I got this photo, awhile back, of a Japanese bowl that has clearly been broken at some point in the past, and the pieces put back together. But instead of using crazy glue, like I would have done, in hopes that the cracks would be unnoticeable, this has been mended with gold and lacquer so that the shining veins encircle the bowl like a vine growing. I’m still trying to get my head around it.

The caption described the custom originating in the 15th century, and the legend accompanying it of the ruler (sometimes an emperor, sometimes a general) whose favorite bowl was dropped by a careless servant. But whatever mix of practicality and artistry inspired kintsukuroi, it is the philosophy behind the pottery that sticks with me. When household objects show the wear of age and use, and even when they crack right open, they are not discarded as useless. In the hands of the Japanese artists, mending makes them whole and beautiful, and stronger than before. I can appreciate that perspective, because most of my home is furnished in handed-down furniture and antiques. But when it comes to my own life, it definitely doesn’t seem it should be that way. Some days my life feels like it’s nothing but cracked refuse– shabby and worn and ordinary, and beyond usefulness. All I can see are the cracks, and if I could mend them quickly and never think about them again, I would be perfectly happy with that. Spotlight them in gold? Yeah, right.

But there is that old pottery piece in the picture, and the gold looks like a living river of light running through. I would not be the first to see the spiritual symbolism in kintsukuroi pottery. The parallel is clear between clay pottery and people, between gold and the power of the Cross, between human artists and the Creator. What takes my breath is the reasoning: that cracks and chips aren’t flaws…brokenness isn’t failure…aging and imperfections are not loss. Their marks are history and meaning and time spent. They are a visible proof of presence in this world, the result of fragile pottery impacting its environment in some small way. All these losses, the bangs and dents that I tend to mourn in life, seen as beautiful simply because they are life. “They are not something to conceal or be ashamed of because they remind us what it means to be human.” The simple caption almost makes me weep. To be human means to be flawed, and bound to break, and longing for wholeness in this very temporary life. And I know that the only reason the broken even could be beautiful is because the Creator picks up the pieces and mends it with His own hands. The cracks are an opportunity for something more than clay to enter in and change the way things are…all these flaws visibly filled in by His own shining glory.

It is exactly what Paul was talking about in his own life when he said “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.” (2 Corinthians 12:9b-10) If you look up content in the dictionary, it does not only mean to satisfy or fulfill. It also means to hold in, to contain, to limit oneself in desires. And I can see how Paul’s joy over his brokenness has more to do with what he wants than what he has. When you can say in complete honesty “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” (Philippians 3:8) then you will treasure anything that brings Christ near, even the hard things that batter and press. Narrow down your human desires and dreams to this one thing, and it is easier to be fulfilled: “…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in his death.” (Philippians 3:10) This is the proper use for a fragile piece of pottery: to show the marks of a real and ordinary life, and all its flaws to be made beautiful by the Great Artist. I can hear Jesus promising the crowds following Him: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)

As one writer noted of the kintsukuroi bowl from legend: “One might almost say the true life of the bowl … began the moment it was dropped.” (Christy Bartlett, A Tearoom View of Mended Ceramics) And here I sit, the pieces of my life held up to You, with amazing grace flowing down all around.

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“We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.” (2 Corinthians 4:7)

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“All these pieces,
Broken and scattered,
In mercy gathered,
Mended and whole.
Empty handed,
But not forsaken,
I’ve been set free,
I’ve been set free.

Amazing grace,
How sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost,
But now I’m found,
Was blind but now I see.

Oh I can see it now…
Oh I can see the love in Your eyes–
Laying Yourself down,
Raising up the broken to life…”
(Broken Vessels, Hillsong)

We chose matching Mother-Daughter necklaces the Summer before she got married. It was my pre-wedding gift to her, as a token of our special relationship through the years: a silver heart with Faith, Hope, Love engraved on it. I liked it because it captured the faith-storms we had weathered together, and the closeness we shared because of it. She liked it because she said it expressed the essence of the gospel that could transcend any cultural boundaries. Faith in Christ Jesus for salvation; the Hope of the resurrection; Love lived out to others. It surprised me at the time, because I had never thought of those three qualities in such a way, but the idea slowly took root.

