Recently, I saw the most beautiful white ceramic bowl with gold intertwined in a random pattern within it. I learned it was the art of “Kintsugi,” which is a centuries-old Japanese art form where they fix broken pottery.
Rather than rejoin the ceramic pieces with camouflaged glue, they make the broken beautiful by using a special tree sap lacquer dusted with powdered gold. When the item is once again put back together, it has beautiful seams. The places of brokenness are not hidden but instead emphasized to celebrate the item’s broken history and now new beauty.
I started looking up images of Kintsugi art, also referred to as “the art of precious scars,” and every piece just captured me. Broken dishes, broken floors, broken you name it, all carefully put back together with a thread of gold, making it more beautiful than if it had never been broken.
Maybe it captured me because I am, we are, so similar to this broken, beautiful art. Every one of us has had a broken part in our lives, and we get to choose what to do with it. I want to give my brokenness to the one who can change it into something beautiful.
Jesus loves to fix the broken. The greatest “Kintsugi” art master of all time. The Bible says, “Anyone who belongs to Jesus is a NEW creation. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
The Bible is filled with stories of extremely broken people who Jesus touched and made whole again: a prostitute turned friend, a thief made generous, a murderer given leadership, and a traitor forgiven. And all of these people are mentioned not for their completeness but for their stories of found love and redemption from a broken place in life.
Invite Jesus into your brokenness, into the areas that need mending, knowing that He embraces your past, excited, and able to write a new story for your future. And if you have already felt healing by Jesus, I encourage you not to camouflage your scars. You are a precious work of His amazing love. You have a story to share, and I guarantee you someone else needs to hear how Jesus can create beautiful new lines from their brokenness too. HLLF –
