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It’s very difficult for me to look at my weaknesses, my failings, my imperfections. But I’m learning that my truest and best self may actually reside there, in the cracks.

I recently learned about Kintsugi, the centuries-old Japanese art of fixing cracked pottery with gold. Rather than rejoining the broken pieces in a way that attempts to hide the cracks, Kintsugi uses a special lacquer dusted with powdered gold to make the imperfections stand out. The beautiful seams of gold celebrate each piece’s unique journey by accentuating its points of breakage rather than hiding them.

For most of my life, I saw my cracks as faults that I tried to deny, disguise, or project onto others. Could they, instead, be sacred wounds that are leading me toward my freedom?

My new book explores the healing that arose out of my brokenness. Of all of the endorsements of the book I have received, this one from New York Times best-selling author Dr. Larry Dossey addresses my cracks most directly:

“Novelist Ernest Hemingway said, ‘The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.’ Some of the broken individuals emerge not just strong, but triumphant. That’s Marlena Fiol’s journey in Nothing Bad Between Us: A Mennonite Missionary’s Daughter Finds Healing in Her Brokenness…”

I doubt that Dr. Dossey’s use of the word ‘triumphant’ was accidental. Like ‘cracks,’ it’s an interesting word, with very different meanings. On one hand, synonyms of ‘triumphant’ include conquering, proud and dominant, all adjectives denoting a complete avoidance of any damage or defect.

But synonyms of ‘triumphant’ also include elated, delighted and exultant, adjectives denoting the joy and freedom that come from vulnerably facing, exposing and growing by successfully dealing with one’s imperfections.

I’m fortunate to be in an intimate relationship that continues to reveal my cracks as they keep re-appearing, over and over again. It’s one of the most important things Ed and I do for each other. This is our dance: We see our flaws mirrored in the other, and we confess that once again we didn’t get it right. We find it in ourselves to forgive. And then we watch the gold fill in the jagged chinks again and again.

Sometimes I’m discouraged when I realize that I’ll never be fixed for good, that I will always keep missing the mark. But as assuredly as I know that I’ll constantly fail, I also know that failure will not be the final word. I now understand that, like the art of Kintsugi, the repaired parts of me will shine more brightly than the original, revitalizing me and giving me yet another chance to sparkle.

It’s the breaking and the mending that create the real beauty of who each of us can become.