What do you do when the yolk in an egg breaks?

By no means am I an egg expert, but I do know that an over-easy egg involves an unbroken yolk. Keeping the yolk intact is absolutely essential to the success of your sunny-side up (if that’s your preference). But accidents happen and innocent yolks end up hurt, stirred, and broken.

Here comes the unveiling of the metaphor you were anticipating.

When the yolk breaks, rather than forgetting the breakfast altogether, make scrambled eggs instead.

We often take on life and its pursuits with an expected outcome, but through the process that precedes the end result, stuff happens… The spot on the team is given to someone else, the relationship fails, bad news is broken. Disruptions occur leaving it impossible for us to piece our plans back together.

So what do we do? What do we do when our expectations don’t pan out (pun intended) and all that we’re left with is a broken yolk?

I can tell you what we shouldn’t do. We shouldn’t give up.

Because the truth is…

The end of our stories rarely aligns with our expectations. And who deemed our expectations to be ideal anyway? Your shattered expectations could be the doorway to a better reality.

So, what if the diverted path is by design? What if what happened was actually God’s will at work? Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe I’m wrong.

But just because the result isn’t what we think it should look like, this does not mean that it isn’t what it is supposed to look like.

After all, broken yolks make scrambled eggs.

While it’s a cute metaphor, I understand that life can be anything but that — cute.

In the book of Jeremiah the word of the Lord comes to the prophet in a vision, saying:

“Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.” (Jer. 18:2-4)

He made it, again.

In other words, he made something out of the original material. He didn’t do away with what was marred by starting over and making another vessel altogether, tossing it in a corner pile of projects that had failed over the course of time.

Nope.

He made the most with what was left in his hands, and guess what? It was still good in his eyes.

Look at verse four once more.

“And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.“

Where we look at ourselves and say “Marred.” Jesus looks at us and says “More.” Where we see our past, he sees our potential.

More or less what I am saying is that Jesus can do more with less, if we let Him. He can take the broken yolks and disappointments of life and make something useful out of them for our good and His glory.

Surrendering our ideals to the circumstances at hand is not to admit defeat. It is to acknowledge that God has a vision for our future that we’re just not able to see right now.

Let Jesus work with what’s left in your life. What’s left may look better than what was in the beginning. If you can just trust Him.

A broken yolk isn’t useless, it’s another chance… Better yet, it’s a different chance.

Let the Master make something out of what’s left, as seems good to Him to make it.