Cracked Souls

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…

Jason Gray

Share this:

6 comments:

  1. * nods * All I can say is.....very well said. :) xo

    ReplyDelete
  2. how can we love God?
    where is the crack to which we may fill love with love?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. God is love, we can't love without His love in us. Loving God is merely returning to Him what He first gave to us.

      Delete

Please feel free to share your thoughts. I would love to hear your perspective. Let's learn from each other.