My grace is enough; it's all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take my limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size - abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become." 2Corinthians 12:7-10
This photograph is my celebration of my 1 year anniversary of breaking my ankle. I suffered a severe break of my left fibula while rushing out of the house on Day 3 to capture the early morning fog. Unfortunately, I had both my camera and my most expensive lens in my hands when I came crashing down. While the few days that followed were trying, the 350 days after have been exhilarating in many ways. I certainly developed as a photographer while shooting more than 30,000 photographs during the past year. But more importantly, making the decision to blog rather than simply post the photos has developed the holistic me.
And now I am closing out this project with this self-portrait as my finale and tribute to both physical and spiritual growth. I love everything about this photograph. I moved around to find an ideal spot. I like the mix of light and shadows, the messiness of leaves and acorns, that my healed leg is planted, the camera and tripod silhouette, the multitude of long bold shadows, and the fact that I am running toward the camera as I press the remote trigger. As I said the other day, it is unclear to me how this ended up as the final photo, but leaving it here makes perfect sense. It has been important to me to learn from the break. My most profound lesson came as I was listening to a Joel Osteen CD recently. It is a sermon I have heard repeatedly given it is stuck in my car's dashboard. This time I understood.
Joel describes admiring a sunset in India, when he feels God questioning about His greatest creation. It was in that moment, after listening to this sermon multiple times, that I finally made the connection. I realized I had been rushing out of the house that morning to photograph something God considers ordinary, when He needed to me to focus on the extraordinary. Yes, fog, sunsets, landscapes, flowers are beautiful, but His most prized possessions are people. To be candid, most of the time, when I hear this call, my response is, "you're asking just a little too much of me."
My assignment is clear-ish. I have been assigned a people project. Why me? Not sure. It is a difficult project and I needed an adjustment to remind me that lovely photos of the fog had absolutely nothing to do with that assignment. On top, I wasn't so sure I was fit for His race and had confessed as much. So perhaps I was running away. The break accomplished 2 things: the narrowing of my focus and the assurance of His omnipresent strength. I did not stop taking photos of lovely things, but I did double-down on people.
From here I will move on to completing my task and also start a new photography project. My next project will be a 52 Week project. I will orchestrate selected photography exercise, planning mindful execution. More importantly, however, it allows me to focus on my assignment.
Love and Blessings!
Today's Photo: Grace: The weaker I get, the stronger I become!
"When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place." C.S. Lewis
