Kintsugi is the ancient Japanese art form where the potter fuses the broken pieces of a vessel back together and highlights the cracks with gold. The idea is to embrace the flaws and demonstrate that in brokenness there is still hope. Kintsugi is a metaphor showing how people can struggle with their broken pieces but when they let God work, He can display His love and power through imperfection. I get excited when I discover a repeating tendency or pattern of the nature of God; how throughout history God uses the rejects and broken to change a nation. We are perfected in Christ even in weakness. Paul boasted about his weaknesses even more, knowing that the power of God could be revealed through his weakness.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”  (2 Corinthians 12:9) 

I remember hearing the word Kintsugi many times, but never looked it up. When I presented this song to my writing partner Nick Law, he came back suggesting I use Kintsugi in the chorus. This concept/metaphor wrecked me for days. At first, I thought, “Who in their right mind would use this word in a worship song?” But the more I thought about it, the imagery was too perfect and Kintsugi couldn’t be left out. 

This song focuses on the Mending God. The One who mends broken people and presents them as whole (In Christ) and highlights their scars/ashes to show His beauty. Kintsugi parallels a broken Christ whose wounds and scars were not the end, but the beginning of God’s story of salvation for a broken world.

Brian Parker

Singer/Songwriter & Musician