From broken to beautiful

I recently learned about the coolest thing.

I knew I had to share it with you all because it changed the way I think about myself. Maybe it will benefit you too!

There is an ancient Japanese art form called kintsugi. When pottery breaks, it is not thrown away. Instead the pieces are carefully collected and reassembled in to a complete piece. And its cracks are filled in with gold - like actual gold! What was once broken is made beautiful again, or some might say, even better than before.

Literally translated the word kintsugi means “golden joinery.” I love this concept of taking something that is broken and creating something beautiful.

Sometimes we are too quick to throw away the pieces of us that we see as broken. We may be embarrassed or ashamed of our failures, and our inclination is to start fresh as soon as possible. Maybe we want to pretend like we never made a mistake at all. But in doing that, we lose the beauty that comes from picking ourselves up and making ourselves whole.

I believe we all of value and worth. Because God created us, we are beautiful beings, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t without our faults or mistakes. Those faults do not make us any less worthy - they actually make us more whole. What makes us beautiful is our mistakes and the ways in which we’ve grown to fill in the cracks of our failures.

Let’s all commit to proudly displaying the beautiful veined pottery that proves how far we’ve come!