The Japanese have been perfecting the art of pottery for around twelve thousand years.
In short, they’re really good at it.
But no matter how long you’ve been a potter, no matter how masterful you are, you end up with broken pieces.
I am no master potter - but I have taken a couple of classes. I have a handful of wonky bowls to prove it.
I’ve also broken a handful of those wonky bowls and into the trash they go.
That’s because I’m an American and what is one to do with a broken bowl but toss it out?
That’s not the Japanese way.
Enter kintsugi.
Kintsugi is the art of repairing broken pieces of pottery by applying - get this - a gold lacquer to rejoin the broken pieces.
It doesn’t try to hide the brokenness. Rather kintsugi draws attention to the brokenness - but it does so in making the brokenness beautiful.
“O Lord, you are our Father.” wrote the prophet Isaiah. “We are the clay, and you are the potter. We all are formed by your hand.”
There is nothing wrong with the Potter. He is a Master.
But we are broken pottery.
Praise God he doesn’t toss us out. He doesn’t cast us aside. He doesn’t deem us worthless.
Rather He picks up our broken pieces and puts them back together. He binds us together with the gold of His grace and goodness and faithfulness.
It’s not in our wholeness where His love shines most brightly. It’s in the broken seams that He is most evident.
I don’t know where you’re broken.
What I do know is that the Potter will not leave you that way.
He will put the pieces back together and those seams will prove to be the most beautiful parts of who you are because they were formed and fashioned by the One who has never once given up on you.
It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or what you’ve been through.
He wants to make you whole. He wants to make you something beautiful.
Trust the Potter.