Cracked Pots-- True Treasure

     

Kentsugi Pot in the hands of artist Dave Jones.

     I spent an hour or more yesterday looking at the stock photos on an old photographer-friend's website. I saw picture after picture of myself on beautiful beaches all over the Caribbean, and I was (Dare I say it?) beautiful myself. And I cried over what I thought must be illusion, or at least a thing long lost. I reviewed my life for some time: happy times, fruitful times, but a great number of broken times. My body is old and broken now, too, and I wondered, "Can I still be of some use?"
      
      "As if" God had planned it, this morning's devotion took me to Hebrews 12:1-3, and told me a historical tidbit I'd never heard: that in Biblical times the real treasure of a wealthy family, the silver and gold, was hidden away in the cracked clay jars that were no longer of use in storing water, oil, or wine. Over time the clay would disintegrate, but the treasure would remain.

      Then I remembered hearing about the Japanese art of repairing broken things, called kintsugi. Wikipedia has an interesting description:  "As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise." In the master artist's hands the broken object becomes a thing of exquisite beauty.

      I can't help wondering if this cracked and decaying pot might possibly become a thing of unique beauty holding true treasure? In Your hands, dear Master, I believe it can! 

"Yet Lord, You are our Father,

we are the clay, and You are our Potter;

we all are the work of Your hands."  (Isaiah 64:8 CSB)

      "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." (2 Corinthians 4: 7-9 NIV)

"He must increase, and I must decrease."  (John 3:30)

♰