Hey, you.
Yes, you.
I see you, laughing, chatting with your friends. I’m talking to you as you sit in the crowd, wearing a brave smile that quite doesn’t reach your eyes. I see you making an effort to be cheerful because you don’t want to burden the people around you.
They don’t know it. They don’t know that smiling and laughing with them takes so much effort. They don’t know that you’re doing all you can to keep from crumbling. That your heart is bruised and cracked and worn out and tired. They don’t know that your laugh is louder than the rest because your pain is also bigger. That you are fragile and broken in more places than one and you don’t know what to do and you can’t fix it because you’ve tried a thousand times and it has never worked so what’s the use?
And so you sit there. And smile. And laugh. When you are actually in pieces and dying on the inside.
There are many of you. There are so many of us. We have been broken one way or the other.
Because of childhoods that failed us. Because of people who have betrayed us. Because a relationship that was going beautifully turned sour. Because the one who we thought was the love of our life left us. Because we’ve always been hoping for something to happen, dreaming our dreams, but not a single one of them has become reality. Because at some point, something happened and destroyed us, the very core of our hearts, our souls, leaving us shattered wrecks on a deserted island with nowhere to go, no one to go to.
And no matter how hard we try to patch things up, things just get worse.
So now we find ourselves stuck. Stuck in a relationship that has turned abusive. Stuck in a lifestyle that we hate and that makes us hate ourselves. Stuck in an endless cycle of what we think is a life of failures and mistakes. Stuck in despair. Stuck in hurt and pain. Stuck in bitterness, believing that nothing will ever save us, ever make us feel whole again. Stuck in thinking that there is no way to fix the brokenness.
Recently, I came across a Japanese term of art. Kintsugi—“the art of precious scars”. A form of art where the shards of broken items are pieced back together, one at a time, and held in place with gold. When the finished product is done, what used to be a pile of broken, uneven pieces is now a work of art. Yes, you can still see the cracks, but you also see the gold that holds it together, and while it may be imperfect, it is also beautiful in its unique, broken way. Kintsugi is not being afraid to admit and show your flaws. Kintsugi is wearing your scars with pride.
We are all broken—some of us may have more cracks than others, but at some point, something has happened in our lives that have hurt us and left scars in our hearts, cracks in our lives. We have learned to hide those scars, we have learned to be ashamed of them. We have learned to put on a mask so it seems that we live whole, perfect lives, when in reality, how we feel about where we are is far from the perfection we pretend to have. We have learned to become afraid of flaws, afraid of failures, afraid of imperfection, all because we have been told that they are not good to look at. That they are not attractive or flattering. That they make us look ugly.
Oh, dear heart, would you believe it if I told you that you are a beautiful creation?
Has anyone ever told you that, even in your brokenness, even in your sadness, your hurt, your seemingly dreadful state, you are beautiful?
That you, your life, may be in shards, but there is Someone who can pick it up and piece you back together? That you may see yourself as damaged and dying, but Someone sees you as beautiful and worth saving, worth rescuing?
It is your scars that make you beautiful and unique. It is your scars that make you precious, whether they are little scars that are fading away or big scars that are barely even healing. It makes you…you—a beautiful person worth saving, worth, rescuing, worth dying for. So let the Master Creator piece you back together. Allow His hands to pick up the shards of your life and your heart and put them back together. Allow Him to repair the brokenness inside you and fill your cracks with gold.