Kintsugi for the Heart!

It was a September Saturday afternoon, and I was happy to be started on Christmas gifts.  I usually made the gifts we gave, and this year was no exception. My trunk was filled with greenware – ceramic slip that had come out of the molds but still needed to be cleaned, then fired to bisque, painted, and sealed.  As I remember there were 8 sets of nativity figures.  I planned to start with the central figures the first year, the shepherds and their sheep and the angels the next year, and the wise men and camels the third year. 

I decided to run over to a nearby town to a craft show that afternoon.  On the way a teenager high on some substance struck my brand new Chevy Caprice in the rear literally pleating the car. Well, all that greenware didn’t fare too well! It was broken and crumbled into many, many pieces and dust. I didn’t know it right away, but I had a broken neck. It’s strange how things take on significance: just that week I had heard someone say on the radio that life breaks us all and afterward some of us are stronger in the places that were broken. I remembered those words that fall Saturday afternoon. I had no idea how often I would ponder them over the next weeks and months.

Brokenness is a HUGE subject worthy of great contemplation!  The truth is that all of us are broken and in desperate need of restoration. That’s why Jesus came - to make that restoration process possible!

In part of my life I teach Latin. Roman history is part of teaching Latin. In almost any marketplace in any city in the Roman Empire potters displayed their wares. They developed a clever trick to hide flawed workmanship or damage. When a pot had a flaw or a crack, they would take wax and smooth it over the flaws or press it tightly into the cracks. The objective was to deceive the customer into buying a defective product thinking it was true and solid. Can you imagine what happened to those pots when they were filled with water or wine especially on a hot day? They would spring leaks. This practice gave potters a bad name in general. Most of these potter merchants were travelers. By the time their deceit was discovered, they were far down the road, swallowed up by the next city or town or wherever. There was no complaint department.  As a result sales slumped, profits were threatened, honest artists were shamed by the actions of others.

Pottery artists with integrity were sick and tired of being lumped together with these scoundrels. So, they began to sign their names on the bottom of all their new pieces along with this stamp: SINE CERA (without wax). We actually get our English word sincere from this practice. If the pottery had integrity, was whole and not damaged, then it was also sine cera (without wax). The pottery not stamped sine cera appeared to be undamaged because of the wax. Surprise, surprise when that pot was used for a hot liquid!

 One of my best friends is Japanese. She tells me about the style of Japanese art called Kintsugi (beautifully broken). It is broken - intentionally! Everyone knows it is broken. In fact, the imperfections are flaunted! The pottery has been deliberately broken and then repaired with seams of pure gold or silver. The amazing creations that result unquestionably bring beauty from brokenness! Perfection is over-rated. Real beauty comes from brokenness!

Sadly we don’t value brokenness in our culture. We shy from it! We avert our eyes. Worse, we avert our hearts! We think and live, at least most of us do, as though anything or anyone damaged, smashed, disabled is of little or no value. That is as much a lie as the non-sine cera pots of ancient times!

God is in the full-time business of fixing brokenness. He could make brokenness as though it never happened, but He doesn’t. Instead He chooses to display the beauty of brokenness! The prophet Malachi wrote in 3:2-3: …He will be like a refiner’s fire … He will sit as a refiner and purifier of siver…         

John Piper of Desiring God Ministries observes, He is a refiner's fire, and that makes all the difference. A refiner's fire does not destroy indiscriminately like a forest fire. A refiner's fire does not consume completely like the fire of an incinerator. A refiner's fire refines. It purifies. It melts down the bar of silver or gold, separates out the impurities that ruin its value, burns them up, and leaves the silver and gold intact. He is like a refiner's fire. (He Is Like a Refiner's Fire, November 29, 1987)

 I am blessed to be broken! I am incredibly blessed to be surrounded by family and friends who know and understand brokenness, and who constantly challenge my heart to be more than even sine cera but rather to live in the reality of Kintsugi!

*The black pot is credited to Lakeside Pottery - http://lakesidepottery.com/Pages/kintsugi-repairing-ceramic-with-gold-and-lacquer-better-than-new.htmwww.lakesidepottery.com

Broken Clay, Broken Car and Broken Me

"Life breaks us all and afterwards ... " I heard those words on the radio. Ernest Hemingway wrote them in Farewell to Arms.

I lived a pretty wonderful life and still do. I didn't recognize much brokenness in myself. I didn't see much brokenness anywhere. I was well loved from before my birth. I lived in comfort and even more most of my life. Of course there were minor bumps in the road. There was loss of dearly loved grandparents and other losses. There was the pain of mistakes, broken promises and unexpected disappointments but there was no catastrophe that touched my life directly.

I really didn't know what real brokenness looks like nor had I experienced it.

My personal life metaphor of brokenness can be summed up in the experience of one September Saturday afternoon. I was driving my new car minding my own business when suddenly - out of "nowhere" - a car smashed into the rear of my car. The boxes of green ware porcelain pieces in my trunk were pulverized into powder. My car was pleated like an accordian. My neck was broken. In seconds I was left with broken clay, broken car and broken me.

The broken clay could be replaced with new green ware. The broken car could also be replaced. Broken me required a little more work accompanied by a lot of sweat, tears and pain. I spent months in a halo cast screwed into my skull front and back to immobilize my neck. I endured surgery and significant pain.

