Want a wrinkle?

I had to smile a little when I held it in my hands: an egg (you can see it in the picture above) that didn’t have a smooth shell as usual, but had a wrinkled outer skin.

‘How comforting, even eggs get wrinkles’, I wrote to someone. After all, the wrinkles on my face are just one of the unmistakable signs that I’m getting older. And I admit: I don’t always find it easy. Not that I don’t appreciate the life experience and insights that (hopefully) come with age. But the increasing physical complaints, the external signs of ageing, which manifest themselves a little differently for everyone and which can only be permanently erased with cosmetic attempts on the computer, do take some getting used to here and there. And then there’s the advertising, which always suggests that we have to be young, dynamic and good-looking. …

But is that really what life is all about? Is a wrinkle-free face what defines me as a person?

My physical deficits, which are more pronounced than those of many others my age, are often not easy for me to accept, nor is the fact that certain things are no longer possible as a result. And to a greater or lesser extent, this happens to all of us as the years go by.

The egg, I have learned, can be used despite the wrinkled shell. It can apparently have very different causes in chickens.

Our appearances and often our lives also change when we get older, no longer look so “fresh” 😉 and can no longer do some things. And yet we are valuable and have a purpose. It doesn’t change who we are and it certainly doesn’t change how God sees us: As his beloved children.

Even to your old age and grey hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. 

Isaiah 46:4 ©NIV