I always thought it curious how Paul plucks those particular qualities out of thin air and establishes them as eternal bedrock (although he, of all people, should be qualified to see them in the Spirit’s light): “Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13) There are many worthwhile qualities to cultivate, and while these three are admirable, why are they the best? But my daughter’s observation about the gospel stirred my curiosity; what if that were the reason Paul chose those three concepts? What if he were distilling the basic principles of their faith in Christ into an easily remembered creed for the young churches? His insistence to the Galatians that since Christ has come all their debating about the merits of circumcision mean nothing, leaps off the page: “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” (Galatians 5:6) Faith in Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life is the only way to salvation, and love is the proof and tangible manifestation of a person saved from sin and death. Hope for the future is implied as the motivation for their transformation. Everything else is just details.

I began to pay attention to how often Faith, Hope, and Love show up as related themes, especially in Paul’s writing, and the scrap paper I was using soon filled up. To Paul, this was clearly the essence of Christianity, and a well-recognized message in the early church. Scholars in the modern world often call these the theological virtues (as opposed to moral virtues which any man can cultivate and exercise) because they come only from God. Faith, hope, and love are purely a gift of God’s grace. To the early church they were the new guidelines for living as Christ-followers, in sharp contrast to the Law the Jews had followed for centuries.

From a practical perspective, Paul’s repeated theme reminds me of the values we often repeat in our own Church Family, the familiar phrases that call us back into focus, reinforce why we are here, help us do the hard things. We put our trust in a real and powerful God, and live out that faith with our choices in the everyday, even when it is hard and lonely. We build relationships as real people who refuse to wear masks, willing to lay up grace and kindness because God first loved us. We do this because of our hope– in the Christ who promised to come back for us, in the eternal Home that waits for us, in the resurrection of this faltering clay body. All of us wear Faith, Hope, Love around our necks and bind them to our hearts– it is what makes us who we are.

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“Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all.”
(Ephesians 4:2-6)

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“You can do this thing — because you were made to do hard and holy things.
You are always enough — because You have Jesus and He is always enough.
You don’t have to get it perfect — you just have to get back up and keep going.”
(Ann VosKamo)

There are all these circumstances we can get stuck in, no matter how much we chafe hard against them; and doing-our-best isn’t always enough to change what is, and what is not. We wait for answers to our prayers, and wait for relationships to change, and sorrows to fade, and doors to open…all these things that we cannot affect. And I see the birds hunching down against the cold gray sky, and think how we are like that sometimes– as if we could wall out what hurts and just bend our backs under the weight, hold out till the skies turn blue again.

Maybe this holiday of Thanksgiving comes just at the right time to remind us of what is truly needful. Right when the brilliance of Fall turns dull and bare, and the earth is settling into Winter (right when we could lose a grip on  hope… let it blow away with the last of the leaves), there is this reminder that the giving of thanks is still appropriate. The Musician-King sang it thousands of years ago, left his testimony for us: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” (Psalm 118:1) It’s all a matter of perspective, and when we look at the right things, this season may be very short after all.  “As for man, his days are like grass…the wind blows over it and it is gone….But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children…” (Psalm 103:15-17) Fasten our eyes on what truly lasts, and the present circumstances show up fleeting in the light of eternity.

In many ways, giving thanks is our banner proclaiming allegiance to the King– the way we display our surrender to His will and His timing–even when we are tired of waiting. Giving thanks is a kind of offering laid on the altar of worship, our statement of trust that He is still at work and He is still good. It is an act of obedience, not just emotion. The church-planter Paul told the long-ago believers to “…pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18) But he is just as quick to point out that it is for our own benefit, because when we pour out our hearts in prayer and thanksgiving, “…the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7)  Giving thanks is our shield raised against discouragement and resignation, a weapon to beat back the darkness.

