In Japan they have a style of mending called Kintsugi

instead of trying to disguise the cracks when they put something back together they fill the cracks with gold and something very ordinary, some mundane vessel, is transformed into something interesting, and beautiful, and lovely.

I am taken by this idea,

that in the process of acknowledging my brokenness I allow myself to be put back together,

and then I can be filled with gold,

and the pieces of me that once disqualified me from usefulness can now be the best parts.

The parts of the story with sharp edges that wounded are now the parts that reflect God’s glory.

The shameful parts that point to my failure, to moments of recklessness, to the fallenness of others are now the parts where his grace is given full measure,

where the mendingness of his love shine and tell the world

I am broken but I am mended

I am no longer just mundane and ordinary now in my brokenness I am transformed to display his glory, for his honour and his delight.

There have been times in my life where I have tried with desperate efforts to conceal the broken edges, to try to perform my function whilst hiding my difficulties…. and I had it all wrong, so wrong.

It is when I share my brokenness that I can be fixed not to be what I once was but to be more than I was

so that in the fixing I am enlarged, I am repurposed for a much greater purpose.

Because gold shines, gold reflects, gold is precious and rare and beautiful – and it is the work of the trinity in me that makes the broken beautiful.

Maybe when we start to allow the veins of gold to be part of the beautiful story we will, without realising, allow others to acknowledge their broken pieces too. The fear of letting people see the brokenness might become truly overcome by the hope that transformation is so much better than an image that is built on hiding ourselves.

Today I want to walk up the hill of vulnerability, to bring my sharp and wounding edges to the cross and to allow the cracks to be filled with the love that poured out from the place of death and sacrifice.

I want to go through the process of kintsugi

I want to be a work of art fashioned by God