Recap 2010 - My Life is Like an Onion

Sometimes when you are moving forward, you got to take a look back.  Reflection is good for the soul.  It can give you the clarity you need, like sitting by the ocean, watching the waves and thinking.  I now realize, I learned alot in 2010...about myself and other people as well.  One of the things I learned about myself is that I have to work on my follow through.  I think part of the reason I was afraid to start my blog was knowing I would have to keep up with it.  I haven't wrote in several weeks...and there is no excuse.  Yes the holidays were here, I got a husband and kids..yada, yada, yada..but still...no excuse...so I do apologize to those of you who follow my blog and are supporting me in this endeavour.  I also learned a lot about forgiveness.  Sometimes you think you have forgiven someone and it's just a surface forgiveness...you know...yes I forgive this person..because it sounds good or makes you seem like a righteous person..but deep down, your still hurt, the person has never really apologized or tried to make things right with you, but you forgive because the forgiveness is for your sanity and peace of mind..not theirs.  But I tell you what, because I have been on both sides of the fence..when you admit that you did something wrong to someone, you take responsibility for your actions, do your best to make it right with them...it does a lot for the other person.  People are walking around for years, decades with pain that could be relived with a simple phrase like "I am sorry I hurt you. Please forgive me."..just something to think about.  Now, you may ask...why is the title of this blog "My Life is Like an Onion"...God has a funny way of working with me and I am sure some of you...He only tells you things when you are ready to handle it!!  Trust me thank God..He does it that way.  It is like a veil has come off my face I have discovered something about people I call friends in my life and about myself in turn.  I considered myself a person with integrity..but found out I am not walking in the integrity I thought I had...I have quite a few people in my life who live lives are totally oppossed to my values and beliefs (and that is ok at times), BUT..and this is the BIG BUT...I have never told them how I felt about how they live their lives because deep down inside I know that if I tell them the "Truth"( or my "Truth" I should say) the friendship would be OVER!!  Wow, here I am on the phone with them, or in person..smiling in their face, but with disgust in my heart.  WHY...These folks have no integrity, they lie continuously... and lie to my face regularly...and I sit there and smile knowing they are lying to me..but you know what...I was getting something out of it to...these friends think well of me, they know that I will always encourage them, support them, make them feel good...but if I told them the truth...the relationship would end.  It is a human need to want to feel significant..and I now know that my need to feel significant in the lives of these folks was more important to me than me walking in truth, walking in integrity...shame on me, but God bless that I realize that now.  I want to walk in truth, at least as much as possible...and I want to walk with people who are walking in truth too!  Wow,  what amazing lessons learned.  When I meantion my life being like an onion..I am a talking about all the layers an onion has...I am sure that we have all seen inside an onion (and there's a lot of layers there)...and I just had an "aha" moment...ONIONS MAKE YOU CRY...and so does peeling off the layers of one self to look at what is inside.  God Bless and may 2011 bring you to higher, deeper place within you.