Last week I met my husband for lunch so he could take a break from remodeling a customer’s bathroom. While we were waiting to be served he took the instructions for a new pedestal sink out of his pocket to read. As I’ve seen him do often, he sat there shaking his head, typical of his being disgusted with the quality of directions, and passed the paper over to me to read.

"Can you believe this?" he asked, saying something about a missing mounting bracket and screws.

I scanned the pages to find information about the screws but what caught my eye was a box with the words, "Water supply not included."

I read it twice.

My first thought was, "They can’t be serious! Is there really someone who would think that the water came with the sink?"

But obviously, if there wasn’t someone like that, the company wouldn’t bother to include the disclaimer. I’ve seen some bizarre warnings and disclaimers on products before but this one rated high on the list for stating the obvious.

The promise of getting the whole package is popular in our culture. The pace of our lives is often overwhelming so getting everything you need in one living room package, one communications bundle, one cell phone/calendar/GPS is inviting, allowing us to have it all with very little effort.

It’s too bad life isn’t that convenient.

But life doesn’t come in a box with instructions, or with all parts included for that matter.

It seems to come in bits and pieces, thrown to the four winds and falling where they may.

It requires that we put our energy into a journey that may, or may not, recover bits of the puzzle. Adding to the challenge is the reality that we can never see the big picture, so how are we to put the puzzle together?

We climb mountains, praying God won’t move them between the time we close our eyes to sleep and the moment we put our feet on the floor the next morning. We mine the darkness of our hearts and souls looking for treasures to bring to light. Sometimes we are successful but just as often we get lost.

If we pick up some wisdom along the way, we learn the value of detours and crafting pieces to fit when there are none. After all, we can’t take life back to the store because it seems the parts aren’t there or it’s too hard to put together.

Like the plumber who needs to connect the sink to a water source not provided in the box, we need to connect our lives to God. We have the resources, prayer and the traditions of our faith, but no one can force us to use them.

Some things we have to do for ourselves.