Ecc 3: 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart,

The Japanese have an art form… Kintsugi (金継ぎ?) (golden joinery). Broken objects, particularly pottery especially used for Tea Ceremony, are joined using resin dusted or mixed with gold. There is no attempt to hide the damage instead the damage is celebrated. The broken object is embraced for its flawed imperfection and is seen as more beautiful.

Jamie tells us of a tragic accident that left his hand and forearm broken and disfigured. “I was in and out of hospitals from the age of 5 to about 12.. My lowest point was trying to deal with the way I looked in high school… I hated it, I hated looking like a freak, I hated looking different”.

Imperfection and damage physically grew into brokenness spiritually and emotionally. Jamie:  "Who is Jamie Coyle? Is he a freak, Is he what this (his hand) looks like, ugly and a mess."

Jamie asks the question that is mostly unspoken in many people’s lives? Who am I? Am I broken, worthless, irreparable, unloved and un-loveable. The internet is awash with videos and images of people young and old asking the same question?
Who am I? Am I pretty? Am I able to be loved? Am I of worth?

Sometimes we find truth in the most unexpected places like the gold resin in the seams of a broken piece of pottery. In the book of Nehemiah, the broken people of God are rebuilding the walls of the city. Sanballat the Samarian hurls insults at them.. Neh 4 2b What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, and burned ones at that?

The broken walls of the city represent more than bricks and mortar, they are a snap shot of the people and of the way God rebuilds things. You see they don’t go and get new beautiful square blocks, rather the new wall is built from the rubble of the old. Rubbish stones, burnt ones, broken ones. Here is the great truth:- God builds his wall, his temple out of the same burnt and broken stones.

1 Peter 2: 4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Jamie; “The way I tried to pursue fulfillment was in trying to be something, when I was 16 I started surfing (knee boarding). I fell in love with the sport… I found a culture that would accept me if I did my craft really well…so I invested myself so much in that sport….. but I would lay on my pillow at night and still feel crap about myself.”

Jamie: “Christian Surfers showed me a real, a true and an authentic picture of who Jesus is… and He would say to me, 'Jamie I love you for who you are not what you can do', 'Jamie I can take your brokenness and turn it into something incredible'.”
Jesus is speaking to us all, “I can take your brokenness and turn it into something beautiful.”

Like the Japanese bowls and the broken wall of Jerusalem.  God brings beauty out of brokenness; strength out of weakness; joy out of sorrow; light out of darkness and His Glory out of our Lives.

2 Cor 12: 9b .. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Written by Andrew Carruthers - Narrow Path Media

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