Kintsugi - learning how to cope with brokenness

I was introduced to the Japanese art of Kintsugi ("golden joinery") today, also known as Kintsukuroi (金繕い) "golden repair"). It is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with laqueur or glue dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum. It teaches that broken objects are not something to hide but to display with pride.

Collectors became so enamored by the new art that some were accused of deliberately smashing valuable pottery so it could be repaired with the gold seams of kintsugi.

As a philiosophy, it treats brokenness, breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

In Kintsugi, the break is obvious, but the golden repair makes the object one to be admired, making the vessel more valuable, beautiful and useful again.

Jesus is known as "the healer of the broken hearted". He is the master artisan who takes the fractures and failures of our lives, repairing our brokenness.

When He is allowed to take the fragments, shortcomings and imperfections, He remakes us to become a vessel of value and honour, one in which His Spirit indwells.  As Jeremiah said about the Lord: "You are like the clay in the potter’s hands, and I am the potter.” 

The art of Kintsugi has been a revelation to me of how we are never discarded, no matter how broken. We are never to feel lack of worth but ever aware that we are usable when fixed by the golden repair of the master craftsman.

Agree with me as you say...

• I am highly valued.
• I am a vessel fit for the masters use.
• I have not to think of myself as damaged goods, rather imperfectly perfect.
• When the enemy of my soul accuses me of being worthless, I remind him Jesus calls me priceless!

The art of Kintsugi graphically demonstrates God's "strength being made perfect in our weakness."

So, whatever your failures, shortcomings or brokenness, dare to enter your week knowing that you're repairable and are of incredible worth."Your brokenness is not useless. God can always use your pain to rebuild a stronger you."

Be encouraged, under the masters hand, the broken areas of your life will ultimately be filled in and instead become areas of strength and beauty. "Paradoxically, we achieve true wholeness only by embracing our fragility and sometimes our brokenness"

“People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone." - Audrey Hepburn