Cutting onions...

Cutting onions.....

Recently, I was helping with a luncheon for new missionary candidates. My job was kitchen crew...meal prep and cleanup...background stuff where I am serving...

One task was slicing onions, "rings like Olive Garden has on their salads" I was instructed...so I painstakingly thinly sliced the red onion into slices, separating them into nice rings until my eyes were swelling shut(my eyes do that) so someone else had to take over the task...then I diced tomatoes instead...
I finished with the tomatoes and looked to where my beautiful rings once were and found they had been chopped into bits by another, "I don't think we should have those big slices and I don't like them"....oh, well, what's onion slices in eternity...

It felt like my hand had been slapped...it brought back other times in life that work I had done  was torn down by others...after finishing the task, feeling good about it...only to have another whose vision was different, dismantle or totally discard the project...my pride was hurt as well as my feelings...grumbling to myself, "my work is never good enough or I am not good enough"...worth....worthiness....

But, my worth is not in the onions I slice or the projects or the performance, but in the love that Christ bestows...the Holy Spirit who resides...the Father who comforts/provides....I don't need to go the the dark places of pride or hurt or worthlessness...I have a Savior who never leaves or forsakes....

As well as it is a reminder to watch my words...do they uplift, encourage, buildup???

Thank YOU for sliced onions, those smelly things....You are still at work grinding away at the places deep inside my soul...searching, cleansing...

Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Psalm 51:2,7,10

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139:23-24