A beautiful metaphor for life.... as I study my my classroom psychology class, I can across an interesting article that I felt has eternal ramifications....
https://positivepsychology.com/teaching-resilience/
It examines the art of Kintsugi, which is using gold laquer to join previously broken pots.
"the golden cracks represent the worth of the bowl because of its imperfections rather than in spite of them. The bowl is like a human, cracked by the contingency of life.
The gold endows the pot with unassailable beauty, uniqueness, and strength. Kintsugi and wabi-sabi can teach Western culture about the process of becoming oneself.
There is a lesson for embracing failures and experiences that crack our spirit. How do we turn those life cracks into gold?"
I was asked on Sunday about the trial of losing our little house in 2010. We felt good about upsizing and had several offers on our house, only to lose the sale of the house the day after be had closed on our larger one. We couldn't resell our home, because of a drop in the market (there was an incentive for 1st-time home buyers that had just expired, drying up our market). This was a time of trial for me. I lost 30 pounds in a months and couldn't feed my new baby (Ben). Gary started working as an intern, which means he was never home, I couldn't stop teaching piano lessons, We were stuck in this situation for 3-years.
Elder Holland's words for his October 2013 general conference talk directly describe my situation at this time, "At one point in our married life when financial fears collided with staggering fatigue, I took a psychic blow that was as unanticipated as it was real. "
I struggled for a long time with God's hand in this.....why when I was doing my best, why I was so financially careful about everything in my life, when I didn't need a new house, I was only moving forward with faith, that this would happen to me.
I have gone back and forth with the reasons, but this I will tell you. I felt all alone with no support, this trial was curtailed to me. Gary couldn't support me, he was working 100+ hours a week, my job teaching piano lessons, and 3 little children where all consuming and fatiguing. My family lived 1000 miles away.
I came to know my Savior during that time. It was dark, and I felt that He was in that darkness with me. I would like to say that it got better, but it didn't for a while, the overwhelming weight was constant and present for 3 years until we sold the house and the financial burden was gone.
I believe the my broken vessel cracked a little.
When asked Sunday night about that experience, I look back and think that if I hadn't gone through that.....the only really hard thing in my life to that point, when the next major trial came along....and it did... I wouldn't have been quite prepared in the same way to handle it spiritually. For me it was not the study and learning, but the school of experience that made the atonement real.
Perhaps these hard, unfair things, that leave us broken, which allow the Savior to come in and mend the cracks with Gold lacquer. The questions how do we turn those cracks into Gold? Elder Holland begs us to remember, "we must remember, that vessel is in the hands of the divine potter." He turns the cracks to gold. I believe it is through trusting (our part) the Savior (his part) we can be made whole through, broken and cracked as we may be. And like the Kintsugi pots, " the gold endows the pot with unassailable beauty, uniqueness, and strength." The mending gold our Savior applies to our crack gives us the strength to help ourselves in the future AND strength to help others around us that are wading through their own struggles.
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