by Michelle Bauman, Director of Y4Life
Have you ever played, Mastermind®? It’s a board game that came out in the 70s. Though I remember seeing it in our home as a little girl, I wasn’t deemed “big enough” the first time I asked to play. By the time I asked again, we had misplaced most of the pieces.
Because I’m a fan of nostalgia and a lover of games, I bought a “retro” version of it a few months ago, and then I proceeded to pester my husband and sons until each of them played it with me … multiple times.
I have a special fondness for linguistic and strategic games, and Mastermind falls into the strategic category. It has a hidden area at the end of the board where one player creates a pattern with different colored pegs. The rest of the gameboard is filled with lines of peg holes that the second player uses to decode the hidden pattern.
There’s something very satisfying about decoding patterns and figuring out how things fit together—something rewarding about arriving at the end of the game and seeing the complexities unraveled. Despite the mistakes that were made, all of the problems are solved in the end; all of the answers are evident.
Sometimes, I wish life was a little more like Mastermind. I wish I could move pieces around to fix mistakes I’ve made or find a better ending. I could switch a green peg here and a yellow peg there to prevent a broken arm. Substitute a red peg for a blue peg and cure cancer. Pull a black peg to stop death. If only I could uncover the code to unravel suffering and figure out the pattern to make everything alright.
But I’m not the true Mastermind; only God is. And He has already solved the problems of this world through the work of His Son. Because of Christ, God has covered the pegs of my life with His love and mercy; He has colored them white with His blood.
True, there will be mistakes, but Christ covers them with forgiveness. There will be suffering, but God makes it holy. And there will be broken arms and cancer and death, but God answers these realities with healing and life. When all of the pieces of life are laid out, we win because of Christ.