As you may have figured out by now, music runs in my veins, and it is something that speaks to my soul on a very deep and personal level. It is a means by which God communicates encouragement to me, and quite often I discover songs right at the moment I most need to hear them. This year was full of such songs, and since I listened to quite a bit of music that was released either this year or late last year, I thought it fitting to write a post on some of my top ten favourites.
The first time I heard of NEEDTOBREATHE was at a Third Day concert earlier this year where they guest starred. I was hooked by their folk rock sound, and this song’s message and rhythm in particular won my heart. As you know, I have brothers who are incredibly dear to me, one of whom was still going through a really tough time, and this song spoke nearly everything I was feeling for him. On top of this song, I also loved their live album:
Lead Us Back, Third Day
A Live Worship Experience, Casting Crowns
Blanca

Kintsukuroi -

(n.) (v. phr.) "to repair with gold"; the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken.

"The way to love someone is to lightly run your finger over that person's soul until you find a crack, and then gently pour your love into that crack.” — Keith Miller

This is why I love broken people - why I love people who hurt, who have bruised hearts and aching souls. People who are real about the pain they are in, or the struggle of life they are going through. People who cling to the cross with ferocity. People fragile and afraid, who are scared to open those hidden places of their hearts, yet have the courage to do so anyway. People who are ravenous for truth, who are transparent in their fight, and are raw in their desperate need for Jesus.

Because if I can't find any cracks in the surface... If your life is so perfect on the outside that no one knows any of your pain, or if you can't share the struggle of dying to yourself day-by-day; if a superficial image and shallow conversation is the best that can be offered... if you keep everything inside, and are so tightly closed that you are incapable of being vulnerable and raw about anything - even the things you are most passionate about - if you're as smooth and flawless as plastic... If I can't find any cracks...

...How can I love you?

The people in my life who have loved me most are those who have seen my worst: those deep recesses of my heart where nothing is pretty, but dark and afflicted. But there is something intrinsic in a shared struggle, or an honest pain. Like the gold in Kintsukuroi, a person becomes more beautiful for having revealed their hurt; opening it like a door for your own hurt to enter in. It is when we are courageously vulnerable with each other that the love of Jesus is most visible, for He loved us in this same way. He saw our pain and futile struggle and entered right into the midst of it - meeting us in our agony and taking it onto Himself. God eternal poured Himself into the deepest cracks of our humanness, and brought about the redemption of mankind in glorious victory. Are we not called to love one another in our brokenness, too? Do we have a right to hide ourselves from each other?

When was the last time you showed the cracks in your soul? When was the last time you poured yourself into someone else's?

Somehow You had a way of seeing

Just how deep my wound could go

Oh but You were never scared

To run and meet me there

And that's how I know

If you want to love someone

Search their soul for where it's broken

Find the cracks and pour your heart in

That's what You did…