Three Eggs and a Toast

How breakfast brings remembrance and gives God the glory

The golden sun blooms over the horizon. I sit at my little 32” square table and eat my breakfast. I look to my left, to the East, out my window towards the lake. I live on a cliff and the sun streams in unabated so very often. Today, my breakfast consists of three eggs and sourdough toast. For some reason, I was thinking of the simplicity of a good breakfast. Nothing fancy, just simple goodness.

I believe simple mornings can profoundly shape one’s day. When I wake up I typically do a devotional time with my Lord and then eat breakfast. Ideally, there is little consideration for time, though that hardly seems to happen. I would choose to wake up early enough to read the Bible, pray, and generally bask in the presence of God in the quiet stillness of the morning. Afterward, moving to the kitchen and begin to prepare breakfast. I usually make a form of overnight oats that I learned from my wife, but today I am choosing to make eggs and toast. Specifically, three eggs and a toast.

This brings me back to my little table and my simple breakfast.

In the increasing complexity of the world and the busyness of daily life, it feels like a strange departure from reality when I sit down in the peace and quiet of the morning to enjoy the simple act of eating breakfast. The eggs came from my wife’s parent’s chickens so they are rich yellow yoke and generally smaller than the large white eggs of Aldi. The variety of the eggs makes for small surprises upon opening the carton each morning. Which one do I want to choose? They come in many sizes, unlike the thoroughly sized and sorted eggs of the grocery store. Each time I crack open an egg over the skillet I think of owning and starting my own chickens. And I remember what it was like when I was a kid and living on the small farm of my childhood. We had chickens, hogs, and a garden. My brothers used to use a BB gun to shoot at the wasp nest that was over the chicken coop door. We would shoot at them until they found us and we would run off yelling and laughing.

Knowing where things came from, how they grew to be there, these are things that I like to remember, that I want to remember. Like how my brothers and sister used to get chased around the farm by a goat we called Jeremiah. We would eventually end up in a tree and he would circle around waiting for us to come down. My older brother would have to jump down and give us younger kids a chance to make it to safety. It’s funny to me that these small eggs in my kitchen bring me back to that place, that small farm in Oklahoma, where chickens, cats named Socks, and cowboy camps lived. I am thankful for the time I lived there and the seed of growing things myself still remains, growing slowly, looking for a time to sprout into reality itself. The season is not yet here, but Lord willing, it will be one day. I want my kids to have that as well, the gardens and the goats, chickens and cats. Things that grow up with you and help you make memories, which plant their own seeds and grow in due time.

I trust in God when I read that there is a time for everything. But who is to say what time will be mine? Only God knows what lies ahead, but I trust Him all the same. I work where God has placed me in the season, and I hope that one day that maybe I too would have a garden and a small piece of land, to work quietly with my hands and live a God-filled life. I desire to teach my children to love God and to love the land in which he has placed us. To have them know that work is not meaningless, though at times very difficult, but in time, just like a seed, it will bear much fruit. For now, I hope that I learn my own lessons, to be patient and to remember. To be patient and trust in God’s plan. And to remember that He is faithful and that He is always at work. Remembering is a big part of being a Christian, may I not forget God's faithfulness and Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross. May I teach that kind of remembering to my own children, to tell them the stories of what God has done for me and for the world, to show them in the Bible how he has spoken. To tell them about the Glory of God.

But even if I do not end up with a garden of my own, goats that tree my children, or wasp nests that sting the slowest kid running frantically away, I trust God and love Him all the same. I will remember how He gave those to me, and now I remember them for my own children. I am thankful for farm fresh eggs and simple silent mornings, how they teach me to remember that must do all things to the glory of God. So, I will remember and be grateful that these three eggs and toast have reminded me that God is good and that I can trust Him.