Recently I needed to wrap a package. I gathered various equipment like tape and scissors, a box and bubble wrap. I did my best to swaddle it in such a way that it would protect the present inside without giving a hint as to its contents, and still afford stability for its journey in trucks and mailbags. I used a permanent marker to label it to the lucky recipient, and handed it to the post lady over the counter.

 

Some days later, it arrived safely at the door of my daughter, and she enjoyed both the unwrapping and the gift inside.

 

The egg is an interesting package. The surface is surprisingly seamless, with no suggestion of how its contents managed to get inside or will eventually get out. As many science students who have devised various tests for the dropping of eggs from precarious heights can attest, it is remarkably sturdy. There is no identifying mark as to its sender or owner, so we are left to guess. Yet the wonder of what happens inside defies any earthly endeavor, when we find ways to peek through the shell and see that soft, peeping life comes where there was slimy ooze.

 

You are an egg. You began life as a somewhat vague individual, unformed and unfinished. Yet inside you are changing in marvelous ways. To the casual observer, there may be no visible indicator of how drastically you are growing, indeed you may well be oblivious yourself. Yet you are softening, developing, and coming to life.

 

It has been several years since I kept chickens, but the miracle of watching tiny birds emerge from a silent encasement stays with me. My friends who still have flocks are in the thick of protecting small creatures who have no idea of what their life will be like a few months from now, but that doesn't seem to matter. 

Some things are better left as a surprise. 

Spiritual life develops successively from one age to another, as from an egg, so that a person is as it were being born continually.
-Secrets of Heaven 4378

Love,
Lori