Good Morning! Greetings to you in the name of the One who loves with an everlasting, beyond description love, Jesus Christ – THE Risen Saviour! I trust that you have had a great week and are ready for a weekend of ‘serendipities’. I will be praying for you today, asking Father to cover you with His love-peace-joy in ways that you cannot even imagine…and in ways that you will understand.
Thanks to my devotions this morning, I learned a new word: “kintsugi” – it is a Japanese word meaning a technique by which broken pottery is mended by filling the seams with gold. Therefore the brokenness is not hidden but highlighted…and the weakness is strengthened. “Kintsugi” means ‘golden joinery’ and creates a beauty that was not originally intended. I searched on the internet and found images that illustrated what this process can d
Then I began to consider what God’s Word says: He comforts the broken…He mends the broken…He trades beauty for brokenness…He uses the mended broken to bring meaning to the newly broken…He accepts the broken…He exchanges the sharp broken pieces of our heart for pieces that are soft and pliable.
Of course, I had to think about the lyrics of songs and choruses that addressed the issue of brokenness; All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife and He made something beautiful of my life (brokenness) … Let the weak say I am strong …I am broken and poured out to serve…Break me, melt me, mould me, fill me, use me…He cam to bring healing, He came to do the mending, He came to do miracles. It seems that God might have originated the process of ‘kintsugi’.
There is one song that I found myself adjusting the words to. The song says that we are – “Gracefully broken” and it seems to me that any breaking that has happened to me has been forceful and abrupt and without thought…and lacked grace. However, I changed the words to read – “Gracefully mended” – because God’s mending is unique. I understand that when they ‘kintsugi’ pottery it is actually stronger at that point than it was before and if a break does occur it will likely be in another location but the mended area is firm and rigid. My experience with God is that when He mends brokenness in my life the mend is flexible and pliable and able to absorb hits-bangs-thumps. I have one of my elders who says and prays the God would remove the stony, no give, and rigid hearts with hearts of flesh that give with tenderness and compassion.
There is one challenge…and that is where the analogy breaks down somewhat. A piece of pottery has no choice as to whether or not it is mended but you and I do. Sadly there are people who get ‘broken’ by the events of life and will not allow themselves to be mended. I am not sure why someone would chose to live in brokenness because I happen to know that God is excellent at human ‘kintsugi’ and we always transform into a “Master’s-piece”.
Now, there’s something to meditate on over the weekend…enjoy the blessings!