My friend said it well…..”We are all just a bunch of onions.” I am always making the reference to ‘peeling the onion’ to peer into our challenges to understand why we do what we do, but it never quite struck me that way. We are after all, a bunch of onions. Truer words never spoken. So Heather Rouse, a.k.a. Hospice Nurse of the Year…you are tagged with the quote and thank you! In the end we humans are so onion-like! There are so many layers to all that makes us up, shapes us, influences who we are. If we are brave, we can peel back our layers for a deeper understanding of why we think and do as we do, which can give birth to massive growth and change. We are complex. We are messy. We can be loving. We can be full of hate. We can be a juxtaposition of a little of both. We can be so reactionary at the end of the day, acting and reacting towards all that comes at us. Why is it that sometimes we act in loving ways-full of maturity and health in response to a negative situation, comment, gesture, choosing to take the high road, while at other times we react, unleashing the full fury of our woundedness, lacking any kind of self-control, (…..and then some), when we suffer a minor slight from another, even taking ourselves by surprise with the intensity of our responses?
If only we could peel back the layers. If only in the moment when we, or others react in an unhealthy and disproportionate fashion to others, could peel the layers back and peer into all that built up and influenced that moment of explosion. When love is withheld, when a spouse is unable to really grow close to their spouse, (I’ve been there…done that) keeping them emotionally at arms-length, what might be going on for them in the layers beneath that chill? Could it be that that the spouse who keeps their partner at a distance, has been so wounded in the past by others that they feel unable to risk the rejection of their ‘beloved’, not really bonding for fear of abandonment and further wounding? Even though their spouse hasn’t given them any reason to believe they will leave, that fear can be so palpable just beneath the surface-not so deep. Stories, whether rational or not, permeate our minds, suggesting to us a reality that isn’t so……but feels so.
Or what about the person who is slow to make friends, or suffering from various addictions? Are they weak or unfriendly or, (((more likely))), battling past and current hurts that no one can comprehend?
We can be so quick to jump to conclusions, committing assumicide. You know that act of ‘assuming’ that we know why their behavior is such as it is. Truth be told, we are all just a bunch of onions in the end. Such complex creatures in great need of grace. None of us is worthy to judge-not one of us. Jesus is the righteous judge. He knows all about those layers that none of us see. I think that is why when He was on the cross He said, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34. He saw all those layers beneath those surface actions as the only perfectly Omniscient Being would. He understood the limited depth of those crucifiers’ understanding. What perfect grace, wisdom and love. In the end, we don’t love because we are awesome. “We love because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19. He went to the cross while we were yet still sinners. What radical love. What radical wisdom. What radical sacrifice. What radical grace.
As we near Thanksgiving, I am thankful eternally to The One who is infinitely wiser than I, The One who sees beneath the onion peel and knows all the layers of my life. Every chapter and verse of my life I entrust to The One who loved me from the beginning, The One who gave His one and only Son to pay a price I never could pay for my iniquity.
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