Ever gone through something that has left you feeling broken? Maybe you feel like you’ve been shattered into tiny pieces. Maybe you’re trying to stop the cracks appearing in your life from getting worse? When we’re feeling broken, we can feel useless, worthless, and ashamed. The psalmist felt like this; he wrote: ‘I am like a piece of a broken pot. I am forgotten as if I were dead.’ Broken pots aren’t very useful. Pots are supposed to hold things, but if they’re broken or cracked then they can’t fulfil their purpose. They become ignored, hidden away at the back of a cupboard, or thrown out and replaced with something new. This broken pot analogy is used a number of times in the book of Jeremiah. He wrote: ‘Jehoiachin is like a broken pot someone threw away; he is like something no one wants’ (Jeremiah 22:28 NCV). We can sometimes feel that we’re broken beyond repair, cast aside, and unwanted. Maybe we even feel that God can’t use us because we’re too broken, and our lives are too much of a mess. But God’s close to those who are broken. The Bible says: ‘The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and he saves those whose spirits have been crushed’ (Psalm 34:18 NCV). He doesn’t abandon us when we’re broken, He comes close to us. We might feel like hiding our broken pieces, but He wants to come and bring beauty from them. The Japanese have a tradition called kintsugi, where they mend their broken pottery using gold. This not only makes the pottery useable again, but it also increases its worth. When we let God into our brokenness, He reminds us how much we’re worth to Him. And He can turn everything that’s been broken into something beautiful. 

What Now?

Find something in your house which is broken or damaged. See if there’s any way that you can repair it, or take it to someone who can.