Kintsugi of the Soul - Prologue. Kintsugi of the Soul

Kintsugi of the Soul

By Brandon Haines

Sometimes the road feels endless…
like I’ve walked a thousand miles…
trying to find the place my soul can rest…
and all I can breathe out is…
“Lord, I’m tapped out.”

Sometimes the storms inside me
rage louder than the ones around me.

I’ve wrestled with myself…
with the shadows of my own ugly sin,
with the parts of me… that I wish I could bury…
and all that’s left in me whispers…
“Lord I’m tapped out.”

I’ve wandered long enough to ask the old
question…
How far must a man walk
before You call him Yours?

And the answer comes quiet,
steady,
like a hand on my shoulder:

My child You were Mine before your hands and keens
ever touched the earth…
before you ever crawled…
before you ever shed a tear…
even before you were ever in your mother’s womb…
You are My child.

By pure mercy,
You fought for my heart
long before I was even thought of.

By pure mercy,

You called me worthy
when I had no worth to offer.

Your arms feel like home-
the kind of home where…
I matter…

I belong…

I’m loved…
without earning a thing.

So here I am
done with running,
done with calling myself the Prodigal,
done with trying to prove what You already
decided.

If You come today,
my heart is ready.

If You wait,
my hope will hold.

Because deep down I know
this world isn’t home…
but Your arms are.

Come Jesus Come.

I spent my whole life trying to fix myself with the wrong materials— patching cracks with pride, gluing wounds with independence, holding myself together with whatever I could reach… a bottle, a pill, porn, a distraction— just to name a few.

But every time life hit me, the fractures deepened, the wounds reopen, until I learned the truth I couldn’t yet face: I can’t fix myself.

That was the moment the pottery finally broke— the moment the pieces fell into the hands of the One who never feared my shattering.

And God… He didn’t reach for cheap glue. He didn’t hide the cracks. He didn’t shame the broken places.

He reached for gold.

Not gaudy gold— but mercy-gold: diamond‑strong, red‑diamond rare, quiet in its shine, understated in its worth, yet priceless beyond measure.

He practiced His holy kintsugi on the fragments of my life— fusing every fracture with a mercy stronger than anything I ever used to hold myself together.

Now the cracks gleam. Now the scars shine. Now the broken places tell the story of the Artist who restored me.

I am not flawless. I am redeemed. I am not unbroken. I am made whole by a mercy that will never crack, never fade, never fail.

And when people ask how I’m still standing, I’ll point to the gold running through my story and say:

By pure mercy— God repaired me with something stronger than I ever was.