If I could turn back the clock and rewind and put the broken pieces back together (clay, car and me), I wouldn't do it. God knew I needed to understand brokenness on a deep personal level. God was working on my heart in the "afterwards" following the accident. God got my attention and taught me to trust Him in the process!

"Life [does] break us all ... " It's what happens in the "afterwards" that matters! Do we learn to trust and cling to God for help, hope and strength? OR do we turn turtle - draw into our shells and even turn bitter deep in our hearts? We do one or the other.

The difference between brokenness leading to trust or brokenness leading to bitterness is in our willingness to walk with God and trust and depend on Him or not. God wants to lead us in His path. God wants to be our hope, help and strength! Even brokenness can be a good thing when God is involved in the "afterwards" process!

"When Pretty Things Get Broken"

Today I've been listening to a new CD I got while we were in California at Joni and Friends International Headquarters. One song "When Pretty Things Get Broken" by Joni Eareckson Tada is hauntingly beautiful and reminiscent of her own life:

My life was just like china, a lovely thing to me,
Full of porcelain promises of all that I might be.
But fragile things do slip and fall as ev'rybody knows,
And when my vase came crashing down those tears began to flow.

But don't we all cry when pretty things get broken?
Don't we all sigh at such an awful loss?
Jesus will dry those tears as He has spoken
'Cause He was the One broken on the cross.

But Jesus is the Porcelain Prince.
His promises won't break.
His holy Word holds fast and sure.
His love no one can shake.

So if your life is shattered by sorrow, pain or sin,
His healing love will reach right down and make you whole again.

Joni Eareckson Tada is a beautiful woman. She is beautiful inside and out! Is her body broken? Yes! For more than 41 years she's been in a wheelchair. It's not easy. There is even pain that a quadriplegic feels deep in the bones and gut apparently, but Joni is NOT a broken woman! And Jesus is the reason! He has restored her heart and given her a song and a beautiful smile even on those days when that chair and the pain are almost too much.

I remember that September Saturday afternoon in 1977 when my neck was broken. I was out running errands. The trunk of my new car was actually filled with greenware (porcelain in its green state ready to be prepared for firing). The greenware was actually the pieces for many nativity sets I planned to paint to be Christmas gifts for my brothers, sisters and parents. The car came out of nowhere from behind and hit me full force when I was stopped in traffic. My car crunched. I crunched. The greenware crunched. Greenware isn't a pretty thing. It's just in the process of becoming a pretty thing. Most of what was in my trunk was shattered into powder. It never would be what it could have been.

My story turns out better (at least physically) than Joni's but only by the grace of God. Actually I think our necks broke in almost the same place which makes my story even more remarkable. Why did God protect me from paralysis and allow Joni to be in a wheelchair? Well, I don't have all of that answer. BUT what I know is that God is good all the time. God was with Joni in the Chesapeake Bay 41 years ago, and God was with me that Saturday afternoon. Very few people know my name and story, but people all over the world know and love Joni just because she is in that chair! God has used her life and ministry in incredible ways mostly because she is paralyzed.

But more significant than that is the story of what God has done in both Joni's heart and mine over the years. God has taken brokenness and brought restoration. God gives grace for each and every day no matter what happens.

God has powerfully demonstrated that He uses the weak things (and people) to demonstrate His incredible strength to a world dying for need of restoration in both Joni's life and mine. God has proved His faithfulness to us both. God has made His promise true: "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision (substitute "paralysis") or uncircumcision (substitute "not paralysis") has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love." (Galatians 5:6)

"Faith expressing itself in love" is the true demonstration of heart restoration!

In the Grip of Grace

Yesterday I read Joni Eareckson Tada's "From the Heart" letter in her April issue of "Joni and Friends Newsletter." She describes how she needs help (helping hands) because her hands don't move. She's been a quadriplegic for over forty years. She needs the hands of others to dress, to reach things, to eat, to hold books and on and on. She has a team of friends who serve her daily by coming and getting her up and dressed and ready for the day.

Joni dove into the Chesapeake Bay at age 17 and broke her neck. She wouldn't have survived the accident except that a crab bit her sister's toe causing her sister to turn around and call to Joni. Then she saw Joni floating face-down in the water.

Joni describes in her writings (her books) the emotional and spiritual and physical sturggles she encountered and endured in the aftermath of her accident. There were many times she wanted her life to be over as living seemed just too hard.

One of her stories is about a friend who snuck into her dark hospital room, lay on the floor facing up so Joni could see her face (as Joni was lying upside down in a Stryker frame) and sang hymns to and with Joni.

Once a friend - my sister - did something similar for me. She came into my hospital room and slept on the tile floor to be with me. It was a dark time! Her presence was a gift of love that still wraps my heart in warmth.

God was faithful to Joni. He brought her through the pain to be a shining testimony of God's grace. Joni is a living example of being kept in the grip of God's grace! In the painful process of learning to live with a body that doesn't move, Joni received a heart transformed by God's grace and love. Today she heads the fabulous ministry - Joni and Friends International.

After my husband, a young teenage friend and I went to one of Joni and Friends Family Retreats last summer just to observe, our young friend came home and told her mother, "O, Mommy, you could just feel the love of Jesus there everywhere!" This coming summer nine people from A Restoration Church will be spending an entire week at a Joni Family Retreat being hands, feet and a loving heart for a person or family with "a special way of being."