No Onion too Small

August 13, 2010 by Debbie.

Every time I clean an onion my mind flashes back to an old memory. When we lived in Columbus, Ohio about 30 years ago our neighbor’s husband had just left her. She was a stay at home mom and found herself desperately trying to provide for herself and her two young children, one who was very disabled. Insensitively, one day I called and asked if I could borrow an onion from her. She didn’t even pause before saying yes, and said she’d even bring it over. When she brought the ‘onion’ it turned out to be small pieces of the inside of onions that had sprouted - you know, the small green onion that will form if onions are kept too long. That was all she’d had left from her past onion supply but she had saved them, chopped them and had them ready in a bag for use. She brought ALL of her present onions, which also represented her foreseeable future onions as she had no income for any more.  She said she believed she’d have more onions when that bag ran out, she just didn’t know how.  Rather than offend her I took a small portion of her onions - pieces of onions I previously would have composted with no thought of actually using them.

So every time I clean an onion, my heart still hurts for what she went through.

Our onion supply from last winter’s planting is nearing it’s end. I sorted through the bucket to weed out any onion that had started to rot. Our onion crop this year was not as big as past years, partially due to not planting as many but largely due to lack of sun in the rainy winter and early spring. As I sorted, I didn’t give any thought to the ‘is this big enough to keep?’ question.  No onion was too small to not keep, not after seeing that bag of onion pieces through my memory’s eyes.

I’ve been thinking lately a lot about faith.  Sometimes I want big faith - like saving the whole city of Sherman. And sometimes in wanting the big faith I overlook the ONE person who wants and needs God. So right now, I’m asking God for just one person, or one family, to come to Him. No onion too small faith.

By the way, that neighbor’s husband never came back to her. Never regularly paid child support, and never saw their disabled child again. The neighbor lost her home but held on to her children. She later happily remarried, and hopefully had a whole kitchen full of onions!

Small onions ready to grill - that’s a butter knife handle beside them for sizing.

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