Beautiful Brokenness

Kintsugi: The Japanese art of finding beauty in broken things 

(The link above shows examples of this art.)

The following is from a friend. I hope it touches and enlightens others as it did me.

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I didn't know for sure if I could let go of perfectionism, and accept my life, my family, and my faith will never be what I thought it should be.

Then...I found my dear sweet wife.  She went through divorce like I did. She was broken like me.  She was perfect for me...not because I could try to compromise my views and just deal with it...

...but in all reality, for me...she was perfect precisely because of what she went through and how she could see me in a light others could not.

And I came across this term in my readings:

kintsukuroi - n. "to repair with gold"; the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken.

It is not simply any mended object automatically increases its appreciation but…that the gap between the vanity of pristine or perfect appearance and the fractured manifestation of mortal fate is precisely what deepens its appeal.

In other words, the proof of its fragility and its resilience is what makes it beautiful.

In every sense of the words, my wife is simply more beautiful to me because she is who she is today over and above anyone else who might have had a perfect life with no suffering ever.

This can directly apply to our testimonies of the gospel.  They can be broken. Not because we are weak. Not because we don't have enough faith.  Sometimes it is because God wants us to see that it can be mended, and afterwards never be the same...

...but better.  Precisely because we have been broken, we are better.