He Repairs With Gold

image found here

The idea that we can be better off for our brokenness is a hard concept to grasp while we are 

surviving the threshing floor called suffering.

The thought that He can use it for our good and His glory- is just slightly overwhelming.

But the scriptures tell us this very thing. Found in the eighth chapter of the book of Romans.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and who have been called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28

I have both experienced it and wrestled with it.

Sharing my heart with the Creator of heaven and earth, that there is no way, that any of this is going to be used for good. 

This.

The thing that catches our breath and causes us to feel deep grief and sorrow and pain from the sheer thought of it. 

The things that have happened that cause us to be bent over double emotionally. 

We couldn't make it right if we tried. And oh how we've tried. 

But He can.

He makes good on all of it.

Actually he makes it all gold.

When we hand over the cadence we've constructed within our own lives and stop trying to heal our own brokennenss with our own definitions of healing and attempts at trying to right the wrongs...when we surrender to Him.

He repairs with gold.

And in exchange we walk away with healed brokenness and freedom.

I learned that the Japenese have an art form for this.

It is called Kintsukuroi or Kintsugi.

It means this, "To repair with gold."

Image from Etsy shop here

I cannot tell you how much I love this.

I hope to find a special piece like this one day, to display as a stone of remembrance. A reminder of His healing power.  A testimony of how He works even our brokenness together for our good and His glory. 

For all of those who are wondering how on earth any of the suffering you are currently walking through could ever be used for any good at all...wondering if any of the suffering will ever make any sense...the hope is that the truth of His word will bring encouragement.  

There is a high value placed on brokenness.

As a people, we are cracked and broken with unmet needs and unhealed hurts. Our hearts are held together with hopelessness and despair. We are surviving circumstances and situations and disease and illnesses that require of us that which we never imagined.

There are marriages that ache so much it hurts to even breathe. There are families that are ripped apart with offense and unforgiveness. There are friendships and relationships and business partnerships where evil and wrong doing and hidden motives were the intention from the start and we are left feeling betrayed, to say the very least. There are the hard things that we carry every day that we can't even talk about because it is just too painful.

We ache with the weight of it all.

And we are all cracked in one way or another.

Somehow we still have to do life. We still need to work and provide and hold our families together...

But there is a high value placed on brokenness in God's word and His word is a healing balm.

He is a God who heals. Who restores. Who renews. Who offers us an imaginable recompense.

Thankfully, He tells us that He will make it all gold.

Our God is the original mastermind behind the art of Kintsukuroi.

We have to surrender our broken pieces and unfair things to Him.

It is time sweet friends.

And watch as the Master repairs with gold...and makes us more beautiful for it.

"Then He brought them out with silver and gold. And among His tribes there was not one who stumbled." Psalms 105:37

"You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The ruby, the topaz, the diamond; The beryl, the onyx, the jasper; The lapis lazuli, the turquoise and the emerald; 

And the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets, was in you. On the day that you were created, they were prepared." Ezekiel 28:13

"And I will bring the third part through the fire, refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will answer them; I will say, 'They are My people,' and they will say, 'The Lord is my God.' "  Zechariah 13:9

"He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness." Malachi 3:3

"So that they proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 

1 Peter 1:7

"But He knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold." Job 23:10

"Instead of your shame you will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace you will rejoice in your inheritance. And so you will inherit a double portion in your land, and everlasting joy will be yours." Isaiah 61:7

"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. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. " 2 Corinthians 4:7-10