Testimony of Broken Pottery

by Rebecca Kiser

In Japan, it is common practice for a potter to repair a broken piece of pottery with resin made of gold. These items are worth more than the originals, indirectly, because they have been broken. It is a special form of art that is meant to utilize and glorify the cracks, missing shards, and imperfections of the pottery. This ancient practice is known as Kintsugi or “golden repair”, and its pieces can be found all over the world in prestigious art museums, and are considered priceless.

I find this really interesting not only because of the symbolism of something being more valuable because it’s been broken, but because of the potter.

The first one to do this saw potential, worth, in shards of broken pottery sprawled lifelessly across the dirt-ridden ground. 

When anyone else would have swept up the pieces and thrown them out with the rest of the trash, this potter took care to meticulously gather up every last bit. He invested time, love, and valuable resources into this broken bowl because he believed it had not only retained its value, but had the potential to thrive in a new life.

About a year ago, God was that potter, and I was the broken piece of pottery shattered on the ground. This is the story of how, in one day, God broke my life and then put it back together over the past year to be better and more valuable than ever before.

At the time, I had a huge group of amazing friends in the youth group I went to. One guy in particular stood out a little more to me than the rest, and according to those friends, he thought the same about me. It wasn’t long before I had a whole group of little matchmakers on my hands, not-so-subtly pushing us together on every Wednesday night and at every church-related event. Though I gave them a hard time about it, I was secretly thankful they gave me the push I wouldn’t have given myself, and with help from their insight, I was becoming convinced that he was one of those God-given teenage guys that are actually serious about God.

As a youth group, we went on an absolutely magical missions trip to Damascus, VA where we hiked up mountains and danced on front porches and ran frantically through a field in the pouring down rain. I got to camp out with all my best friends for like a week and got to spend practically every waking second with this boy.

All was well until a few weeks later when I found myself sitting across from him, on this fateful day, as he said, “I know we both felt a little bit of a spark, but I’m just not feeling it anymore. Can we still be friends?”

“Pop!” goes the happy little bubble I was in as it suddenly bursts. Um, excuse me what? “I’m not feeling it”!?! That’s what this boy has to say for himself?! Don’t get me wrong here, this was not heartbreak. I did not like this boy that much to where I was upset by losing him. No. I was upset that the boy I liked basically said, “I don’t want you”, or at least, that’s how I heard it. I was livid at the fact that he was so immature that he couldn’t just man up and talk to me as soon as he started feeling that way and instead led me on for weeks before finally telling me. I was mortified that I ever liked someone who would do that in the first place. And to make matters 100 times worse, this whole saga played out smack in the middle of our joint friend group, but they come into play later in the story.

Switching into part two of this awful day, I then had to go into work. At the time I worked at an animal boarding place as kennel staff, so basically I took care of dogs. Although I absolutely love dogs with my whole heart and soul, I wasn’t crazy about this job because of the people I worked with, the awful hours I worked, the physical intensity of it, and the unreasonable and rude owners of these animals.

I got to work and my boss met me in the front doorway and immediately said, “I need to see you in the back room.” I was a little bit concerned, but considering the previous events of the day, I didn’t really have much emotional energy left to donate to this situation. I walked back with her and I felt the disapproving and somewhat sad stares from a few of my coworkers (except for the one that completely hated me, she was grinning like The Grinch). So with a little bit more concern and confusion, I watched as my boss shut the door and turned to me with the most solemn and remorseful look I’ve ever seen.

She started crying and said, “Becca I’m so sorry but I have to let you go.” She went on to explain that the dog I had been responsible for the day before had needed two stitches, (for a small wound she had gotten on her ear while out in the yard with other dogs) and her owners completely panicked and demanded that I be fired for my apparent negligence. Unfortunately, the vets that own the facility catered to their wishes, and chose to fire me to be able to tell the owners they had solved their problem. As more tears flowed she explained that she had been talking to the vets all mornings, fighting for me because she didn’t believe it was the right decision. She said if it had been up to her she never would have fired me.

