Layers Like an Onion

I know that healing and deliverance come in layers. Like an onion, it takes time to peel back each layer to fully cover in grace with the restoration found only through the blood of Jesus. It is a process after all.

I vividly remember over four decades ago, the first layer, when the spirit of suicide was supernaturally removed from me, bringing me back from the brink of death. Twice.

I also keenly recall Papa telling me that He was removing a spirit of bitterness from me. I could feel the spirit leaving me, and I could actually feel my gall bladder being restored to normal size. I remember Him teaching me that this bitterness spirit had resided a long time in the space that was supposed to house my gall bladder. As soon as the spirit left, I began to cry. This was such a foreign emotion to me, since bitterness causes one to stuff the emotions deeply inside, where sadness allows them to freely flow out. It took many years for me to get used to this new emotion involving tears that had been overruled for so long.

There were many more layers, healing upon healing, and just when I would think the process was done, another concern would rise to the surface to be dealt with.

A few months ago, I was healed of a spirit of trauma that, fifty years ago, had lodged itself through a trampoline injury entwined with the emotional pain of being the only camper at our Parent’s Visitation Day performance whose parents didn’t bother to come to see. I knew all of the logical reasons why they didn’t make the 6-hour trip to visit, but because they had always made a 12-hour trek to visit my brothers on Parents’ Day at their camp each summer, I felt rejected and never good-enough. Those feelings became trapped within this physical injury when I landed wrong on a maneuver I had just learned. I had no idea I had housed this uninvited being for half a century. So grateful to be rid of that. Thinking that the healing has finally been completed, I was shocked to learn this was not the case.

This past week, I was a chaperone for our youth group’s mission trip to Tennessee. I was totally unprepared for the pain from my own high school days to become resurrected. Being old enough to be these teen-agers’ grandmother, I was shocked to be reliving the exact same emotions I had during my own teen years. Feelings of insecurity, unworthiness, ridiculous comparisons, and thoughts of never being good-enough resurfaced—in full force!

At first, I was sucked into the feelings. In my mind, I was totally confused as to why I would be reacting to these ridiculous lies. I know I am made in His image. I know I am His precious princess warrior. I know I have been chosen and called with an amazing anointing on my life. How then could these lies become front and center once again as vividly as they had been more than four decades ago?

Obviously, the healing is not complete. My first reaction to this was incredulous disbelief, bordering on anger. All those years of doing the work to bring my brokenness to the foot of the cross somehow felt negated and somehow wasted.  But then, I remembered the onion.

One layer at a time, bit by bit, the peeling back of hurts and fiery darts are being restored to wholeness. I am claiming the sozo cleansing once and for all.

Not wanting to be caught off-guard again, I asked, if this is close to the end. I’m met with silence. I guess that means there are more layers ahead to peel away to complete healing.

My prayer is that each unveiling of yet another area needing the touch of Jesus will become easier, and that I will recognize what surfaces more and more quickly. 

Giving all of my layers to You, Papa. Until I’m completed into the person You designed me to be. Whole and perfected through Him.