God's Success Story: A Basket of Colourful Eggs

There are so many, very different blog topics floating around this school-logged brain of mine, but in tribute to a younger cousin who was old enough to learn about the magic of colouring Easter eggs this year for the first time... I figured a post or two on the egg was appropriate.  

While I cannot touch or eat the inside of an egg, that has never stopped me from staring in awe at them.  They make excellent youth group illustrations on a variety of topics.  I'm sure you've done the experiment in junior high where you take two plastic lids from a 2L pop bottle, a raw (uncooked) egg, and a stack of heavy books.  Asking the youth before hand, how many books they think the egg will hold after shaking the egg and proving it has a runny yoke, the answers range from 0-1... maybe. However, standing the egg upright on it's end in one of the lids, and placing the other lid (like a hat) on top allows you to stack an incredible number of heavy books upon the egg.  I've used this illustration to introduce topics of choosing the proper foundation in life, community and the importance of surrounding yourself with people you trust (lids), and even topics like, "Stand up!  Take Faith!"... for if you do, your inner strength and courage to withstand outside forces will be much stronger than you originally think.  

However, more than a perfect scientific/Christian illustration, eggs to me - are a perfect example of God's success story when it comes to the notion of divine timing.  Having grown up on the farm, and with a mom who would gather the eggs every two days, wash them and sell them... do you know how many conditions need to be absolutely perfect for a chick to exit an egg rather than a runny yoke?  The temperature in which they are kept must be within a range of a few degrees, or the baby chick will not survive and will default to being the runny egg.  The incubation time must be kept within a range of a few days or the chick won't develop either.  You cannot prematurely break the egg open, you'll kill the little, adorable, fuzzy thing.  

But, when the time is right and the chick is good and ready, prepared, healthy, and developed... it will start to slowly hammer on the shell... and piece by piece, a chick will emerge.  IT is not a hasty process - you definitely have enough time to call young ones to gather round when the chick starts tapping so they can witness this excitement, but at the same time - it is not a process that lasts days on end and elicits boredom either.  

The timing is just right.  

Yup, chicken/egg debate (that plagues five year olds to no end) aside, I would have to say that eggs are most definitely God's success story!

Stay tuned... next blog?  About the beauty and reminders of grace found in decorating these lil' marvels of creation! :)

Isaiah

Just when I am ready to throw in the foot-drying towel and raise my hands with exacerbation, and cry, "the church is full of human beings"... I am caught, pulled back in, and winded - all at once. 

If the past few days have shown me anything, it is that the "church" as we know it (in whatever expression we participate within), is made up of none other than human beings.  I think that once upon a time, a university chaplain tried to explain this to me, but I wasn't ready to hear it.  It is a realization much like the one I had when I first learned that Adam and Eve "may not" have actually been two, real, walking and breathing human beings.  *GASP*

It's true though.  I went to church every Sunday and firmly believed that "if" Adam and Eve were two fish or apes rather than human beings, my faith was no longer valid.  I don't know why I thought the Bible had to be read literally, but when I found out this was not true, my brain sort of exploded.  

The "human being composed church" realization is a lot like the Adam and Eve one. For the past 23 years, I have gone on believing and proclaiming that God is found in a church.  Slowly, over time, I came to accept the presence of God outside of the four walls and residing more precisely, within each human being that composed "the church".  And now, this most recent ideology might not be true either.  

I am grabbling with the idea that God created us IN HIS IMAGE, not as spittin' replicas of himself.  It is this reason that the phrase, to err is human, stands true.  We are human - (unless there is something you are not telling me) and we all make mistakes.  It's who we are... we will fall, stumble, groan, complain, and make horrible mistakes along this path.  Some of our mistakes (sins) will without a doubt, affect those around us.  I get that... 

What I don't "get"... is how there are actually church leaders out there who can pastor and shepherd a congregation, all the while believing that someone else's mistake has affected them personally, take rude offense to it, and walk away.  I understand that they too, are human - and have been given free will and choice in life.  But honestly, it doesn't speak much for the church you represent if those hurt on a greater caliber, are willing to stick it out and support the stumbling - while you are cutting loses and turning your back.  

Then again - maybe I just don't understand the human condition enough to be able to understand the actions of a few.  And so instead, on this Monday of Holy Week, I am standing in the middle of a desert, lost and searching, and kindly yelling, "Let my adversaries confront me" (Isaiah...).