Broken Better

Eggs and Us

The eggs' intended fate was never in question.
Their destiny was to be broken.
Too solid blue beauties,
smother the living.

Shatter a porcelain cup
and you will sip tea from your palm,
but sky colored shell shards
are evidence of life with wings.

God has given each heart
an egg tooth just as
surely as He has given
each soul a flight plan.

Lovely shells past opening
are the tiny coffins
of dead dreams and failed promises.
Wishes without birthdays.

Our lives are air and sky-
distant horizons of faith answering to
the straining-flexing of feeble wings;
damning shells to free our singing souls.

The nest is but a cup to be emptied
as life is more than the most perfect egg
upon even the highest branch.

Kat Cavanaugh LaMantia


A missionary in India came home to her apartment with a large and beautiful nest built by her window. A pair of crows had labored in her absence and deposited six blue speckled eggs in an architectural masterpiece. After many days two downy baby crows appeared, grew, flew and returned to mimic her voice. Four eggs remained beautifully unopened and lifeless.

So it is with us. It is not how good we look. How well positioned. It is all about our standing broken before the Cross of Christ. The following words of David Wilkerson say it to perfection.

"Here is the sacrifice we are to make, according to Isaiah: The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart you will not despise (Psalm 51:17).

What is brokenness?

Brokenness is to give up all hope of attaining heaven by any measure of personal goodness. It is to lay down all trust in our own efforts. It is turning wholly to the victory of the Cross of Christ, believing he is the only way. Finally, it is trusting him to empower us through his Spirit to live up to his claim on our lives. 
 
That is brokenness, contriteness, humility. And we need such brokenness to keep walking in faith: The Lord is near unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit (Psalm 34:18).

Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite (Isaiah 57:15).

No matter how I may feel, Christ is my righteousness. No matter how many doubts may arise, Christ is my righteousness. No matter how many accusations I hear from the devil during the day, I stand on this: God sees me as righteous in Christ!

To this one will I look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and trembleth at my word. (Isaiah 66:2)."

It is not our fate to be as the four unbroken, unopened, flightless, lifeless birds. We were made to be broken and overflowing with the goodness of God, to be His voice to a world in need. To be the ones to whom He will look. "...to live up to his claim on our lives."


Nest Photo by Jackie Tallent, Calcutta, India
Reaching the street children of South Asia
1445 N. Boonville Ave.
Springfield, MO 65802
Donation Acct. #207093

May the world never break you. May you, in obedience and love, be broken better.

Shalom,
Kathy