Beautiful Imperfections

 Happy Monday Everyone!

This weekend, I spent some time with my family celebrating my birthday and my husband's as well.  Our birthdays are two days apart, and we generally do something fun as a family on the weekend closest to the 17th and the19th.  This year we needed to stay in-state, so we stayed at Basin Harbor on Lake Champlain.  In the last couple of years, we have been graced with beautifully warm weather for these September weekends, but this weekend as you all know, it felt much more like fall, so it made it hard to enjoy the outdoors as much.  

We went fishing, but the wind was blowing super hard, the kids' lines kept getting tangled, and everyone needed gloves that we didn't pack.  We went to find a mountain biking trail which in the end was really just a grassy path, and again...the hands, and this time ears too...all were quickly freezing.  We played golf late in the afternoon, but there were no cart rentals, and the minute my seven years old realized she'd have to walk the course, the complaining began.  We ate all our meals either outside in the cold or standing up in our cabin, which didn't have a table, and we went swimming in the pool which was heated, but my daughter ended up cutting her toe on the side of the pool and she left in tears.  

Sounds like a downer of a weekend right?  Actually, not at all...

I came across this post about a centuries-old Japanese art called Kintsugi on social media while we were there, and it really helped give our time away beautiful perspective. 

It made me remember that even when things sometimes seem broken or imperfect, there is still beauty to be found...

While fishing, my husband and I worked as a team to untangle lines, and enjoyed a good cup of hot coffee by the lake while our kids cast lines in hopes of a big catch.  While biking we discovered a playground and a volleyball net where the kids got to play on the monkey bars and practice their serves and bumps!  After three holes of golf, the kids decided to head back to the cabin, which was next to the course, and my husband and I finished off six holes on our own enjoying some of the late day sunshine!  The pool was 80 degrees and the kids enjoyed making slow-mo movies of themselves jumping off the diving board.  The food was delicious, and the resort brought us a milkshake maker on Saturday evening so that we could make our own milkshakes for our birthdays.  Sunday morning was less breezy and a bit warmer, so I went for a run and then sat on our porch in the sunshine.  We then hiked along the lake and skipped stones on the glassy water!  The kids enjoyed the lawn games and the oversized Adirondak Chairs, and we took lots of walks around the resort property.  

From a somewhat imperfect weekend, we managed to fill the cracks with gold.  

I think we have to remember this same philosophy when we think of ourselves too.  We are all imperfect individuals, and yet, it is those imperfections that make us beautiful and unique.  Without them, we just wouldn't be the same.  Despite our brokenness, there is beauty.  We all have cracks of gold.  

As you enter into this Monday and move through this week, when you encounter something that seems negative on the surface, challenge yourself to look deeper...challenge yourself to find the beauty in the imperfect, the lesson in the struggle, the triumph in the challenge, and the importance in the difference.  Keep in mind that Kintsugi, "transforms artifacts into something new, making them more rare, beautiful, and storied than the original." (Andrea Mantovani, 2019).  What a great way to think about yourself and your experiences...each day you become rarer, more beautiful, and more unique than you were the day before.     

Have a great day everyone!

Mrs. Hempey