If you’re reading this with a broken heart, please know you’re not alone. This is not a guide on how to grieve, and it isn’t a story neatly wrapped with answers. It’s simply part of my own journey through loss — an honest reflection on love, faith, and the slow, imperfect work of learning how to live again when your heart feels shattered.
True R&B, late sixties early seventies, is one of my absolute favorite genres. And Al Green is one of my favorite singers. He posed a real question in this song, with a melody so sweet the poignancy of the message is hidden — until it’s felt. Then the words are prophetic of the absolute anguish of grief.
And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain falling down?
Tell me how can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go ’round?
How can you mend this broken man? Yeah How can a loser ever win?
Somebody please help me mend my broken heart And let me live again
— Al Green
I’ve said before, my heart was not broken — for me, it was shattered. More like the lyrics of Mick Jagger…
“…shattered, shattered, splattered all over…”
But broken is broken, and the very reason it is broken is its purpose.
“Grief is the price we pay for love.”
— Queen Elizabeth II
Knowing this makes the Wizard’s proclamation to the Tin Man incredibly absurd.
“As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart. You don’t know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.”
— The Wizard of Oz
To make a heart unbreakable, you would have had to never have loved. I can only imagine that pain to be immeasurably more intense — and unbearable. To never love or be loved, to never experience the joy of sharing life’s greatest moments with another who really cares, and who you really care about.
“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
1 John 4:8 (ESV)
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
1 John 4:16 (ESV)
“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”
1 John 1:5 (ESV)
These Scriptures tell us that God is Love and that He is the Light. And it is widely considered that hell is simply total separation from God, no longer living in His grace. Regardless of whether you believe in Him today, you are still living in His grace.
In hell, it is thought you would be truly separated — no light, only darkness; no love, only pain and anger. True hatred.
But back to Al Green’s question — how can you mend a broken heart?
As he so eloquently wrote, the pain is real. And even though we are living in God’s grace, we begin to see the shadows of that darkness that come from separation of love. We loved, and now that person is gone.
I still have mornings when I just want the world to stop. I want to crawl back into bed and never come out. The very fact that the sun is shining feels like an assault on my brokenness.
I can totally relate to those lyrics — How can I stop the sun from shining? What makes the world go round?
Kintsugi (⾦継ぎ), translated “golden joinery,” is the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with gold. Using lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, the repair does not hide the break — it highlights it. The damage becomes part of the object’s history.
This ancient artform celebrates brokenness and repair, suggesting that what has been shattered and restored can become more beautiful, more unique, and more resilient than it was before.
“Hell has no sorrow, that Heaven can’t heal.”
— David Crowder
But how do I perform Kintsugi on my heart? What is this magical glue, and where do I find the precious gold?
It has been over three years, and I am still learning. Still gluing pieces back together. For me, through prayer, God has motivated me to get out of bed and take that first step — when all I wanted to do was crawl into a hole and wither away.
To move forward through fear and make new friends — and in those relationships, I have found the glue. Someone who cares. Someone who listens. Someone I care about and listen to. A bond. A “glue.”
But what about the gold?
I’ve found the gold is already in the glue — you just have to make it shine. Like finding gold on earth, it requires a deeper dive. Extra work. Blood, sweat, and tears.
That extra work is what makes it precious. What gives gold its value.
In the Kintsugi of my heart, the gold is found in knowing a friend well enough to fill a need in their life. Sending a card. Making a call on a difficult day. Showing up for an event that matters. Laughing when you don’t feel like laughing. Crying, even when it hurts more to do so.
Yes — the gold is already in the glue.
And when I find it, and polish it, I find the love I had for Elaine. And I am able to repair another piece of my shattered heart.
“What we have once enjoyed, we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.”
— Helen Keller
TLA, my sweet Lainee — TLA…
💔 ❤️🩹 💜 🦋