I have a bowl of onions in my kitchen. In the spring, the onions start to grow and green shoots form and turn towards the light. Even before the shoots emerge, I notice that the onions have started to grow when I cut them open and see the green core. Even if the outside shows no sign of life, a lot is happening on the inside.
Once again it's been a while since I've felt like writing. I guess I've been busy. But I also feel that I've somehow lost my words lately. When I first started noticing this, I thought this was the phenomenon called "pregnancy brain", and later I blamed nursing and the night waking for blurring my thoughts. But now when it's been a while since I stopped nursing and I sleep well at night, I'm starting to think that I have changed. I know that I'm an introvert, but still, I've always had good social skills. Now I feel that I have lost some of this as well. I can do a "Hello" and "How are you " and be sincere about it, but that's about what I can think of. It is mostly after the conversation that I think of things I should have said or asked. I've noticed that when I try to say something clever, I often don't make any sense. I have a hard time remembering what people tell me, so I often have to ask them again later, and this feels so rude. I'm afraid it seems like I don't care, but I do. Oh, how I care! I know it is quite common for particularly stay-at-home moms to feel a bit rusty when it comes to having conversations with grown-ups, writing academic texts and so on. Even if this change may not be permanent and I may get my social skills back, it still saddens me. I want to be perceived as a nice and thoughtful person, because that is what I think of myself.
However, I've noticed that instead of talking, I've started to pray more. I pray for my family, for my friends. I pray for the people on the bus, the people I think about, the person I'm having a conversation with. If you are reading this, then I've also prayed for you. And maybe this is what God wants for me. Talk less, pray more. If this requires major changes, then so be it.
Today I feel like the onions I described in the beginning. I feel that God is peeling me, layer by layer, removing the dead and dry outer layer, removing what's unnecessary from my life, from my personality, from my thoughts. He is peeling off the thick covers from the life that's hidden inside. The life that has potential to grow and bear fruit if it reaches the light it is longing for.
And there's nothing that I have do to, nothing I can do. This is something God needs to do. I just need to let myself be peeled and turn towards the light. So that is what I'm going to do.
Be still, and know that I am God. (Ps. 46:10)
And I'm really starting to believe that God wants me to be something more than just a nice person.
