by Sunset Septuagint
Are you a “cracked pot”? Does a cracked pot have value? If we have a valuable item that gets broken, do we try to mend it so that the crack shows as little as possible? Most of us would answer yes to these questions BUT some of us learned a whole different appreciation of “cracked pots” from Gabrielle Wilpers who gave an art retreat here in April. We were introduced to the Japanese Kintsugi technique which illuminates “cracks” often with brilliant gold highlights. This is similar to the philosophy of wabi-sabi which values rather than hides the marks of broken-ness.
Most of us would say we want the light of Jesus to shine through us, but we have difficulty accepting that light can only come through the “cracks”, and we do our best to hide the cracks from others and mostly from ourselves.
The value of being willing to appreciate our cracks really hit home with me the other day in a daily reading from Oswald Chambers which says, “The saint is hilarious when he is crushed with difficulties because the thing is so ludicrously impossible to anyone but God.”
Let us welcome being “cracked pots”. We have the assurance that Jesus will mend our cracks with the balm of Gilead and that they will shine as bright as the noon day sun.
