Here's Michael with Mako and Hae Jin Shim Fujimura.

[upbeat music] My life journey, uh, has been one that, uh, reflects, you know, what we call Kintsugi, and then we can introduce Kintsugi a little bit more later.

But, um, w- looking back, whenever there was a major season ahead of me, that's when, um, I experienced a certain kind of trauma, um, from which God, by His grace, um, really restore me through, um, [lips smack] making me into someone, uh, that is a, a better version of myself.

So, um, through trauma, you know, I gained, um, this deep understanding of compassion, and deeper understanding of justice, and, um, self-discovery.

And through that journey, you know, I have become, um, a lawyer and a justice advocate.

And through that journey, um, I realized that, [lips smack] you know, whenever, um, there is, um, a new season, I needed to become, um, a diff- like, a big...

I need to be made once again.

Mm-hmm.

And we'd love to hear you talk a little bit more about how that image just kind of illuminates the relationship between beauty, suffering, and redemption.

Oh, Sherry, what a thoughtful question.

Thank you so much for that.

So kintsuki is this venerable art form that has a tradition in Japan and also in Korea where broken ceramics like teacups and bowls are not thrown away, but the fragments are held together and cut.

sometimes for generations and are mended with this precious material called lacquer and then adorned with gold so that the mended cup or bowl becomes more valuable and more beautiful than before.

So this art form has been actually part of a lifestyle of Korea and Japan And their idea is, you know, when an important bowl is broken, of course, why would you throw it away just because you have another bowl? But you keep it, but you keep it in a way that you honor even the experience of fracture.

We don't want fracture to happen.

in the broken cup when some of those edges are so jagged and some of the damage that has been caused is so severe.

Mm-hmm.

Not to just remain as God has created, right? Like from day one, and then it just remains.

So if God create...

If we believe that God created the world to be in tov relationship with one another, and of course with God, um, and with the creation, uh, and then we come to Genesis 3 where, um, you know, we have the fall of men when, where all these tov relationships now is broken, right? And I think, um, uh, the Bible makes it very clear that the sin has caused this broken relationship, not to, um, uh, the relationship between man and God only, but is between-

Mm-hmm.

Right? Without hope, you can't really go on.

You see such darkness.

So how do you not just despair, but continue to have hope? And where does that come from, right? And so, um, 'cause, you know, when you go to, uh, the communities that we serve, it's just apparent that there is evil- Mm-hmm ...