Kintsugi The Art of Repairing the Broken

AW AMONG WORLDS

Broken Isn’t Enough

By Beth Matheson

Broken Isn’t Enough

I let the plates fall—first a dusky blue one, and then spring green with a golden rim, followed by black-speckled crimson, cream and lavender, and dark cocoa brown.

They made a pretty mess on the concrete patio until I swept up the pieces and stashed them on the top kitchen shelf. Our coffee table, roughly crafted from a local Papua New Guinean hardwood, was begging to be brightened with a ceramic mosaic, and now all I needed was a little glue and grout. But a few weeks later a difficult experience rocked our family, leading to our return to the US for counseling.

We never went back. Those plates were a good metaphor for my heart, I realized as I sorted through our crisis and tried to make sense of yet another goodbye I didn’t choose. Broken pieces of myself had stayed behind when I unexpectedly left my childhood home in the southern Philippines, some got lost in my move from Ohio to North Carolina, and unnumbered shards were covered in deep Kentucky clay the day we buried my mom. And now some of my shattered bits, mingled with portions of my husband’s and kids’ hurting hearts, lay like they had been forgotten in the emerald highlands of the South Pacific.

What do you do when you try to put your heart back together, only to realize some fragments are gone for good?

Living among worlds, stretched across cultures and continents, is rich and beautiful—but it also leaves us torn and scattered. Brokenness is inevitable in the TCK life (and life in general), as people and places lay claim to sections of our

memories, whether we gave them willingly or they were taken by force.

The reality of brokenness has become a socially acceptable—and even trendy— topic of conversation, with increasingly public discussions of mental health struggles, addictions, trauma, and abuse. And that’s wonderful! The freedom to talk about formerly hidden things has been a long time coming, especially in missions circles. For too many of us, though, the conversation doesn’t just begin with admitting the brokenness in our stories; that’s also where it ends. I often hear resignation and cynicism in exchanges between grown TCKs as they compare the losses, traumas, and wounds they’ve collected over the years. We do need those safe spaces to share the heartaches and questions only other global nomads are likely to grasp, where we can talk about struggles while they’re still in process. And I understand the temptation to give up reaching for wholeness with so many pieces of our hearts missing. Healing is hard, painful, exhausting work.

So why should we pursue health? Why isn’t airing our brokenness enough?

In my own fight for wholeness, I’ve found three major reasons to keep going: Brokenness creates more brokenness. My most profound wounds haven’t happened as a result of life circumstances. Yes, the transitions and goodbyes that were no one’s fault have been extremely painful, but I’ve been most broken by encounters with other people’s hidden, fractured edges—and, if I’m honest, my own shards, too. Loose, razor-edged pieces rattle around, damaging whatever they come in contact with and leaving casualties wherever they go. We have a responsibility to ourselves and the people around us to examine every fragment we still own, no matter who broke it, and figure out where it belongs.

We’re far too valuable to be left in pieces on the top shelf. I believe that our Creator made us to reflect who he is and that we matter to him. Psalm 139, sometimes called the TCK psalm, describes this truth beautifully:

You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say, even before I say it, LORD. You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head… You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. (Psalm 139:3–5, 13–14, New Living Translation)

Broken pieces of myself had stayed behind when I unexpectedly left my childhood home in the southern Philippines, some got lost in my move from Ohio to North Carolina, and unnumbered shards were covered in deep Kentucky clay the day we buried my mom.

God not only values us enough that he shaped us with care and purpose, but he also pays tender attention to every detail of our days. If the most powerful being in the universe prizes us that much, we’re worth the effort it takes to seek wholeness. Healing is possible! I know that TCKs represent a wide spectrum of beliefs, but I can’t legitimately talk about moving from brokenness to wholeness without bringing my faith into it. The Bible is the truest, most solid thing I know, so I believe what the prophet Isaiah foretold about Jesus:

But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed (Isaiah 53:5, NLT). Jesus submitted himself to brokenness so he could ultimately break its power completely, setting us free to find healing through a relationship with him.

What about those missing pieces, though? How can we be restored to our former shape when whole chunks of our hearts are simply gone? We can’t. We will never again look the way we did before our breaking.

Because we’re not supposed to. Before, we were regular old dishes. Now we’re becoming stunning works of art, skillfully mended and filled—not with simple gold, like kintsugi pieces— but with God himself. As we let him work in us, he pours his glory into all our gaps, bringing us an entirely new kind of wholeness.

No, we’ll never be the same.

Beth Matheson rocked culottes and a bowl cut during her childhood in the Philippines. She and her husband, Mike, have served since 2004 with Wycliffe Bible Translators, providing care and training for missionaries and their families in the US and Papua New Guinea. Beth is now a writer and podcast host for Wycliffe Women of the Word. https://www.wycliffe.org/women; https://www.rootsdowndeep.com