Dust. It’s that annoying stuff with little to no value. Surprisingly, dust is made up of many things: fibers, dander, pollen, soil, pollution, skin cells and even certain kinds of dust is made from exploded stars in space.
Dust. It’s that never ending nuisance that gathers on most everything we own. Even when we try to wipe it away, tiny airborne particles of dust escape as bright lights reveal their flight.
Dust. We can’t escape its presence and even though it appears insignificant, it still takes up space. Somewhere in the battle of trying to eradicate dust, we come to a point where we run up the white flag, call a truce and do our best live alongside the unwanted layer that always returns.
Recently, I’ve been working with betrayed couples using a therapy tool called ERCEM, Early Recovery Couples Empathy Model. It’s a model that focuses on helping the betrayed partner bring their devastating pain to the one who betrayed them. My goal is to help the betrayer learn how to lean in and offer the kind of emotional empathy that comes from a deeper place of understanding where they learn how to open their heart to the impact of what they’ve done. I’ve been blown away by many betrayers’ willingness to step into this emotionally infused hotbed of raw pain with one goal in mind – to help their partner heal.
As betrayed partners we long to receive empathy from the one who harmed us. And even when we’re given a safe and supportive place to share – it’s not uncommon for us to struggle with putting our heartbreak into words. It’s beautiful deep work, with twists and turns – partners bringing their pain & honesty while the betrayer takes ownership for the heartache – which all ultimately becomes woven into grieving together. It’s that shared grief through empathy that offers light at the end of the tunnel. Being deeply heard offers a powerful exhale that can restore lightness to the soul and renewed hope. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, healing can happen.
As I was talking about the ruptures of brokenness and repair with a couple, I grabbed my Kintsugi pottery from the shelf. Kintsugi (金継ぎ) means “golden repair” and began in the late 15th Century by Japanese craftsmen who repaired broken pottery by using a special lacquer mixed with powdered gold. Rather than disposing of the broken pot or hiding the damage, Kintsugi highlights the cracks and missing pieces by turning the breakage into part of the object’s history and beauty. For centuries many have used Kintsugi pottery to convey stories of hope, proclaiming that what was once broken beyond repair, can become a way of finding beauty in imperfection and restoring or “re-story-ing” permanent loss.
After sharing the meaning of Kintsugi with the couple, I gently rested my pottery on the floor.
Dust. Then, it happened…deep, deep, work. In an unexpected moment of travail, the partners grief-infused tears began to run down her cheeks. And like only water can, her tears, words and honest pain found cracks in his protective armor and made their way straight into his heart. His heart had been protectively walled off so he didn’t have to experience the gravity of what he’d done. Not only that but the internal chatter of phrases like “I’m such a failure”, “I’ll never amount to anything”, “I’m irredeemable” or “I’m a horrible person” adds to his heavy weight of cutting shame. That’s what shame does. It can act like a shield and block emotions to protect the heart, so it doesn’t have to feel. It’s one thing for him to logically understand what he did, it’s entirely another thing to feel the intense weight of it. Did he understand the guilt of what he’d done? Yes. Did he want to intensely feel it? No.
Like light breaking through the darkness – his chin began to quiver, and an unexpected floodgate of emotions broke through.
Tears. Hers and his. While gazing into each other’s eyes, tears of grief trickled down both of their cheeks, falling to the ground.
Not a word was spoken. Just shared tears.
It was then I realized, their relationship wasn’t merely reflected by a piece of broken pottery; their relationship had been completely ground to dust.
Dust. A pile of relational dust had settled on the ground between their feet. Together their tears of deep, shared grief were dripping into the dust. Betrayal had decimated whatever their relationship was; and their tears were soaking that dust and creating clay – in doing so, a whole new piece of pottery was being formed. One that would look very different, and possibly one that could have a shared purpose.
In my office, I also have another special piece of pottery that was made on a potter’s wheel. It’s much like one used to draw water from a well, it has a spout and is also used to provide water for thirsty passersby.
As betrayed partners we look back and try to make sense of what happened; we wonder, how we could have missed it. Many memories we once cherished are tainted by what we now know. And no matter how much we want to rewrite our story, re-imagine history or forget the past; we can’t. The reality of what happened remains. Somehow in the battle of ‘what belongs where’ & ‘what has happened to us and why’ – we’ve got to come to a place where we realize the reality of our limitations. We can’t control what we didn’t create, we can’t redo what we didn’t consent to, and we can’t condone what we didn’t know about. But we can learn how to live with the reality of what happened to us, as we re-story what painfully happened and create something new. It’s that new clay pottery that’s created from the dust of the relationship that once was. Strangely, I’ve seen how these new vessels of clay pour water of hope over those passersby that are dying in the desert.
For over two decades I’ve had a sign in my office that says, “You make beautiful things out of dust.” Allowing the tears of grief to mix with the dust of what’s been decimated, is what provides the clay to make a new container of hope within us. We change. We are transformed. We become something new. While it definitely wasn’t part of our plan, we can and do take on a beautiful new shape. Whether our relationship is restored or not – You can eventually open your heart to become pottery that’s been transformed from dust, through tears, into something new.
It’s true. With a lot of hard work and grief, you can move from that pile of dust you’re currently sitting in – towards something purpose-filled, live-giving and new.
Isaiah 43:19 TPT
“I am doing something brand new, something unheard of. Even now it sprouts and grows and matures. Don’t you perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and open up flowing streams in the desert.
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