Beautifully Broken

A few months ago I was wasting time on snapchat, like we all do these days, and I came across one of the company stories. I don’t honestly remember which it was, but it stood out out to me and I couldn’t put my finger on why. This story was about Kintsugi. This is the Japanese art of fixing cracked pottery. When their ceramic pieces crack they fill those cracks with with a special mix that includes gold, silver, or platinum. The story behind this is to appreciate the history of the piece and make the cracks part of it, rather than hiding it or throwing it away.

I read the story, thought about how maybe I should adopt that mindset, but then forgot about it and went about my life.

Just a few days ago I was doing my morning devotional and it hit me. My devotional is called “What to do when you don’t know what to do” and it has been a lot about trials (which I have told y’all about mine in my past few posts). The lesson said “Trials in the lives of believers refine their faith so that the false is stripped away and the genuine faith that continues to trust God can develop victorious positive endurance.”

For some reason this really stuck out to me. I have been deep in James, and you read about that in my last post, but this was something different. As I continued, it hit me.

I have always thought of trials preparing us like soldiers prepare for war. I thought of it as adding more and more padding to make things hurt less. What was said above completely changed my prospective. It is not adding more and more padding so the blow of the hard stuff hurts less. It is stripping away anything that is useless to make room for the good stuff.

God is tearing you down, which at the time really just sucks, but is it to make room for all he has in store. Tearing you down allows for him to build you up bigger and better than you could ever imagine. Does this sound familiar?

Here is where the pots come in (I promise there is a connection)! Take yourself as the pot. You are created perfectly for a purpose. You are God’s masterpiece. However, our life is hard and along the way you become chipped and cracked. You are no longer that perfect creation. Instead of hating on yourself and trying to hide it or throw it away, fill your cracks with gold. Appreciate where you have come from and what you have been through. Your gold is God. Fill those cracks with God. Fill those chips with God. Make those imperfections perfect in Him.

Just as the pots become beautiful again, just in a different way, so do we. Filling your low points up with the good stuff will not only fill you up, but it makes you look more like Christ. Now, we aren’t perfect and we will never be perfect, but each step in the right direction is a step closer to Him.

Who knew snap chat could give me something bigger than just some story to waste my time with. This is a connection I will carry with me. When you feel broken and chipped and low, fill those broken parts with gold and make you beautiful in Christ. Clear out the useless stuff and make room for him to do perfect work.

You are a beautiful, with all your cracks and chips. You are beautifully broken. Fill yourself with gold.