Maybe if we raise our heads brave against the wind and spend this season thanks-giving, we will find a joy we had not expected in these circumstances…and there is always hope. “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” (Psalm 27:13-14)

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“No matter what we’re facing, there are always only two roads: thanksgiving to God or dismissing of God.” (Ann VosKamp)

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“When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord; He brought me into a spacious place. The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? The Lord is with me; He is my helper.” (Psalm 118:5-7)

We aren’t really comfortable with the idea that God sent His people out into the wilderness and let them be hungry and lost and tired on purpose. Maybe it was just the divine oversight of an Almighty Being who was busy spinning the planets in their orbits and hadn’t time for a few hundred thousand men, women, and children trying to make their way through the desert. But that isn’t any better at all, and if we cling to the belief that He is a personal and present God, then we are stuck with the inescapable facts recorded in Deuteronomy by Moses so that they would all remember: “God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you…and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know…that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone.” (Deuteronomy 8:3-4) Though the lack of faith and the complaining were their own, the consequences were of His choosing and for His purposes.

And although we like to comfort ourselves with the platitude that God only gives us what we can handle, the experience of the desert wanderers is a sharp contradiction, a wake-up call to the self-satisfied– who can handle wandering lost with no home, looking for food and water in the endless wilderness for four decades, watching an entire generation of loved ones die, one by one? It is tragedy unmeasurable, and the only answer is that His purposes for us are so much bigger than we can see, so much more than we want for ourselves. We want to be happy; He wants us to be holy. We want our lives to be good; He wants us to live forever. “…Know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son.” (8:5) 

But if all we see is the barren loss, we are missing the most important part of the story, the miracle that met them new every day.

Moses makes God’s intentions plain toward His Chosen People, that He wanted to break their stubborn self-reliance, their ideas of what life should be like and what they should have, till all they had was Him. And He Himself fed them with grain from Heaven, and made water spring from rocks, and kept their clothes from wearing out through all those long years, the shoes on their wandering feet whole, watched over them every moment, to show them that He was utterly dependable and faithful. He was Deliverer, Provider, Lover, and King– the I AM who was everything they needed. There in the desert, with the distractions and pleasantries of life stripped away, the choices became simple: Trust or not….Obey or not….Follow or not. Till they weren’t looking at the food or their feet any more at all, but only at Him. Till they could sing with all their hearts, “I am continually with You; You hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward You will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:23-26)

In the end I wonder if we would ever trade the visible, personal power of God in the desert places for forty years of an unremarkable life of routine and safe pursuits. It’s only a matter of time anyway, because all of this life must be shaken and torn clean away, till we can see it for the temporary Shadowland that it is, if we are going to step into the everlasting Reality of God’s presence.

We aren’t entirely comfortable thinking about a God who leads people into the barren places, who takes away what we know and cling to (even if it be a kind of slavery), who allows grief and pain in our lives to humble us and teach us. But He Is Who He Is and there is a clarity and simplicity in the desert that those who wander can learn to value. And His purposes are always good. The prophets remind us of God’s true-love promises… “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.'” (Jeremiah 29:11)…. “‘Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed,
yet My unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor My covenant of peace be removed,’  says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” (Isaiah 54:10)

May all our wanderings lead us straight to God.

“This means that all of creation will be shaken and removed, so that only unshakable things will remain. Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe.” (Hebrews 12:27-28)

“What if Your blessings come through raindrops?
What if Your healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near?
What if my greatest disappointments,
Or the aching of this life, 
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy?
What if trials of this life– the rain, the storms, the hardest nights–
Are Your mercies in disguise?”
(Blessings, Laura Story)

Deuteronomy 8:2-3

I usually know what is going on inside me. And if I don’t, the work of finding the right words helps me to understand.

