Broken Eggs

In our house, we eat eggs for Breakfast quite often. I know some people disapprove, and say they’re not so good for you, but they provide a relatively easy option to get some protein into the family, which is good for us, so we’ll go ahead and make the choices for our family, and leave your family to you. Deal? Good.

I say relatively easy, because for as long as I’ve been making my own eggs in one or more of it’s many different available varieties, I have had trouble with eggs. Not digestively, or anything like that. It’s a physical problem. I physically have difficulty with that stinking shell on the outside. If I’m scrambling or frying eggs, or even using them in a recipe, I have the worst time breaking eggs without getting the albumen (that’s the clear part that turns white when you cook it--for the uninitiated) all over my fingers. I keep the trash can close so I don’t drip all over the floor, and some days it’s only a little bit, but inevitably, I’m getting gooey stuff on my fingers.

Unless, of course, I’m boiling the eggs. Then, it becomes a battle with the shell and the little membrane that lies under said shell around the now solidified albumen (See above note). I have done all the tricks I can find in Reader’s Digest, Cook Books, Magazines, websites, and even watching the occasional food show on TV. Unfortunately, I always have one that ends up looking like Humpty Dumpty after a hard-night of partying. It’s just all messed up. The egg is no longer smooth, but has pieces that have been pulled away by the shell, and sometimes even just leaving a large crater in the surface. I am no stranger to making a highly emotionally-motivated decision that the egg is no longer worth it, and with great, uh, gusto, I “place” it in the very bottom of the trash can through the first fifteen layers of trash with the impact sound reverberating through the crawl space under my house.

Isn’t it interesting how people are kind of like eggs? Even though we put up our outer shell that protects us from some level of impact, if we’re hit in just the right place, or encounter something that provides enough resistance, we crack, and our lives can end up a big gooey mess. (Okay, so I used the word “gooey” two--now three times in one entry. It’s just fun to type.) Some people have been through hot water in life, think they are more resilient, and have a stronger layer of protection around them. They are just trying to fool themselves, because they can be broken by different things in life. Those that feel like they were broken, but managed to pull it all together themselves will eventually discover that their lives are just scrambled and scarred. No matter the situation, we eventually feel like all the king’s horses and all the king’s men will never get us back together again.

The good news is, we don’t have to rely on human or equestrian “fixers.” We have a God who specializes in bringing about restoration and transformation. If we’ve never turned our hearts to Jesus, we can, and in doing so, be redeemed AND made new from the sticky mess that once defined us. Even those who are followers of Christ have times where they fall and are broken. Fallen eggs get broken--and we are all fallen people. (Romans 3:23) 

The King Himself can pick up the pieces of our lives, and not simply “put us back together again,” but He will recreate us into something new. (2 Corinthians 5:17) We can have new life, and be defined not by the shells we put up, but by the heart within us that is full of the Holy Spirit, and belongs to God. It would be easy to think of all the ways that eggs can be fixed, or used together with other ingredients to make something wonderful, and that certainly would fit the illustration. But, I prefer to think outside that box, and remember that even though ten eggs in a row may look very much alike at one point, once they are broken reveal Swans, Turtles, Chameleons, Eagles, and quite the variety of different animals. In each of those, the egg must be cracked and broken to reveal the true beauty of what God has created. In the same way, until we let our King put us together in HIS way, we can never become all that we were made to be.

I know that brokenness hurts. I’ve been there, and I’m sure I’ll be there again. What my experience has taught me is that in all these things, we are not separated from God (Romans 8:38-39). Instead, it provides us with an opportunity to turn to Jesus, and allow Him to work through the pain to make us stronger than we ever were before, and revealing who we can be in Him.