What Kind of Hard Boiled Egg Are You?

My grown son requests my Deviled Eggs each Thanksgiving. I can really give my brilliant and well-married son nothing that he doesn’t already have in abundance, except my Deviled Eggs. I am pretty good with Deviled Eggs.

So it is a labor of love and one I joyfully tackle each Thanksgiving. I may have failed in most of my parenting endeavors, but I made delicious Deviled Eggs for my children.

This past Thanksgiving, I was as usual busy before Thanksgiving with the single task assigned to me by my precious daughter-in-law. I was whipping up 4 dozen Deviled Eggs. All the eggs came from the same carton. All were boiled together in the same pot for the same amount of time. All were then submerged in the same cold water.

Yet when I peeled the shells from the eggs, they were decidedly different. They basically fell into one of two camps: the incredibly effortless easy to peel egg, or the rebellious impossibly hard to peel egg. 

Why? How? 

I cracked the eggs using an identical procedure, rolled them all gently in my palms in the exact same manner. Nonetheless, while some eggs’ shells glided away in two easy halves leaving perfect hard boiled eggs behind, others splintered and each small millimeter of egg shell had to be painstakingly peeled away, often pulling chunks from the white of the egg. Sadly, in many cases, what remained were deformed and pitted eggs that sometimes had to be tossed in the garbage.

Why? How? 

Why were some eggs almost begging to be effortlessly peeled, and others fighting me every step of the way?

I don’t know. I was the same Deviled Egg Cook using the exact same methods for all the eggs God had given me.

Some emerged as masterpieces. Some were utter disasters.

What was God telling me?

Sometimes, the best I can do is show up in obedience to do the work set before me. I cannot guarantee the results. Unique, intangible qualities that I have no control over may affect the outcome. For me to take credit for the easily peeled egg is as foolish as for me to be punished for the hard to peel egg.

The Holidays are fraught with emotional baggage. Some of us are struggling with wounds we don’t even know we have that bring inexplicable pain to a time when everyone else is rejoicing. Some of us have experienced loss, or unrealistic expectations, or deep disappointments over things we cannot control. 

Some of us have been given easy to peel eggs, and some of us have only had the hard to peel variety.

My suggestion is to recognize that we probably cannot control which type we are handed. What we can control is to peel them to the best of our ability and make the best Deviled Eggs we can with the tools we have been given.

I hope that helps you.

Merry Christmas.

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“So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.”

‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭3:7‬ ‭