Seems like lately whenever I sit down to write there are too many feelings, words tangled up inside pushing to get out in no particular order and much too raw-edged to share. So I end up staring at the screen and writing nothing. Not that I feel the need to show something better, to hide what’s going on inside behind a row of properly yellow ducks. Just this inability to sort through the jumble to find the words, right now, and waiting for something to change.

For me, writing has always been a way to process life– to attach words to emotions and perceptions gives them shape, orders them into patterns that reveal meaning, connects them to bigger concepts and ideas. But it is the processing that is getting stuck. And I don’t even know what I need; can’t put a finger on whether the difficulty is a matter of too much, or not enough, the wrong direction, or the wrong thing altogether…maybe we are all like that at times. Sleeping Beauty lying unaware in a tower for a hundred years, till the Prince comes to awaken her.

But You know my heart, Lord, and You know what I need. And when I am at a loss for words You promised to pray for me, Your Spirit helping me, Everlasting Arms to carry me. And in this again You stoop to my weakness, that You would groan without words for my own wordless needs. “Test me, LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind; for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.” (Psalm 26:2-3) You know my days and You know the change I am waiting for, even though I do not. And somehow I feel sure that when I awake, it will be to the sight of Your unfailing love.

“In death, In life, I’m confident and
covered by the power of Your great love
My debt is paid, there’s nothing that can
separate my heart from Your great love…”
(One Thing Remains, Jesus Culture)

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” (Romans 8:26-27)

I’m listening to her talk as we all work out this morning, these good women from various church backgrounds, except that I happen to know her faith is a personal one. “I told God that whatever He decides is fine with me,” she says quietly. “I know He will do what’s best.” The others shake their heads in sympathy; I slant a smile for her courage, small offering to a wife nursing a second husband through cancer. She looks tired today, but she is here to exercise. The feet keep moving and voices intermingle with the upbeat music, and she is speaking her list of thanksgiving: an air conditioner in the apartment, a good breakfast, a daughter coming to visit for the holiday…

It seems hard to me that God would ask her to go through this loss again– hasn’t she suffered enough? Learned enough? The others are still talking, her praises still threading through, and when she says she will stay and take care of him herself, whatever it takes, I think maybe this isn’t about her learning  or growing anything.  Maybe it’s about her giving what she has already learned– blessing two men with her faithful love and willing service, sharing her faith and courage with these watching friends. And she is still offering up her reasons to praise God, all her reasons to hope and keep on going because He is with her: some days are almost pain-free, a new pill to help with nausea, God hears our prayers…

My heart can’t help but add to her list of reasons, because if she can praise where she is, how can the rest of us not? …strawberry sundaes, a night of rest, pink and purple flowers spilling out of a big pot, fireworks, coffee in the morning air, school loans paid off, meaningful work to do… This remembering is like breathing for our souls– drawing in acknowledgement of the Giver and pouring out thanksgiving– a litany of everyday praise that battles against depression and worry and fear. This choice to give thanks is a kind of spiritual discipline, the exercise that moves our hearts close to the Father in childlike trust, our minds to bow before the Creator. It is grace you can learn to see in the desert places: the sun and rain that fall on everyone, and daily bread. “The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning; It’s time to sing Your song again. Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me, Let me be singing when the evening comes….” (Matt Redman)

When I stop to stretch, change clothes and head out for the day, she waves goodbye from out on the floor, and I think how she shines without even knowing it, and how praise transfigures the most difficult things. And how we could spend our whole lives and not run out of reasons to give thanks.

“Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits…. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed– he remembers that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:2, 10-14)

“You’re rich in love, and You’re slow to anger,
Your name is great, and Your heart is kind;
For all Your goodness I will keep on singing,
Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
O my soul;
Worship His holy name.
Sing like never before,
O my soul;
I’ll worship Your holy name”
(10,000 Reasons, Matt Redman)