How Do You Like Your Eggs?

How do you like your eggs?  I can remember as a young boy going to the grocery store to buy eggs for my mom. In her instructions she was very clear when it came to buying eggs. "make sure you open the carton and check for cracked eggs". If I opened the carton and one is cracked or broken, I was instructed to just "put it back on the shelf" and keep looking for one that has a full un-cracked dozen.  As I was thinking about this, I couldn't help but relate it back to my life. For so long in my life, I viewed God as the one opening the carton and looking down on me amongst other people on this earth. I knew I was the cracked and broken egg and surrounded with people that had it all together. Some thoughts would run thru my head like, "Why was I so messed up and everyone else had such a perfect life? Why am I the only cracked egg around here? I know God can't use me and will just stick me back on the shelf to be disposed of later." Fortunately, looking back I realized that my thinking was distorted. God is not examining each egg, searching for cracks so that He can throw them back. He isn't looking for un-cracked eggs that have it all together. In fact, this is why He sent His Son to die for us. He knows we are all cracked eggs. I now realize that there is no such thing as a perfect person. We are all broken and He loves us anyway. I have learned now more than ever thru CR that some people can look beautiful and happy on the outside only to have misery and pain on the inside. Just cause there are no visible cracks doesn't always mean the egg is not beginning to spoil on the inside. If your egg is rotting on the inside or if you have cracks in your shell, don't keep hiding them from the Father, He already knows about them. He has the power to restore, redeem and renew us into a healthy and vibrant being. But until we surrender & acknowledge those to Him, He cannot begin the restoration process. “Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time."Viktor E. Frankl The Father gives us a second chance at living life. Today, I take all my brokenness and cracks to the cross. I can't wait to see how he will take a cracked egg like myself and make delicious scrambled eggs out of my mess. :) Have a great day. Rodney Holmstrom

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why do we introduce ourselves?

One of the things that might confuse a newcomer coming into this great ministry is the way we introduce our self and do so every time we meet in a Step Group and/or Open discussion group. The question that often comes up is; “Why in the world would we have to introduce our self every time we come together? I mean, we all know each other don’t we? We all know what the other is struggling with right? So why should I have to state my main issue I am dealing with? These are all logical questions and I think the below content from Tina at Saddleback might help shed some light on this. As you may already know, in our small groups we ask our Leaders to introduce themselves with this statement: “Hi my name is _______; I am a believer who struggles with________.” We ask our leaders to keep it short; to stick to one or two primary areas of recovery. We ask them not to state a host of recovery issues and character defects, etc… especially because we do not run recovery specific groups for cha...
Read more

Guidelines are there for a reason

Anyone who has participated in a Step Study or a small group through Celebrate Recovery has heard the five small-group guidelines. They’re supposed to be read aloud before each meeting starts, just to remind everyone or to inform any newcomers. Most of the guidelines are obvious and make perfect sense on the first reading. Anonymity is vital and as people who are submitting to God as our Higher Power, we should realize that we are in no more a position to “fix” each other than we are to “fix” ourselves. There’s one guideline that puzzled and even annoyed me at first, that pesky no. 2. “There is NO cross talk. Cross talk is when two individuals engage in conversation excluding all others. Each person is free to express his or her feelings without interruptions.” At first I really didn’t understand the guideline. “Did they seriously need to tell us not to talk to each other while someone was sharing?,” was my thought. But as the guideline was explained further, I better understood. We ar...
Read more

Producing vs Bearing fruit

Can I "produce" fruit, or do I "bear" the fruit? Interesting thought for me this morning. I used to believe that once God dealt with my past, cleansed my heart, got me back on track, and living on His path, that it was time for me to take off as a healthy runner for the Kingdom. What I am learning now though, is that I must take off and run for His glory but, that I must run "with" the Father and not solo. Solo running got me into trouble in my past.  Once I get to the point of growth and renewed and sound mind, then it is the time that I get to "bear" the fruit of all the work me and the Father have done together. Notice I didn't say, time for me to "produce" the fruit. CR has taught me that the Father is the one who produces the fruit in my family, ministry... my life. He produces it and then I can bear the fruit He has produced thru our journey together. The only way He can produce fruit in my life is thru a continued self exam...
Read more