When we offer our broken hearts to God, he can mend them and transform our brokenness into beauty.
The first time I saw a piece of kintsugi pottery, I was struck by the gold cracks in the bowl. Once broken, the bowl was laboriously made whole again by a master kintsugi craftsman—someone who could see the beauty hiding between the broken pieces. Those golden veins somehow made the piece more beautiful than an unbroken bowl.
In her general conference address “Yielding Our Hearts to God,” Neill F. Marriott teaches us that we can be healed from our own broken hearts just as broken pottery can be made whole through careful mending. Whether our brokenness comes as a result of intense grief at a loved one’s death, a severe illness, or another trial, God—the Master Craftsman—can mend our broken hearts as we seek his healing.
PHOTO BY DEVANTH
When we offer up a broken heart and a contrite spirit to God, he can make our broken hearts whole. “Paradoxically, in order to have a healed and faithful heart, we must first allow it to break before the Lord,” Sister Marriott teaches. “The result of sacrificing our heart, or our will, to the Lord is that we receive the spiritual guidance we need.”
Sacrificing our will to God means that we humbly accept his timing. Healing from broken hearts takes time, so we cannot expect them to heal overnight. Just as the art of kintsugi is a long, laborious process, so is our spiritual mending. But as we trust in the Lord’s timing and keep our covenants with him, we will eventually find that he is able to transform our broken hearts into beauty.
Read more about how yielding to the will of God helps us fulfill our divine destiny with Neill F. Marriott’s talk “Yielding Our Hearts to God.”
Source: ChurchofJesusChrist.org
—Alyssa Anderson, Latter-day Saint Insights
FEATURE IMAGE BY RIHO KITAGAWA
Find more insights
Discover how you can feel peace in the midst of pain in Haley Roper’s article “You Can Find Peace amid Mental Health Trials.”
Read about how Christ offers peace in difficulty in Avery Andros’s article “Feel Like You’re Sinking? Here’s How to Find the Peace Christ Offers You.”