Shining Shards
On Brokenness, Kintsukuroi, and God
Thought 1
I’ve been struggling a bit with my life choices lately.
The more I’ve learned and grown, the more I’ve almost resented my brokenness. I’ve also resented the broken choices resulting from my brokenness. In reality, it bites having to live with the consequences day in and day out.
I am at peace with the course corrections I am undergoing. Yet there’s a bit of discontent that I am even making them in the first place.
Thought 2
I’ve seen some beautiful pottery come through my feeds on Facebook and other places. From a distance, it looks almost normal. However, when you look closely, there are these cracks running all around the pottery. The cracks have a metallic gleam.
It is from a Japanese technique called kintsukuroi, literally meaning “golden repair.” Evidentally, it shows respect for the history of the pottery. Instead of throwing out the pottery or hiding the cracks, the artisan holds the pieces of the pottery together with a lacquer that contains metal like gold, silver, or platinum. It gives a beauty to a piece most of us would throw out.
In some way, the artisan is trying to not let the flaws and imperfections in the object be bothersome.
Thought 3
Various passages in the Bible refer to humans as clay or pottery and God is the potter.
In Jeremiah 18:1–10 (Modern English Version), God compares Himself with a potter as He describes and likens His handling of nations to the actions of a potter:
The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.” Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was making something on the wheel. Yet the vessel that he made of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter? says the Lord. As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel. At one moment I may speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it. If that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to do to it. Or at another moment I may speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to build and to plant it. If it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will relent of the good with which I said I would bless it.
As a prophet, Isaiah likened the people of God to clay and the Lord to the potter in 64:8 (New International Version):
Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.
Elsewhere in Isaiah, he warns against arguing with God in 45:9 (Amplified Bible, Classic Edition):
Woe to him who strives with his Maker! — a worthless piece of broken pottery among other pieces equally worthless [and yet presuming to strive with his Maker]! Shall the clay say to him who fashions it, What do you think you are making? or, Your work has no handles?
Synthesis
If Abba is also our Potter, what does He see when He looks at us?
Are we striving with Him, useless potsherds trying to win useless, worthless arguments about what He’s doing? Or are we cooperating with Him?
Have we submitted to Him and allowed ourselves to be covered with Christ’s righteousness?
Are we still too-broken vessels, or has His Love sealed and bound our wounds so that dirty, ashy broken becomes beautiful, mourning ceases and becomes joy, despair starts to cease and praise begins to grow?
Does the splendor of Jesus shine in the cracks of our brokenness? Are we becoming a piece of Heaven’s kintsukuroi?
