Odd Grace

It has been the oddest sort of day. It’s that “odd” that comes when my skin starts to fit again after two weeks of out-of-body living, when fears that held me down reveal themselves unrealized, when things that don’t make sense make sense of other things for me.

::

I began the morning with a wonderful visit to last fall when I won my new camera from Epiphanie Bags. Today was the day I launched that giveaway I’ve wanted to launch since the end of September. Today, I got over 400 comments on a post in eight hours, thanks to Maile Wilson’s mentions on Twitter and Facebook.

After weeks of invisibility and fears that my blog wasn’t really worth following after all, I’m bemusingly visible. My name is out there. All over the place. My facebook likes jumped 120 in an afternoon. I’m not only getting giveaway entries – I’m getting “wow, I’m so glad I discovered you” comments at my blog. I feel half-naked, with only a small portfolio posted because of my trip last week and the way my health tanked this week, keeping up with my planned – and postponed – launch giveaways.

I’ve played a star for a day, and I still feel oddly like Kelly Sauer, and I’m beyond okay with that. I think you really never know what you’ll do with attention until you get it, and your response still depends on where you are when you get the attention you’ve been craving. I wouldn’t have responded the way I did today, were it not for the other thing that happened. Or the other thing, or the other thing. There have been lots of things lately, to be honest.

::

The thing that grounded me today was my wisdom tooth extraction. I can’t believe I’m analyzing this, but with my medical history, you have to understand that I am really, REALLY vulnerable when it comes to dealing with doctors, and even MORE vulnerable when they are talking about drugs and anesthesia and putting me to sleep – and out of control.

I’d forgotten to brush my teeth on the way out of the house this morning, and the secretary smirked, annoyed, as she handed me a toothbrush and toothpaste. I had also forgotten to mention at my consult that I can’t have epinephrine because of the way it speeds up my heart and sends me convulsing, so when I walked in on edge and told them about my fear, the surgical assistant brusquely told me not to question them; they would take good care of me. And I really, really wanted Pete to be able to come in with me and at least hold my hand until I went to sleep, because I didn’t want to go to sleep alone with others around me I didn’t know – but he wasn’t “sterile,” they said.

As the drug that was meant to make me feel like I’d had a glass of wine took effect, I felt the tears slip out unbidden, and then the ceiling blurred, and I felt the lidocane needle going in just as everything went black.

When I woke, I didn’t even know I’d slept, but they were done. I almost didn’t believe they’d done anything, except for the gauze in my mouth and the tooth in the doctor’s hand. The world swayed as they walked me down the hall to a recovery room. They gave me two IV’s to keep me hydrated and ease my recovery a bit. The doctor was concerned because I was “so little” and wanted to make sure I’d be okay for the rest of the day. I didn’t bother talking too much, and when they brought Pete in, I let them talk to him as if I was as out of it as they had told me I would be. It was easier not to fight.

We’d dropped off drug prescriptions for the pain and swelling – but didn’t pick them up with me so tired. I’ve had two babies. I’ve had another wisdom tooth break into my mouth without so much as a by-your-leave, causing me a week of absolutely horrible pain before it got pulled. I decided to leave the Percocet alone and see what motrin and water would do, and I had a strange, slow-but-coherent day.

::

I suddenly understand why well-known people follow and interact with just a few friends when strangers are trying hard to get their attention. I planned the giveaways to gain exposure for my name and my brand, so that people might see that I am here and be interested in having me take their photos. Yet even as people have commented and liked and followed and tweeted, I recognize that many may not continue to follow and like and tweet and comment.

But I can’t watch numbers. They slay me. And not in a good way.

All this week, I’ve been fighting an internal war, despairing over the lack of entries (especially my free engagement session – I have a promise to keep with this one), frustrated with my own lack of steam, ready to fold all this up and go back to the me I chose that I could mostly control without the dream, instead of laying my dream out and letting God decide what to do with it.

This is the week that “being me” has seemed the ultimate failure, in my relationships, in my business, in my writing, in everything, but somehow as those tears slipped out at the oral surgeon’s office today, I felt released from my own expectation into a grace I hardly dare to grasp most days, despite how hard I fight to believe I can grasp it.

But life abundant isn’t lived on a checklist of expectations – not mine, not yours, not theirs, not anybody’s. People are going to be repelled by me, no matter what I do or don’t do. Loving as He first loved me doesn’t mean rolling over to become what another person wants me to be. Sometimes it means bearing with another; sometimes it means leaving outcomes in God’s hands and trusting His heart and His desire for my life. It is more about submission to hope than I know how to define yet.

I look at all of the comments and follows and subscriptions I’ve garnered today, and I know that they are following because of the giveaway, not because of me. And you know, I’m okay with that. I don’t know if God brought every one of these people across my path for a purpose, or if it is all simply a result of a savvy business collaboration. I’m not really sure I care, because my perspective on the outcome has been altered beyond recognition today.

::

This week, I went back fishing as Peter did after walking out on God. I found myself in a place without justification, willingly betraying Jesus because I couldn’t deal with my own fear and pain, and it was a graceless place. So I defaulted to what I know, to what I could do. And let me tell you, it was like fishing all night and catching nothing. Again. As if I didn’t exist on the map, as if all the time and energy and effort I’ve put in has really been worthless.

This evening as I stare weirdly at comments and comments and comments, I feel as if the net is full as the sun is rising. My boat is starting to sink. I’ll never be able to manage all these “fish.” But something is oddly different, and I look over to shore with Peter, and there stands Jesus, preparing sustenance, waiting for me to join Him in spite of my well-deserved shame. There is grace, waiting on the shore, willing to remind me that I’ve forgotten to live from who I am, that I’ve not been choosing to be His when we both know He is all that makes me who I am. I dive wildly into the water.

::

I respond to a potential client, and I put my heart for every bride I meet on the page for her. She can find another photographer – there are plenty to be had. And in the long run, it might be best for both of us. I have to let God pace my schedule and my heart, because I lay it all out every time.

I hear Him asking Peter-who-betrayed-Him – asking me – “do you love Me?” And I reach for a response I rarely dare, because my heart knows it true, “Yes, Lord,” I say timidly, thinking of His next words.

“Feed my sheep.”

And whether I want it or not, I know my life is about that grace I’ve just found with Him on the shore, watching, waiting, sharing food with those He loves and offering them the same freedom to BE and to be wrong and to be imperfect and to not live up to my expectations and to live in what pain they carry – the same freedom to live human that I’ve received from Him.

::

It’s been an odd day. But odd is good for me, I think. Just sayin’.