I was stunned into silence as I tried to make sense of the ridiculous words spilling out of her mouth. I had simply cleaned the dog’s injury the night before and moved her over to the vet clinic next door to be checked out. I hadn’t thought anything of it; we had small injuries pretty often considering we had approximately fifty dogs in a yard together at any given time and injuries were bound to occur. Being fired over it was never even a shadow of a concern for me.

So I gathered myself together a little bit and then made the walk of shame to my car. It wasn’t until I was by myself that the realization of what had actually happened sunk in. I had been fired. Those of you that know me know I am a complete perfectionist and failure is absolutely not an option, so this was debilitating.

I got home, immediately hopped in the car with my mom, and retreated to the beach in hopes of forgetting about everything. Once on my way, I called my best friend who was immediately ready to be at my house momentarily with enough ice cream to feed, well, a teenage girl who had had the worst day in the history of worst days. (side note: everyone needs at least one friend like that.)

The problem with retreating is that your problems don’t, and they were right there ready for me when I got back home. In the days that followed, I found out that all of those friends I mentioned earlier (with the exception of my one true best friend) had not only known days before me that the guy was going to do that to me, but also that he did it because he wanted to be with one of my other youth group friends.

This new information was the cherry on top of my pile of broken ceramic, and it drove me to make the incredibly hard decision to leave that church, and pretty much all of my friends, because they turned out not to be the people I wanted to be close friends with.

I felt like I was starting at ground zero. 

I had no job, no friends, and a new distrust of people in general. I would love to say that I trusted God the entire time, that I was content in my season of ruin, that I was expectant of God’s goodwill over my life, that I trusted and relied on His promises. But friends, that wasn’t the case. I was crippled with embarrassment every time someone asked me why I wasn’t working that day. I was wounded by the sting of his rejection, that even months later, still felt like alcohol in road rash. I was filled with a smoldering anger at the betrayal of all of my friends. I was irritated with God because they were supposed to be my christian friends, and why would He let them do that? I was mad at God for breaking the life that I had been so thankful for just weeks before.

Although I really didn’t want to trust God, I thought if the way I built my life clearly wasn’t good enough we might as well let Him handle it the second time around. Also I kinda felt like, “He broke it, he can fix it.” So let the record reflect, I did trust God, but I did it because I really had no other choice.

Slightly reluctantly, I went on another job search. I prayed and trusted that God would work it out, and prayed some more, until I finally landed a job at a little sterling silver jewelry boutique. Let me just say, no one has ever had better co-workers than I do. I absolutely love my job and a big reason why is the fantastic people I work with. I couldn’t ask for better people to have to be around all the time. Looking back on the job I lost a year ago, I realize now how miserable I was and how it was a serious blessing to have been removed from that situation. My job now is 100 times better in every way and I am so thankful for it. I guess you could say it was my silver lining.

My lovely work girls and I at my graduation party

As far as friends go, I haven’t made quite so much of a 180 degree turn around, but that’s ok. I have great friends, but I’m not as close to them as I was to my other ones, and I’m ok with that right now. I may not have had a whole bunch of fantastic best friends this year, but I did have a couple of really great best friends and a whole slew of fun people to hang out with at school. I have come to the conclusion that it is way better to have only a couple amazing, loyal, and loving friends than to be very close with a whole bunch of the wrong people. It’s kinda like that saying that says it’s better to have four 25 cent friends than 100 one cent friends.

The same rule applies to the situation with the guy. Yes I’m bummed that that aspect of that horrible day has not been revitalized like the rest of it has, but I know I’d rather be by myself for a little while then with the wrong person. Soon after that day, it came to mind that it’s possible to miss someone and not want them back. I see now that it wasn’t really him that I liked so much anyway. It was the possibility of a relationship with a christian guy, and the excitement of having someone who liked me. So I miss that part of it, but no part of me wishes that he was still in my life.

It’s all a learning experience. While in that moment it felt like I was drowning under the weight of everything collapsing on top of me, I realize now that all that was just the pain required to break my life apart, in order for it to be put back together. God’s golden repair made it infinitely better than the original, and now I have a very valuable testimony to share.

“So be truly glad, there is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold - though your faith is far more precious than mere gold.”
- 1 Peter 1:6-7a