I was fixing eggs and sausage for a late Sunday night supper when the most disgusting thing happened. I cracked an egg carefully checking to make sure it was good before adding it to the bowl. All of a sudden in my hand dropped a black gooey, stinky glob. I screamed and dropped the rotten egg into the nearby carton.
No More Eggs
Needless to say, I wasn’t hungry for eggs any more, or ever again for quite some time. Since the other eggs weren’t affected, I figured I’d continue making eggs for the guys. And then, it happened again.
My friend had started raising chickens and had an overabundance of eggs. The two dozen we’d already eaten were delicious. There’s just a difference between really fresh eggs and store bought. Maybe fresh was the problem. I’d had these several weeks and they weren’t refrigerated.
100% Girl
I knew at that point, more than ever before, I am 100 percent girl. I can’t stand dead animals, rotten garbage, festering boils, maggots, mice or roaches—oh and snakes. I don’t like snakes either, but it’s interesting that snakes seem to like all the other disgusting stuff in life.
I was glad I had the egg carton handy and was able to dump the sickening stuff in there after scrubbing my hands with Lysol and bleach! I threw away another egg that just looked kind of gray, like maybe it had black inside, too.
Good thing the garbage men were coming the next morning.
Stuff Festering Inside
Here’s my point. We all have disgusting stuff festering inside of us. When that rotten egg fell into my hand that was the first thing I thought of. Here was a normal looking egg. It looked like all the other eggs. I really could not tell it apart, until it began to be used for its intended purpose and then the truth came out.
Sometimes when we are trying to do something right, it feels like we’re wading through muck, mire and garbage to try to do a simple thing like stick to an eating plan, stop smoking, stop yelling at the kids or the wife or husband, stop lying, stop gossiping, stop overspending.
We make an intelligent decision to get to work on time, and that week we’re late every day. It’s like someone has thrown a rotten, dead egg in our face and we can’t figure out what’s going on. We feel we just can’t go forward. We have stinking thinking.
Bacteria Inside
The most probable cause of the black inside the eggs was bacteria or fungus. That little spot of bacteria ruined the entire egg. It wasn’t the egg’s fault. It was probably the hen who inadvertently spoiled the egg.
We harbor feelings and thoughts that stop us, things like anger, sadness, fear, shame, despair . Sure, you’re an adult now. You understand people in your life didn’t mean to set those up inside you as a little kid. You’ve stuffed the hurt feelings away in a closet and shut the door, but they are still there because you have no idea what to do with them. They are thoughts and feelings that stink up your life.
No matter how large or small, if left to fester they will grow into full blown death inside of us, a black gooey substance only a snake would devour (see John 10:10, NLT).
He tries to do just that until it feels like he sucks the life right out of us.
What Can We Do?
What can we do? Let’s go back to the root of our problem and discover how and why we can’t go forward. Let’s choose to forgive those who mistreated us, lied to us, made us feel ashamed, didn’t protect us or made us feel alone. Let’s discard the stinking thinking which is comprised of lies and tap into God’s truth. Let’s let Him clean us up from the inside out (see Rom. 12:1-2, MSG).
The lies we believe are like rottenness inside of us. The blackness will always surprise us when it surfaces. Instead of stuffing it back inside so no one can see it or smell it, let’s deal with it as fast as we can. Throw it out. Get rid of it. The only way to do that is to figure out where it began and start to take out the garbage it has created in us.
Don’t let that old snake suck the life out of you (see Rev. 12:9, 20:2, AMP). Run to Jesus with your garbage. We can hand Him our black, slimy, disgusting rottenness. In exchange He will give us light, beauty and divine destiny, greater than we “could ever imagine or guess or request in our wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, His Spirit deeply and gently within us” (Eph. 3:20, MSG).
I’ll take that over fighting off snakes any day.
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Teresa Shields Parker is a spiritual coach, speaker and author of three books. Her newest is Sweet Freedom: Losing Weight and Keeping It Off with God’s Help. Her first book, Sweet Grace: How I Lost 250 Pounds is still number in Christian Weight Loss Memoirs on Amazon. Free Chapters of all her books, as well as a FREE 10-video Course #KickSugar are available on her website, TeresaShieldsParker.com.