Beauty in the Brokenness

I love Kintsugi.

My mom bought me a piece of this incredibly meaningful Japanese art several years ago because the message behind the art spoke truth so deeply to me. The thought behind it is that when the places where we have been broken are put back together with gold, they are stronger and more beautiful than before the breakage.

Unfortunately, brokenness is required to experience this unique kind of strength and beauty.

When my youngest son was in high school, one night during a football game he was hit hard. I had that “Mom-knowing” of something being terribly wrong, and my heart pounding in my ears confirmed that with every beat.

The short story is that his jaw was broken. He went through surgery to wire his jaw shut, and for seven long weeks every meal was ingested awkwardly through a straw. He was barely able to talk, very hard to understand when he did, and required to stay very still so as not to jolt his body and cause further problems. Being still was not an easy task for an overly active guy who was jumping off the roof onto the trampoline at 5 years old. (No, he did not have permission.)

The dark places our emotions sometimes take us when we feel all alone can be very scary.

Perhaps you have felt that through losses of your own.

But that isn’t the end of the story.

The day he got the wires cut off he was so excited because he just knew the surgeon would say he could get back into the game. I was convinced otherwise and couldn’t have been more shocked to hear the surgeon say it would be stronger now than before it was broken because of blah blah blah blah blah. I don’t even remember the explanation. I just remember the joy on my son’s face (along with the glance of I told you so) and my sudden awareness that there was no stopping him now.

It is the same with our hearts. When we have breakage and heal, our hearts are stronger and more beautiful than before the breakage. The problem is, too often we don’t allow for healing. We let pride or stubbornness or a host of other expressions of pain drive us away from the very things that replace the broken places with gold.

Don’t let strength and beauty go untapped.

Address the wounds with courage, confidence, humility, and authenticity.

Watch brokenness become beautiful. More beautiful than before. Or perhaps for the very first time.

When we have breakage and heal, our hearts are stronger and more beautiful than before the breakage. The problem is, too often we don’t allow for healing. #healinghearts Click To Tweet

Brenda is a believer in impossible possibilities. In brokenness becoming beautiful. In justice and mercy and honor and power – with love perfecting them all. She is a wife, mom, mimi, daughter, and friend who also enjoys speaking, writing, and coaching.