Easter Eggs - A Love Story

The very well camouflaged eggs in the picture were laid in the stone nest on or about Good Friday. As always with the animals that habitate our yard, I came to care for the mother Kildeer that we named "The Drama Queen". She laid her eggs right next to the driveway where cars come in and out, we ride our bikes by, and walk back and forth to our mailbox while Mama always put on her best broken wing show to entice us away from her nest. As we would get closer to her precious eggs, she would come closer to us with her act emitting cries of pain as her "broken wing" caused her to flop in circles on the ground just a few feet from us. I always reassured her we weren't interested in her eggs and she was just wasting her energy with all of her dramatic gestures.

Saturday afternoon, she acted out her drama for a cat, and we rescued her from the cat's clutches. We saved her in time, and she returned to her post and her eggs. I knew that soon, the cat would return for her.

Easter Sunday after Church, I went out to see how she was. As I approached her nesting ground, she didn't greet me. My heart sunk, but I remained hopeful. I checked on the nest several more times, and as the sun set I touched the eggs and was met with the ice cold shell. I knew she wouldn't return.

I made one last hopeful trip this morning, to no avail. I saw again the images in my mind of this mother bird stretching her wings out and sacrificing her life for the eggs that had not even yet hatched. A moment later, the Lord brought a teaching moment into my life and showed me His Son who so willingly stretched out his arms in the same manner, a living sacrifice for millions yet unborn, those never to be born, and all who had come before Him. That amazing sacrifice played out a seemingly small analogy right in my own front yard.

I'm going back out now to get those eggs. That Mama died for those eggs, so I'll not leave them there for a snake or another scavenger. As Christ died for all men, shall we leave even one man for the scavenger? It's powerful, this lesson unfolding before my eyes. The eggs laid out in the frost all night, they'll never grow into the Kildeer, and I don't know what I will do with them. I know that forever Easter eggs will look very different to me.