Hope & Quill Co.

Psalm 31:12 – I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.

Kintsugi is a Japanese art form where a broken vessel is taken and pieced back together with a gold glue. This vessel that once was beautiful when it first left the potter’s wheel somehow becomes a greater beauty—and of greater value—once it has been broken and pieced together once more.

As David writes this psalm with a heavy pen, he seemingly crumbles under the weight of his past. He has seen days of victory and days of defeat. He stood strong in the face of the giant, but fled from the wrath of Saul. He conquered the bear and the lion but fell prey to the jaws of his own lusts. David’s life is certainly full of ebbs and flows.

Verse 10 says, “For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.”

David’s reflection of his life leaves him in great sorrow, mourning the loss of what might have been had sin not crept into his life. David feels utterly broken, writing, “I am like a broken vessel,” shattered, useless, of no value. David’s mistakes have led him to a place of grave remorse.

But the psalm does not end with David’s brokenness.

What started out has a broken mess ends in a psalm of praise unto the Lord with David proclaiming, “Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD.”

You may feel like you are too far gone to be of any value to the Lord. You feel unworthy to be used, unfit for any great work.

“. . . But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:”

Your brokenness does not define you as useless. If you have repented, there is a merciful God who wants to use you for His glory. The path you’ve walked down may allow you to help someone else walking that path or to avoid said path. Whatever the case, there is no brokenness He can’t turn into beauty.

As David said, “Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD.”