At a traditional Jewish wedding, after the vows are said and rings are exchanged, the groom is handed a piece of glass (usually a wine glass) wrapped in a cloth and he sets it on the floor and steps on it, shattering the contents into hundreds of pieces. The whole idea behind this tradition is not being able to undo what has been done.
Sometimes we feel like that shattered glass. We feel broken into hundreds of pieces that are scattered and near impossible to put back together. These pieces are broken. Stepped on. Smashed. Ugly. Our past breaks us. Our current situation maybe chipping away at us making those shards of glass even more fragmented.
We feel completely broken and unable to be put back together. Whether it was something we did years ago, or something we did an hour ago. Life breaks us down. Sin chips away at us. Shattering us into millions of pieces. Sin tricks us into thinking that these pieces can never be put back together.
But then, God.
God takes these broken pieces shattered into disarray and puts them back together in beautiful ways.
Japanese culture has an art form that is called Kintsugi. It’s the art of fixing broken things, such as pottery, with a gold lacquer. The shattered pieces are put together bound by a golden glue to make that once which is broken, whole again. This process is from this idea that instead of making a broken piece of pottery back to its original form; it is transformed into something that is more beautiful than the piece to begin with. This golden lacquer shows this history of the piece, no longer one of brokenness, but one of its identity through recreation.
That is the message of the Gospel my friends!
This is what God does with our spirits. We are broken down by the things of this world. Crushed. God picks up all of the pieces puts them back together. Not in a way where we don’t see the brokenness, but a way where He is glorified through it.
Isn’t that the point of our testimonies? So that we may acknowledge our brokenness, but show the cracks with the golden glue that is God. The message of the Gospel is acknowledging that we are broken but made whole again through God.
Our brokenness is not erased, but it is put back together to make us whole again. The shattered pieces of our lives cannot be simply stuck back together and hidden by the “dry clear” Elmer’s Glue. We are put back together, but only because God can make something beautiful out of something ugly.
Our restoration comes from God and the truth of His salvation in our lives, and it is no longer shattered, but one of a radiant sheen.
Psalm 51:12 “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”
