Today I am grateful for some time with Lilli today and for the new fish… 2 gold fish and a little shrimp. They are cute. I hope we can keep them alive.
Today I am grateful for some time to study and to reflect.
Today I am thankful for a simple dinner that hit the spot.
Today I am thankful for a quick chat with a dear friend and for catching up with my parents and daughter.
Today I read about Kintsukuroi, a Japanese ceramic art. The Japanese word means “to repair with gold.” The artist takes the broken ceramic pieces and fuses them back together with liquid gold or gold-dusted lacquer. Rather than covering the flaw, the breaks become more obvious as a new piece of art emerges. Kintsukuroi embraces the weakness and turns them to strengths. Every crack becomes a part of its history and its beauty increases. I think this is how the Atonement must work – how the Lord makes our weakness become strengthens.
The thing is… we will fail. We will fall. We will break. But we will also stand up and try again because of the Savior. We will repair with the Savior’s help… again and again. Eventually, even though we will be different than we were before, we will be whole again. We will be more beautiful than we were before. We will be a better person because of our imperfections, not in spite of them.
Cassy Budd taught that, “Living perfectly is not the plan. Repentance is not a backup plan. Repentance is the plan. Jesus Christ is the plan.” (Cassy Budd, On Failing and Finishing, BYU Devotional Speech, Feb. 2017).
I think we fear the word “perfect.” We get hung up on the most common definition, “flawless, pure, and without defects.” We forget to consider the definition of “exactly fitting the need in a certain situation or for a certain purpose.” We fear being “broken” and fail to see that our value increases as we seek to allow the Master’s hand to enhance our beauty with the Refiner’s gold. Some how we miss that broken heart protects us against temptation, turning weakness into strength. Some how we fail to see that the cracks were a part of the original design.
What are you grateful for today?
Resigning as the General Manager of the Universe 