Confession Heals.

What is confessing...it’s not admitting. It’s not to say yes I did it, although many of the confessions you hear may lead you to admission, or admitting that you too are guilty of the thing someone else is confessing. That’s a first step...but the follow through is in MY confession. Confessing starts with ME not someone else. It’s acknowledging the legitimate guilt and shame I feel because I KNOW (I have seen, I have experienced) MY brokenness. As people—we must begin to acknowledge our brokenness to one another to find freedom, forgiveness and healing. We by no means have to own illegitimate brokenness (guilt and shame others have placed on us because we don’t measure up to their “standard”. God has a standard “perfection” and he says NO man measures up —(no not one). We are all broken but broken in different ways. The “cracks” we find are in different places. Confession is that place where I acknowledge MY fractures. When I do that I can begin to give those places the attention they need to be mended. All too often we want people to “admit” their faults. We want to do the pointing, showing them their cracks and them agreeing to fix them. There may be a place for admission but TRUE healing comes from the place of confession. It starts with ME seeing MY “fault” and when I see it...I want it to be fixed. I want it to be different. I want to be healed and mended. However, that means we have to introspective. We must look at ourselves instead of everyone around us, and we’re not so great at looking in the mirror. We don’t like what we see, and in turn avoid the time we need to spend there to really see the cracks and discover their beauty. The cracks are not our enemy in fact they are our best assets, benefiting us in more ways than we want to admit. First, the cracks keep us humble. They remind us of our fragility… that we can only pretend to be invincible. That is a gift! Without them, we may convince ourselves that we are better and in need of nothing. Secondly, the cracks connect us. They create a belonging in humanity even if we’re not looking for it. They tell me I have a place, just like you. They tell you, that you are not alone. Third, they speak. They speak of strength and endurance. They remind us that even though we aren’t perfect, we are hardy and we will make it through. So why avoid the cracks? Why not inspect their beauty and let them adorn our value. Take time to notice them, mend them and embellish them elements that may enhance their strength and beauty. Just as the Japanese do with kintsukuroi.

Confessing does just that. It’s takes my brokenness and does not try to cover it up or hide it, but instead mends it to make me stronger, while embracing and embellishing the beauty of my brokenness.

Broken is not “Bootless”. Just because something is broken does not mean it’s useless. Maybe culture has primed us into believing that broken is wasted. We don’t “fix” things anymore we just buy a new one. Not my father-in-law, he’d fix anything before spending his hard earned money on something “new”. It didn’t matter what it was either—a trash can, vaccum, leaf-blower , or coffee mug. If it was broken he was going to fix it, and when he was finished, it might have looked a little “odd” but it worked. There may not have been anything beautiful about its appearance but the beauty was in the perseverance, persistence, and pride he put into fixing what was broken. When he looked at that coffee cup with a little glue peeking out from the handle, he would smile and say it looks good don’t it? Many times I thought to myself—“No it looks tacky, just buy a new one for God sake!” But now I understand that the Beauty lies in the Beholder. It lies with that person that has “experienced” that “cup”, and when they observe it’s brokenness, they do not see the glue. That was Ancel—he didn’t see the glue. He saw Karen—holding it in her wrinkled hands. He heard her laughter roll off it’s cracked rim, then felt an overwhelming sense of joy as he remembered the smell of coffee coming off her breath as he tasted one more morning with her. He embarrassed the beauty of broken! He took pride in knowing the pleasure of pain and celebrating the perservance it takes to remain “whole”. If I learned anything from him, it was how to behold the beautiful in broken.

That is Confession— we become “aware” of the broken and find the beauty in embracing it.