Kintsukuroi

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,

A broken and a contrite heart--

These, O God, You will not despise.

- Psalm 51:17

He heals the brokenhearted

And binds up their wounds.

- Psalm 147:3

For I will restore health to you

And heal you of your wounds, says the Lord

Because they called you an outcast saying:

This is Zion;

No one seeks her.

- Jeremiah 30:17

If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, 

and do that which is right in His eyes,

and give ear to His commandments,

and keep all His statutes,

I will put none of the diseases on you

that I put on the Egyptians,

for I am the LORD, your healer.

- Exodus 15:26

kintsukuroi - n.

lit. golden repair

the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with lacquer resin dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, a method similar to the maki-e technique

(Source: Wikipedia)






I came across a beautiful post on Facebook a few days ago. It was about the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery, called kintsukuroi.

It deeply touched my heart for it is such a beautiful picture of how Abba Father heals our brokenness.

As a philosophy, kintsukuroi speaks to brokenness and repair becoming part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

I have been thinking a lot about this the past days, and the possibilities of being made beautiful, even after being shattered and smashed to pieces by the painful events of life, just blows my mind away.

Not a single piece will be discarded from our lives when the hand of the Potter begins to repair our brokenness.

It is a process.

I can imagine that in heaven, our wounds will not be hidden, but will be displayed with splendor, because the healed and restored portions of our lives will be glorious to behold.

Abba Father promises to restore all the years that the locust has eaten.

This has a literal fulfillment here on earth, and an eternal fulfillment for each one of us, in heaven.

What a glorious day that will be! Another reason for me to look forward to heaven!

The moon will shine like the sun,

and the sunlight will be seven times brighter,

like the light of seven full days,

when the LORD binds up the bruises of His people

and heals the wounds He inflicted.

- Isaiah 30:26

My Sabbath Musings:The Aaronic Blessing

The Priestly Blessing

The Aaronic Blessing, Birkat Kohanim in Hebrew, is the priestly blessing recited by the Jewish priestly class, as commanded by God in Numbers 6:22-27.

And the Lord spoke to Moses saying:

"Speak to Aaron and to his sons saying,

In this way you will bless the children of Israel, saying to them,

'The Lord will bless you and He will keep you.

The Lord will make His face to shine upon you

and He will be gracious to you.

The Lord will lift His countenance to you

and He will establish Shalom for you.

And they will put My name upon the children of Israel

and I will bless them."

(One New Man Bible)

Reading it in English translated from the Hebrew is different from understanding it in the Hebrew language.

We look at the words bless... keep... face... shine... gracious... countenance... peace, and we understand them only in abstract terms.

The Hebrew alphabet is pictorial, and each picture refers to a concrete idea.

I came across an amazing blog (Christina Chronicles) that opened up my understanding of this blessing in a whole new way.

Here are flashcards for the Blessing and its meaning in Hebrew:

The LORD will bless you

and He will keep you

The LORD will make His face

shine

upon you / to you

He will be gracious to you

He will lift up

His countenance

to you / upon you

and give you (establish)

shalom 

Putting all these pictorial language together, we come up with an amazing, powerful blessing:

YHWH, the head of the house with His own work strengthens His own hand

By His work He binds and overpowers the destroyer using the authority in His hand

YHWH, the Chief Ruler, secures life and order, His teaching strengthens, His work secures the hedge, strengthening life

YHWH's strong pressing hand lifts up, His work adds living utterance,

He strengthens authority, His hand destroys chaos,

His authority covers, destroying the authority attached to chaos.

The flashcards used in this post were downloaded from Christina Chronicles.

Those Who Sow in Tears...

Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy,

He who continually goes forth weeping,

Bearing seed for sowing,

Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,

Bringing his sheaves with him.

- Psalm 126:5-6

It's a cool and quiet Wednesday morning.

It's almost daybreak... 

Another day is upon us.

Already the promise of God's word fills my heart with so much hope, joy, and assurance.

These past months I have seen God working steadily to show me some answers to prayers that I have sown in tears.

There is a coming harvest of answered prayers. Thank you, Abba Father.

He who continually goes forth weeping,

Bringing seed for sowing,

Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,

Bringing his sheaves with him.

Here's a beautiful song by Esther Mui on Psalm 126:

My Sabbath Musings: A Sabbath Heart

Thou shalt remember the sabbath day, to sanctify it.

- Exodus 20:8 (Jubilee Bible)

A beautiful quote from Mark Buchanan's book The Rest of God:

Before we keep a Sabbath day, we cultivate a Sabbath heart. 

A Sabbath heart sanctifies time. 

This is not ritual. 

It's a perspective. 

And it's not a shift in circumstances.... 

But you make a deliberate choice to shift point of view, 

to come at your circumstances from a fresh angle 

and with greater depth of field. 

You choose to see your life otherwise, 

through a different lens, 

from a different standpoint, 

with a different mind-set. 

The root of the Hebrew word for "sanctify" means "to betroth." 

It is to pledge marriage. 

It is to choose to commit yourself, all of yourself, 

to this man or this woman, 

and then to honor that commitment in season and in out. 

Sanctifying time works the same way. 

You pledge to commit yourself, all of yourself, 

to this time, 

and then you honor that commitment 

whether it's convenient or not.

...Sabbath is time sanctified, time betrothed, 

time we perceive and receive and approach differently from all other time. 

Sabbath time is unlike every and any other time

 on the clock and the calendar. 

We are more protective of it and generous with it. 

We become more ourselves in the presence of Sabbath: 

more vulnerable, less afraid. 

More ready to confess, 

to be silent, 

to be small, 

to be valiant.

There is no day in all creation that can banish our aloneness, 

even while meeting us in it, 

like this day.

My Sabbath Musings: Pilgrimage

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out

to the place which he would receive as an inheritance.

And he went out, not knowing where he was going.

By faith he dwelt in the land of promise

as in a foreign country,

dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob,

the heirs with him of the same promise;

for he waited for the city which has foundations,

whose builder and maker is God.

- Hebrews 11:8-10

To move outside the comfort zone is something Abba Father has asked me to do time and time again.

Just when something gets too comfortable for me, I get the nudge to fold up my tent and move on. 

Not in a literal way of course.

But just the inner discontent, the longing for something new, or something more.

Our God... He knows just how prone our hearts are to settle down.

But Abba Father wants us to taste what it is like to live in a tent where there is no sense of permanence. 

Because really, permanence is not His plan for us.

He created us for pilgrimage, a holy restlessness... a seeking for the deeper things of God.

Indeed, our hearts are restless until they find true rest in God alone.