Beauty In Brokenness

Lucy Holt

'being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion'
(Philippians 1:6)

In the summer, in an art gallery, I saw a kintsugi vase. I've read about this form of Japanese art before, and spoken about it in assembly. It's a way of repairing very precious ceramic.

Rather than throwing away the beautiful but broken object, it is repaired using gold as a glue to hold the pieces together. The final piece with its intricate structure of golden lines is a combination of the original planned pattern and the broken pieces which have just happened. It is more beautiful than the original.

Themes of brokenness; the unexpected damage to things, people & plans run through every kind of story and media. There are plenty in the Bible, classic literature & modern soap operas.

In 2 Corinthians 4:7 we are described as having:

‘this treasure in jars of clay to show this surpassing great power is from God and not us.’

The contrast between ordinariness and beauty gives us permission to embrace our messiness, while still hoping for something better.

Leonard Cohen's 'Anthem' has one of the most quoted references to accepting our imperfections outside of the Bible:

'Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in'

Feeling broken can certainly be painful.
Most of us hold so many pieces to who we are: partner, friend, parent, colleague. It is painful when the pieces of who we are, are pulled in different directions and we can't 'do it all.'

There is certainly a comfort in being able to admit our imperfections, and to believe we can heal from pain and move forwards. This is central to the gospel to me, there are so many stories of real people hitting hard times and then finding out the best part of their story was still to come.

We are studying the book of Philippians at church and it's one of my favourite books of the Bible, because it's hopeful but not in a way which ignores pain. Paul wrote from prison, but his writing is full of joy.

In chapter 1 verse 6 we see this contrast straight away: we are allowed to be a work in progress, and to celebrate that. God has begun a good work, whether we are at the stage of growing, breaking or healing.
God is not finished with us, but always has a next step.