A couple of months ago in Guatemala I was reading a lot about foster care and the people who commit themselves to kids stuck in the system. I was reading every article and blog I could get my hands on and Facebook, as it is prone to do, began suggesting things I should read based on what I had been googling. While I was looking at my newsfeed one day, a link popped up to a Wikipedia article on “Kintsugi.” It appeared right below a couple of articles on foster parenting and so, in my curiosity to see what relation Kintsugi had to what I was so interested in, I clicked the link.
I didn’t know then that that word would become a metaphor for my life and the lives of others on my squad
If you google “Kintsugi” (you should), the first thing you will see are various pictures of pottery that have obviously been broken and repaired. What you will notice though, and it might catch you off guard, is the way the pottery has been repaired. Instead of doing their best to make it look like the pottery had never been broken, the cracks and fissures are illuminated with gold or silver, showing very clearly both the way it had been broken and the way it was repaired.
I think you get where I’m going with this.
“Kintsugi” is a philosophy on life. “Kintsugi” celebrates the brokenness. With kintsugi, it is believed that we should not go about life hiding our brokenness and trying to cover it up or disguise it like it didn’t or doesn’t exist. Instead, we should celebrate the cracks and fissures that we suffer. We should illuminate them in such a way that it is obvious how we were repaired. The cool thing about Kintsugi is that the pottery is stronger once repaired via this method than before it was broken at all.
It’s no mere coincidence that I stumbled onto “Kintsugi” in the same time that I had filled up with wisdom by my ministry host in Guatemala. Mrs. Lori is her name and she talked to us about pottery. She has lived in Guatemala for decades and she raised her family there. She is well acquainted with the people, their culture, and their practices. She told us about the pottery there. You see, Guatemalans use these crude forms of pottery made out of clay. Although simple, they are extremely useful and they are a necessity in every Guatemalan household.
As Christians, we are like these pots.
We are all molded by the hands of our maker; we are all put through the fire to be refined. For some of us, the refining process isn’t as extensive – not because we are perfect, but because we don’t seek to pursue further refinement; this happens when we get complacent.
But did you know that the orange clay used to make this simple pottery is the same clay used to make fine china?
Let that sink in for a minute.
Fine china, of course, goes through a MUCH more extensive process to become what it is, compared to a simple Guatemalan clay pot. Fine china has to go through the fire hundreds more times, and each time it comes out of the fire, its creator spends long hours scraping thin pieces off to make it more refined each time. After each scraping, it goes back into the fire and this happens over and over again. Eventually, the china is nearly transparent, but still just as usable as the clay pot or plate that it started out as. If the clay is pliable and easily manipulated by the hands of its creator, the china is able to come into its full form as true fine china, however if the clay doesn’t have enough give and and it is resistant to the hands trying to scrape it, form it, and refine it, then it will break.
We are all pots. The majority of us will be variations of the crude clay pot that I talked about before. Some will be more refined, some less; some may have designs or be painted or look nicer than others. Some of us may be a nicer pot that has been through the fire and the refining process a lot more than everyday pots, but nowhere near as much as fine china. Then some of us will be fine china. We’ll have gone through trial after trial, refinement after refinement, scraping after scraping, and we come out like this beautiful, transparent pottery and the light of Jesus shines naturally through us. Unlike real clay pots, who get no choice in what they will be, we on the other hand are able to choose. Do you want to be an everyday clay pot or a piece of fine china?
On that note, we had debrief in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia a week ago, and along with debrief came change! Specifically, team changes. Team United Difference is no more and now I am part of Team Kintsugi! Meg and Gwen (from my last team), Elle Kirkhoff, Monica T., Ashley Slaughter, Katherine Root, and myself make up this team of awesome women of God and I am so blessed to get to (hopefully) finish out the race with them! Please pray for us as a team that we would be able to disciple each other and really pour into each other in the coming days, weeks, and months!
