Beauty in the Brokenness

August 17, 2023

From Pastor Eileen States

Yet You, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64:8

There are many pictures that come to mind when I read the words of Isaiah about God as a potter and we, the clay He is working with in order to make us into a vessel to be used for His purpose.

The potter has every intention of making something of use out of each lump of clay he works with. After carefully choosing the clay, a potter turns the wheel as he forms the clay into something functional and often even beautiful.

The turning of the wheel could be likened to the changing circumstances in our lives day by day and year by year. Jeremiah 18:4 says, But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over.

How often does it seem as if circumstances in our lives are not turning out the way we had hoped? Every one of us has some form of brokenness in our past. Perhaps we are grieving from a broken heart, complicated situations, loss of health, or relationships. Whether it’s from choices we have made or circumstances beyond our control, sometimes we find ourselves so profoundly broken that we don’t know how things could ever be restored.

I trust the Master Potter, and because I trust Him, I take courage from the verses listed above. I trust God to keep working with me (this lump of clay) even in the brokenness. God is in the business of making beauty out of brokenness.

Have you ever heard of Kintsugi? Kintsugi is the art of repairing something that has been broken with gold, with the understanding that the object is more beautiful because it has been broken. Like the art of kintsugi, God repairs the brokenness in our lives and makes us more beautiful through the process.

And for those of you feeling healthy and whole right now, maybe God needs to use you in His work of restoring beauty into the lives of those who are broken. Let’s open ourselves up to being molded and shaped for His kingdom purposes.