schools, and our students will see it and rejoice with you as you find a way for every person, regardless of their ability, to complete your body of Christ. I pray that you might find your place in the puzzle of Christian community, and enter into this school and ministry year with a renewed heart for the most challenging of puzzle pieces.