Praying Wrong. Feeling very good today my friends.

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“Rotten Egg.”

 

Once upon a time I went swiming and came back home starving for some eggs with French fries but there were no eggs.

 

Grandma said, “All the eggs were eaten at breakfast time”.

But I want to eat eggs!! I said. I must have been ten or twelve years old.

“There are no eggs sweetheart,” my grandma said patiently.

Can I look for eggs in the chicken coops,? I asked grandma.

Grandma answered, “Go-ahead baby but you are not going to find any eggs.”

 

After a while I found one and my grandma said, “That is an year old egg that we use to deceive the chickens to keep laying eggs in the same place baby.”

But I want to eat this egg!!! I insisted. Grandma said, “that is a rotten egg.”

But I want to eat this egg ... and I threw a temper tantrum. My grandma firmly said, “that egg is a rotten egg and impossible to eat.” But I want this egg, I insisted.

 

My grandma had it and sweetly asked me, “Let me see that egg baby.” I innocently handed the egg over into her loving hands. Then in a swift movement my beautiful and beloved grandma smashed the egg on my forehead.

 

I could not believe what was happening. The stench of the rotten egg was so strong that I could not think of anything but run to the stream and wash my face and jacket in the midst of great tears and crying out loud. (I was good at it :).

 

The pestilence was so great that even as I write this letter, I find myself twitching my nose in disgust after 60 years. Don’t take me wrong, my grandma loved me only second to Jesus and I love her also only second to Jesus. But she smashed a rotten egg on my forehead and laughed about the lesson she was wisely teaching me.

 

In the same way our Father in Heaven sometimes grants us the wrong petitions and allows us to have the rotten experience like Jonah in the stinking belly of a fish for three days and three nights.

 

In the same way I, not the Lord, think Abraham was tired of waiting for the promises of the Lord for a descendant. That is easy for me, who was used to getting away with everything, to imagine Abraham sweet talking to Sarah about having a child with the beautiful young Hagar.

 

“I think” Sarah yielded to the pressure and temper tantrum of Abraham and handed over the “rotten egg (Hagar)” to God. The “rotten egg” was smashed on the forehead of Abraham so that the humiliating stench has followed him to this day.

 

Be careful with impatience and asking so persistently for something, because you might get it and you might not be happy with it for the rest of your life on earth.

 

I know a thing or TWO about impatience and asking relentlessly for the wrong thing in the wrong time. Such as the classic “Youthful indiscretions” that have followed me all the days of my life humiliating me thoroughly even to this day.

 

But in hindsight my most painful experience turned out to be the way I understood grace when my Ruthie said, “I knew about it but I wanted to hear it from your lips. Nothing counts against you for what you did before you met me.”

 

For a vindictive person, such as I am, that was the greatest lesson I learned of what the Gospel was all about. That day I fell in love with Ruthie and later I fell in love with the Jesus of Ruthie. I thank my wife for never bringing my rotten past experience to my face.

 

Watch what you ask for in prayer with a temper tantrum. You might get it and you might not like it at all.

 

Remember Gerry’s rotten egg experience.

Remember Jonah’s stinking experience.

Remember Abraham and Hagar’s experience.

Remember the wicked Amnon the brother of beautiful Tamar who raped her and after that he hate her and then was killed by her brothers.

 

Might the Lord have mercy and grace with us in our temper tantrums.

 

This was the assistant principal on duty.

 

Gerry Gutierrez.

 

PS. The picture is the only family picture of my Grandpa Juan Francisco Santillana Barbosa on the left. Then there is my legendary grandma the Inca princess Cidolfina Restaure Irala. Next is my tall uncle, my mother and finally aunt America Lara Irala. I am in front and “properly” in the middle of the picture at age ten.

(Since you love my grandma so much and some of you with great delight for putting me in my place, there will be more Grandma's tales coming your way.)