If I were not flawed in and of myself, if I were perfect, then I would be truly broken.
By Robert Bautner
This isn’t because I’m not broken (that is, flawed) in and of myself, because I am. But I’m NOT broken because I have the love of Jesus around me and within me that has healed my brokenness forever. There is nothing I can do to break apart what He has sealed together.
If I were not flawed in and of myself, if I were perfect, then I would be truly broken.
Perfection is the real brokenness. If we were perfect, then we would have no need for God, or even Jesus, for our Savior, and the great love that He uses to heal our brokenness.
We are like broken pottery. In the Japanese tradition of kintsugi, broken pottery is repaired with pure gold, which highlights the imperfections, the flaws. The Japanese see the brokenness as part of the pottery’s history instead of a problem that should be covered up. Just like trauma, the trauma we’ve experienced is part of our beauty, our history and it is to be celebrated.
This is the problem with those who say I’m not going to be around toxic people. They make judgments to sanitize their lives and the culture around them in an effort to achieve perfection. But perfection is the real evil. Like AI taken too far, where perfection is the goal, people today are so focused on ensuring absolute safety, security, and happiness that they become fascist. To believe that people can right every wrong or prevent every evil is to assert absolute control over people, and thus we lose all of our freedom.
Perfection Requires Flaws
To be free we must embrace our imperfections, our suffering, our pain, as well as our happiness and our love for each other and ourselves.
Something else occurs to me. In Japanese kintsugi, the pottery that has been repaired is still usable. It is useful. It’s not that it gets repaired and is put on a shelf. It continues to be fruitful. It is the same with us. Our brokenness doesn’t need to be fixed in order for us to be fruitful.
In our world, we spend a lot of time and money trying to fix our brokenness. I spent most of my married life in therapy, because my wife wanted to fix me. In my view, she was demanding perfection, all the while never looking in the mirror to see her own imperfections.
Therapy can be helpful, not to get rid of the brokenness but to heal it so that we can be fruitful. Therapy is the repair with gold; it is the kintsugi. It isn’t the only form of kintsugi but it is one of them. It is kintsugi because it seals our brokenness with love, specifically with God’s love, so that we can see our value and embrace our history–flaws, missing pieces and all.
Today, I encourage you to look at yourself with new eyes…
See yourself through the lens of kintsugi. See your flaws as part of your history and as a reason to celebrate. They are your forever link to your Savior. You are forever sealed with love when you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, and you never have to fear or feel ashamed of any broken or missing pieces ever again.
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