Now for the eggshells...

Since I've enlightened you about my thoughts on crumbs in the butter, I thought I would go ahead and move on to the eggshells.

Another one of my big pet peeves is discarded eggshells in the sink. You know when you're cooking, and you crack that egg, and you can't take one extra step to the trash can so you just toss it in the sink to be chopped by the disposal later? That drives me crazy. Again, and my husband says I think too much, it made me think about something deeper.

I know those eggshells were once useful. They provided a protective covering for a precious commodity. They kept out dirt and disease, and they kept in the good stuff. Once their job is done, we discard them as if they have no more use at all. Fact is, they could still be quite useful. One of the ideas I found is to of course crush them for use in composting. The shells are made mostly of calcium carbonate, and that is useful to our soil. Another use recommends putting clean, crushed eggshells in a tea stained container such as a thermos and leaving them overnight. You can then rinse it out and supposedly the tea stains will be gone. And, the suggestion is, go ahead and rinse them right down the pipes so that they can act as an abrasive to cleanse those pipes. You can also plant seedlings in eggshells, placing them right into the egg container they came in originally, and when the seedling has grown you can just crush the shell and place the entire thing in the ground, shell and all. I know you have probably also seen beautifully painted eggshells, so art is another option to discarding.

We live in such a wasteful society. We are discarding things left and right. This has recently brought about a "green" movement that is once again sweeping the nation. If I'm not mistaken, it's a similar movement to the one that swept across us when I was a child. They told us that if we didn't conserve, our children wouldn't be able to walk without stepping on trash, that our waters would be toxic or dried up, and that the very air that we breathe would be detrimental to our health. Well, here we go again with that same old song and dance. I must admit though, I'm beginning to jump on the recycle bandwagon, but not because I fear the very air I breathe may suddenly become dangerous.

America has become a disposable society. If we are done with something, we simply toss it to the side. A home isn't quite big enough, so we buy a bigger one. A car has 50,000 miles on it, and there is a new and shinier model, so we get rid of the old one. We want the latest clothes, shoes, and other material items, and we quickly devalue the previously owned ones. With the economic crisis that has recently hit us, the media is making us believe that people are looking at things differently, but are we?

Kids especially don't value things any more. Many of them take everything for granted. They think that they will get up in the morning, have a good breakfast, put on their name brand clothes, and get in Mom's SUV to go to school where they will argue over who has the coolest Silly Bands, or whatever the day's trend may be. If they only knew how fleeting it all really is, would they focus on anything more important?

Who am I kidding? Of course they wouldn't. What example are they seeing all around them? We dispose of homeless people rather than help them. We dispose of our military veterans rather than value them for the heros they are. We dispose of the elderly because they are just too much trouble to deal with and don't fit into our schedule. We dispose of unborn lives every day because they are an inconvenience in our poorly planned and irresponsible lives. Where will our children learn to value petty things if we don't even value the most important things?

Proverbs 28:25 says, "A greedy man stirs up dissention, but he who trusts in the Lord will prosper." The tricky part is, God doesn't mean we will be featured on the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. He means that those who trust in the Lord will win in the end. This means we need to be content with what we have and where we are. I remember years ago Ken and I were visiting my Grandmother Birdie, and Ken said something along the lines of being happy to be there. She said, "Paul said that he learned to be content no matter what state he was in, even if it was South Carolina!" (My, how that would come back to me so many times.) The actual verse is Phillipians 4:11 in which he says to the Phillipians, "Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I'm in to be content." Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just be content?

I said last night to Ken, "There is a teacher at school that sure needs a car. I wish somehow God would provide one for him." Ken looked at me so funny and said, "He needs one worse that you do? Wow! His must be really bad!" I have just reached a point in my life where I figure as long as my '97 Chrysler minivan goes, I'm going in it. There is just too much wasted in America today. We waste time, we waste money, we waste water, food, and gasoline, and we even waste lives.

So, the next time you see eggshells in your sink, remember to not be wasteful. Be content with what you have, and value every single bit of it. Don't waste your life pursuing earthly things, because we are like the people Paul is talking about in Phillipians 3:19.... "Whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame -- who set their minds on earthly things." O what a world this would be if we would just be content in whatever state we're in, even if it's South Carolina.