Kintsugi: A Lesson from Japan

金継ぎ or Kinstugi is the Japanese artform of repairing broken ceramics.

Kintsugi repairs broken ceramics by melding the pieces back together with 24 karat gold. This artform stems from the Japanese people's desire to preserve family heirlooms. When a piece is repaired in this manner, it can be put back to use, and it is stronger, more valuable and unique than it was before. I think that this is a great metaphor for broken hearts and how God repairs them. There are a lot of beautiful messages hidden here, which is one of the reasons I really love other cultures – because a different part of God's glory and character shine through in different cultures and people.

With Kintsugi, the pottery means too much to the people to just get thrown away when it breaks - just like how God cares too much about us to give up when we break. Also, someone made a mistake that caused the ceramic to break, it is not what was intended for the piece from its creation. But the Japanese people still work with the ceramic and turn the situation for good. God did not break my heart. nor did He want it broken, the break was the result of a fallen world where people make mistakes. But God will use this broken heart again after He mends it.

The pottery is repaired with gold - a treasure far more costly and pure than the original ceramic, and it will forever be a part of that ceramic, inseparable from the piece long after the repair is complete and the ceramic is back in use. That gold will shine in the broken parts - which everyone can still see. Similarly, God's goodness and mercy and repairs are far more valuable and beautiful than what this fallen world has to offer. While Kintsugi does not return the ceramic to its original design - and the cracks will always remain, it is whole again. Just like ceramics cannot repair themselves, we cannot put our own hearts back together, and the things God does to heal us not only put us back together, but they remain with us long after the repair is complete, and will shine through us for all to see.

These are some of the surface level similarities, but I recently decided to try this repair on a bowl myself and found even more of God's fingerprints in this art!

You have to work quickly when painting the gold on the broken pieces so that it does not dry before you can reattach it. But when you actually line up the broken pieces, you have to sit and hold it for a while to let it dry. And you cannot move a muscle or set it down - if you do, you will have to start all over with the piece. You have to hold still, and cradle the still very fragile ceramic as the repair process works.

Similarly, I have seen God move very quickly in my life to cover the shattered pieces of my heart in His gold and then hold me there. But then I felt like nothing was happening. I still had pieces missing! I could still see my shattered heart on the table and He was no longer adding more pieces! But I still felt like He was holding me - He would not let go of my heart. He still wasn't letting me move and hadn't reattached everything yet. If this method of fixing pottery is a good metaphor for how God chooses to fix our hearts, then after heartbreak, there is a period of being still and recognizing that the Creator is tenderly holding our shattered hearts. When the gold has cured, our hearts will be stronger and more beautiful than before it was broken, and God will put it back into the world - still with the marks that came from being broken, because scars may heal but they rarely disappear - but restored to a more glorious state than before, and boasting in its weakness, because it is in those shattered places that the glory of God in its most pure form is most visible.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. - 2 Corinthians 12:9