Our preacher called in sick this week. We had a substitute preacher and he's great. But he didn't know that in addition to our regular weekly sermon, our preacher also prepares and presents a special sermon for the children.

I realized this at the last hour Saturday night so I quickly went to the Internet and found a children's sermon for the substitute preacher or anyone to do. I thought if worse came to worse, I would do it myself.

We believe that Jesus Christ came to earth, lived, died and was resurrected to cleanse us from our sins so that when we die, we can join Him in Heaven. All we have to do is believe that He is the Son of God and ask for forgiveness.

The sermon I found was a really good illustration of this belief. During the sermon, I was to tell the children what "sin" means and give them some examples of how we all sin everyday. Then I was supposed to write in black marker all those "sins" on a hard-boiled egg.

Next I was supposed to tell the kids that when we believe in Jesus and we ask him to forgive us, he takes all our sins away and "washes us white as snow." I was supposed to crack the hard-boiled egg and peel back the shell, revealing a soft, new, white egg.

Well, everything was going great until it was time to crack the egg. The darn thing wouldn't crack. So I squeezed it. That egg popped like a balloon with raw egg inside. Egg went everywhere.

Um, somehow I got to church with a raw egg instead of a hard-boiled one. I tried to salvage the lesson but I'm not sure the children really understood what happened versus what was supposed to happen. It really was funny though.

Up until the very end, I had been pretty proud of this egg sermon. I was sure I would be the talk of the church afterwards. Well, I guess I was.

There were two lessons to take away from my children's sermon. Number one, stay humble. Number two, don't sin 'cause Jesus will pop you like a raw egg…

Melissa Kinton is a stay-at-home mom. She is currently rearing one son, one daughter, two cats, two horses, three dogs, and one husband. She may be reached at melissagkinton@gmail.com.