Bold Like an Easter Egg Dip

Please WELCOME Julie Arduini today with a VERY SEASONAL devotional!

Forgive my excitement over something so mundane but I have a confession: I don't eat eggs.

Alright, I eat chocolate peanut butter eggs but not the real kind that you scramble. I'm so against eggs I never decorated them for Easter. When I had children I saved that project until grandma came to town.

This year we had snow storm after snow storm and this last one occurred when my son had a friend visit. Our original plans to travel across state lines to visit a chocolate factory went with the blizzard like winds.I took them to a nearby store for snacks and spotted the egg decorating kit. I went for it.

Since my past experience with making things out of a box rarely translated to success, I read the egg directions a few times. The following directive took me way beyond Easter egg decorating.

To make bolder colors, add vinegar.
The longer you keep the egg dipped, the bolder the egg color becomes.

Vinegar isn't a liquid of choice. It smells and if you have to taste it, well, it's bitter. Just ask Jesus.

The vinegar stick they handed Him wasn't a soda. It wasn't intended to provide true relief.
Bold outcome calls for a long stay in bitter liquid. I can't think of anything more horrific than beating, mocking, whipping and lashing coming from leather strips with sharp blunt objects attached to expose not skin, but bone. That's quite a dip to stay in.

Five years ago our family was submerged in the vinegar of life. Job changes, abnormal newborn test results, medical mix up, doctor error, croup, near death, RSV, pneumonia, new job, moving, terminal diagnosis in family, surgery for oldest child, death of parent, grief, selling home in one state to buy home in another, leaving everyone and everything to obey God's call on our life.

Does the last line sound like the One who took a bold dip in vinegar? If you are facing adversity, think about the decorated eggs. My very favorite ones are the bold and brilliant ones. The ones that carry the trace of vinegar because they stayed in the bitter stuff the longest.

And thrived.
Just like you can.
Just like HE did.

For You.

"The soldiers also came up and mocked Him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, "If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself." Luke 23:36-37, NIV

Jesus, thank you for enduring bitter drink offers, beatings, mockings, whippings and death for us. Your sacrifice makes You more bold and brilliant to me. Help me see adversity as Your promotion, and that I won’t mind taking vinegar dips. You are so worthy. In Your name, Amen.

Do you consider hard times a punishment or an opportunity?

Do you remember an experience where the circumstances were so difficult but you came out bolder and more brilliant in Christ on the other side?

Julie Arduini is a graduate of the Christian Writer’s Guild and a columnist with both Take Root and Write and The Cypress Times. She has published credits as a contributing writer. Her quote about being buried by a snow plow will be featured this year in Kathy Vick’s gift book by Howard/Simon & Schuster, Run Like a Girl. To see more of her writing resume, please check the right sidebar of her blog, The Surrendered Scribe. Julie lives in Ohio with her husband and two children.