Finding Gold Cracks in the Brokenness

                 But now, O Lord, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter;                                                                 'And all of us are the work of Your hand.                                                       - Isaiah 64:8 (NIV)

I’ve always loved pottery. I have not a single piece that I can boast of, but I’m fascinated with the idea of something being formed from clay by the hands of its creator. This continual movement involving the clay and the hands of the potter. Until it’s finished and can be displayed for all to see. It’s an intimate process.

This molding.

This shaping.

This creating.

But what about when you’ve been broken, as we all must at one time or another. Or perhaps a breaking comes more often than we think can be handled. Are we disqualified from what we’ve been called to do? How do we hold anything when we are in pieces? How do we serve others when we feel like we are in the breaking? When despair or pain fills in every gap and crack in our fragile beings?

More often then not, there are times in my life where I find myself at my weakest. It’s an uncomfortable place to be when I have a desire to be made whole and a longing to be perfected. To be more that who I am.

And in those times, I’m often reminded of a special form of art that celebrates weakness. There is a Japanese tradition known as Kintsugi, which means “golden joinery or golden repair”. An art form that values imperfections and flaws, something I fear. It honors the beauty of brokenness by repairing broken pottery using a gold lacquer created from gold dust.

The art is not in the hiding of broken parts but in the highlighting of them.

This is done by reattaching broken pieces with the gold resin, revealing hints of gold throughout the repair. Or, when a piece of the pottery is missing, that space is entirely filled in with the gold lacquer. I often struggle with wanting to appear like I have it all together. I strive for perfection which only seems to leave me holding onto more broken pieces. It’s something I can’t attain. It’s out of reach.

But, the Lord is stirring something in me. This idea that in this place of weakness, there is a beauty to be found. A beauty that is deeper than anything I’ve seen with my eyes. It’s found in a sacred space with my Creator, by allowing him to do the work of recreating me. He knows all of me. He created me in my inmost being. But this restoring is not to take me back to who I was. But, a transforming of my scars and wounds into something far greater.

This remolding.

This reshaping.

This recreating.

I am far from finished. You are far from finished. Every part of our stories, the joys and the deep sorrows can be woven together in this constant reshaping of broken beauty. Your scars and broken parts aren’t something to fear or to hide. They are a piece of you that the Lord can restore. To be a creation that holds both grace and grief.

Psalm 147:3 declares, “He heals the brokenhearted and he binds up their wounds.” So, what if He uses His glory as the glue, just as Kintsugi rejoins the cracks and missing pieces with gold. It’s known that once this repair has been done, these ceramics actually become stronger and more resilient. It becomes more valuable than it was before.

Will you trust the potter to continue to remold and reshape you? In this season of struggle or of joy, will you allow him to rework any parts that are thought less than acceptable by you?

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ’s power my rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

- 2 Corinthians 12:9 – 10 (NIV)

Can we trust the Lord to make us come out stronger and to rest securely in His love and this truth? Though you are far from finished, you are beauty in the making. Trust that He will finish the good work he started in you.

And surrender to the beauty that will begin to shine through.

*** Linking up with Velvet Ashes on the theme of Recreate