Rejections and onions..

I had a conversation with someone not too long ago and basically said exactly this phrase. It’s certainly a fear that when someone gets to see the real me, the real struggles, the real insecurities, the real everything.. the other person will either determine that I’m not enough or it’ll be too much work to love me.

In either case, I’m alone.

Then last night while talking to a long time friend and discussing this fear of allowing someone to get too close and the possibility of rejection… and how I was left feeling a bit undone and not really sure how to not be too much or too little or too exhausting or too underwhelming or too (fill in the blank…) – his advice was simple.

“You’re like an onion. Even after all these years, I pull back a layer and see something new about you. This keeps things interesting and there’s always something to learn. The alternative is to be like a piece of bread. You see one side and you flip it over and see the other side. Then you’re done. You’ve seen all there is to see. Be an onion.”

There really is no way to know how another person will react when we begin to reveal who we are and why we are and what we are… but there is freedom in walking out our truth and speaking our stories. We won’t always get it right and sometimes we’ll have people walking around with bits of us that we’d rather they not know, but I want to believe that God can even use those rejections in His grand plan.

All of this to say… be an onion. Have layers. Don’t be afraid of your depth. The truth is we will be too real, too hard, and too much for some people. We just continue to be who He has created us to be. We continue to walk with Him and allow Him to direct us to the people He has for us. And be okay with knowing that, on occasion someone will peel back some layers we’d rather wish they hadn’t. It’s called vulnerability and it’s a mandatory part of relationships.

I’m cheering for you friends.. and for me too.

Advertisement