Broken objects made beautiful.

‘God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength.  It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume.  It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.’ – Vance Havner

When a bowl is cracked or broken in Japan, it is put back together with a lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold.  When the cracks are filled with this gold it creates a beautiful lining.  The Japanese art of ‘kintsugi’ teaches that broken objects are not something to hide but to display with pride.

This is to emphasize the beauty in what was once broken and suffered damage…and has a history it makes it more beautiful.

Now the same thing goes for human beings…everything that you have been through; that what you are going through doesn’t make your life uglier although it may seem that way. You are not broken beyond repair; you can choose to pick yourself up.

You can get through anything life puts in front of you. Sometimes it takes being broken in order to become the new version of yourself.  You are never too shattered for repair.  You can wear your scars proudly as a badge of honour as if to say, ‘look what I have been through’, it has made me who I am today.

God does not want us to be full of ourselves.  He wants to fill us with a treasure-His presence, His glory, and His grace.  If we are not broken, people will only see us.  But when we have been broken, people can see God shining through us.

Let us learn from negative experiences, take the best from them and convince ourselves that exactly these experiences make each person unique and precious.

Only the Lord can bring life to what was broken.  He was willing to take on the brokenness of the world in exchange for our freedom.  Jesus makes all things new.

Psalm 147:3  “He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.”