This week’s edition of Kintsugi of the Soul directs you to the story of a woman who used the creative process of writing to help her transcend her identity as “patient” and bring healing to herself and others.

I started writing my first memoir “Penetrating Madness,” about my long struggle with severe and persistent mental illness during my last psychiatric hospitalization   — in early 2007 on an eating disorder unit. Usually when I was in the hospital, I kept a journal, but during this hospitalization, journal writing had become repetitive and mundane. I needed more from my writing. Wanting to share my story, I wrote so others wouldn’t feel as alone as I was feeling, and because there was a desire from the writer within me who was struggling to emerge.

Read how writing and the desire to share her story brought about wholeness to writer and licensed social worker Gerri Luce in The Healing Power of Creativity: the ability of creativity to transcend the patient identity online at Psychology Today.

She ends her testimony with these powerful words:

The path to creativity has the ability to heal wounds, to soothe pain.

Yes & AMEN!!  May we all be able to use creativity to help us heal!

The Kintsugi of the Soul project celebrates the release of The Creator’s Healing Power—Restoring the Broken to Beautiful and seeks to share creative resources, personal testimonies and redemptive stories aimed at healing, restoration and wholeness. Pictured above, kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with a lacquer mixed with powdered gold. When an object is broken, rather than discarding the damaged and broken, the pieces are mended, and cracks are filled with precious metal and, in many ways, make the object more beautiful than it was at the start. As a philosophy, it is rooted in the inherent beauty of all objects, no matter what they’ve endured. Kintsugi of the Soul posts appear weekly on Tuesdays here on jodythomae.com under the “Creative Resources” tab. You can follow along by signing up to receive emails or on Jody’s Facebook page. Read previous editions by scrolling down here.

The philosophy behind kintsugi is the same one that inspires Jody’s latest book, The Creator’s Healing Power—Restoring the Broken to Beautiful. Kintsugi is a powerful metaphor of Jesus Christ, the Master Artisan, filling and healing the shattered places within. As the broken places are tenderly pieced back together and repaired with his golden healing balm, they become a beautiful place where God’s glory is revealed in our weakness. Based on the Formational Prayer Model developed by Dr. Terry Wardle, The Creator’s Healing Power is an in-depth and interactive Bible study exploring the connection between healing and creativity, prayer and redemption, surrender and beauty, worship and wholeness.

Jody Thomae © 2018 All Rights Reserved

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Jody Thomae is the author of God’s Creative Gift—Unleashing the Artist in You and The Creator’s Healing Power—Restoring the Broken to Beautiful, both in-depth, interactive devotional books that are part of the Bible Studies to Nurture the Creative Spirit Within series and serve as resources for creative Christians, artists, and lovers of beauty and worship. Jody has been involved in worship arts ministry since 1997, serving as worship arts ministry pastor, worship leader and creative arts director. She leads worship at local seminars, retreats and women’s events and is a guest lecturer on creativity, embodiment, and spirituality with Healing Care Ministries and HCM International. Her passion is for the revelation of God to be made more real through the prophetic use of the arts in church and the use of creativity in formational and healing ministry. It is her desire to portray the message of Christ’s desperate and unfailing love for His people to help sustain the hearts of the broken and weary. She is particularly interested in the reclamation of the body in the healing of trauma and works in the area of embodiment with survivors of abuse, addiction, and trauma.

The Bible Studies to Nurture the Creative Spirit Within series includes her first book, God’s Creative Gift—Unleashing the Artist in You and her new release, The Creator’s Healing Power—Restoring the Broken to Beautiful. Print and digital copies (Kindle) are available through Amazon. Signed print copies are available for purchase through Square where her resources are available most affordably (and in bulk amounts for your creative ministry team or group study). Jody’s devotional CD, Song of the Beloved, is also available through Square, iTunes, YouTube, Spotify, and other music outlets.