"But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us." — 2 Corinthians 4:7

I've been working on a remodel project, and moving cabinets for a customer. I was being careful. Slow, deliberate, watching every angle. But that's the thing about working with your hands: sometimes it doesn't matter how careful you are. As I moved one of the pieces, a long quartzite backsplash, it broke along a natural vein running through the stone.

My stomach dropped. I stood there for a second just looking at the crack, thinking about how something so solid could give way so easily, and how I was going to have to tell the homeowner what happened.

But as I looked at that break, I thought of something I'd learned about years ago: kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery. When a bowl or a cup shatters, instead of hiding the damage or throwing it away, the artist puts it back together and fills the crack with gold. The break isn't disguised. It's highlighted. It becomes part of the piece, and often the finished object is more beautiful, and more valuable, than it was before it broke.

I won't be filling that backsplash with gold. But, I'm also not going to throw it away. It's going back together with something stronger than what was there before. And the more I sat with it, the more I realized that's exactly the picture of what God does with us.

We spend a lot of energy hiding our imperfections, hoping no one looks too closely. But I don't think that's how God sees us. I think He looks at the broken places, the ones we're most ashamed of, and says, "I'll fill that gap. I'm not throwing this away. I'm going to make it whole, and beautiful, and Mine." Not broken. Loved completely.

That's what a Walk to Emmaus weekend is, at its heart. It's three days where Pilgrims get to set down the weight of hiding and let God get into the "broken" places. Some of them will walk in feeling shattered. Many will walk out with gold in the seams.

We have two weekends coming up where that mending happens: the Men's Walk #66, September 24–27, and the Women's Walk #79, October 1–4.

You know what those weekends can hold. I'd love to invite you to be part of it, whether that means serving on team or simply showing up. Send Off, Candlelight, and Closing are open to the community, and there is nothing like standing in that room watching someone realize, for the first time, that they were never as broken as they thought.

Come be part of someone else's mending.

De Colores,

Jason Hill