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Every set of Russian nesting dolls has an inside story.
A matryoshka (the Russian word for “little mother,” pronounced Mah-TROESH- Kah) is a doll within a doll within a doll, each of them exquisitely hand-painted.
Traditionally, the largest exterior doll is a Russian mother attired in a shapeless peasant jumper dress. But sometimes the dolls depict historical Russian political figures or timeless fairy tales.
It’s fun to guess how many figures are hidden inside. How far down does the rabbit hole go?
A typical matryoshka has 6-10 nested dolls. The record-holder, which was revealed in 2003, is a hand-carved, hand-painted set of 51 figures. The largest doll in the set is about two feet tall, while the smallest is little more than a speck of sawdust.
Just as every matryoshka has an inside story, so does every human being.
There’s a lot more to each person you will meet today than at first meets the eye.
You might say that each of us is concealing a set of hidden selves. Perhaps there’s still a child inside me wanting to have fun. Or a high school kid trying to get noticed. Or a rejected lover desperately hoping to recover from the pain.
Maybe inside me there’s a defiant person who is bitter at the boss who let me go. Or a shy person who is hesitant to take risks. Or a person who was sexually assaulted and may never trust again. Or a doubting person who claims to have faith but wonders if anything will really be waiting on the other side of the grave.
How many different “you’s” are inside you?
You can go to therapists your whole life and never get to the bottom of it all.
A number of my Baby Boomer peers undertook a quest during their early years. “Whatever it takes, I’m going to find myself.” This often seemed to involve relocating to Colorado or California. Very few of my friends went to look for themselves in Nebraska.
But in most cases, from the start, this appears to have been a doomed project.
That’s because we’re all like nested dolls. There’s not just one “self” inside us that needs to be found. The more we look inside, the more we discover another layer, another memory, another bundle of hopes or fears or resolutions or regrets. We don’t have the time or the wisdom it would take to know everything worth knowing.
That’s not a reason to feel despair, however.
We don’t have to “find ourselves” to experience deep joy.
God already knows everything about us – even the parts of our stories that are too hard for us to bear. Yet he cherishes us with a love that has no expiration date.
How does God want us to respond to such care?
He calls to look at others and keep telling ourselves, “I’m not seeing the whole story. There’s so much more to this person than meets the eye.”
No wonder Jesus reminds us not to judge others, but simply to love them.
God alone knows the real inside story of my life. And only God knows the fullness of your story, too.
Which means we can do something incredible today.
With grace-softened hearts, we can actually let each other off the hook