Absent

I watch the news, talk to my family and friends; I want to fold up with sorrow. Tornadoes whipping across the Midwest. An active hurricane season predicted for the fall. Earthquakes, tidal waves, floods. Accidents, cancer, death. I feel as though I’ve been gut-punched when my mom calls to tell me my cousin was killed in a motorcycle wreck last weekend. His dad was in another motorcycle wreck just a day later. He hasn’t wakened yet. My young friend – 18 years old – just had her thyroid removed because of an aggressive cancer that had spread into her lymph nodes. Other friends lose their babies. Every day, we watch dreams die and face disappointment.

I can’t hold all the sorrow – the earth can’t hold all our tears – but casting my cares on God seems useless sometimes, because when it comes down to it, He’s doing His own thing. Our dust is screaming with rage that He doesn’t step in and save us – was the earth as disappointed as the disciples when Jesus died, instead of claiming His place as King? Our dust is subjected to this toil, to this death, and we cry out against it, and accept it, and become inured to it, and it is hard to live in any hope at all when it seems as though God is only interested in His Gospel.

I see all too clearly and not clear enough. My eyes are wide open, but I feel so blind. But He promises to lead the blind in ways they have not known. And God, I don’t know this way, this way of unreserved trust when God seems like He’s off doing His own thing while tornadoes are tearing up towns and people are dying and the whole earth is crying out.

I wonder what He is waiting for. I do not wait humbly. I demand His intervention.

I’m surrounded by death when I want so badly to live, when I want to give a more innocent world to my children, a world that becomes daily more dangerous. The more I see, the more I understand that the only hope I have, the only hope I can give them, is the Gospel, that Jesus came so we could know God. Good news indeed, hard news too, for knowing Him does not mean we can manipulate Him. Knowing Him means taking Him where He is, as He is. And I made a promise once that I would.

God is focused on a different story than my story. And to me on the ground watching all this go down, it doesn’t feel fair that He gets to do that. Not if He loves us. Not if He really cares. And I don’t have an answer to throw at my struggle. He never really gave one.

But at the end of every day, I have just this, that “faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.” That I don’t know, and He is God.

I am groaning today. Calling out from the depth of me, “even so, come quickly Lord Jesus.” We can’t do this anymore…

By kellē | May 25, 2011 | from here, God n me |

Invisible?

Sometimes the best decision is making no decision at all, he says, honest and too aware of my “finished” and “never” and “stupid.”

And he is right; I am trying to take on years of pain and confusion on one of the worst physical days I’ve had in a while. I wake up in the evening, afraid to go to bed and wake up with this weight, and we know the fight is not what I thought it was yesterday, and now we’re just breathing, and trying not to worry, because this is what it is, and I can’t do anything about it until I get through what I need to get through.

I feel invisible, and I can’t afford to be invisible – unless I choose it myself, and I nearly do, nearly erase all my accounts and run for cover for the next ten years, thinking that maybe everyone will forget what I fool I can be. But I’ll still be a fool in ten years.

This is the way of my depression, the reason I should shut everyone out and shut my mouth and guard my heart, guard yours too.

♥

I suspect He uses me as me, not as someone I should be, not doing the things the strong and the wise do, because He gains more glory from His work in the weak and the fool. I hate it, hate being this low, hate being unable to hide myself and my struggle, hide the fact that I say the wrong things and do the wrong things and if I could just keep it all inside, maybe no one would know, because even a fool is thought wise if he keeps his mouth shut. But he is still a fool.

There was a point yesterday when I realized that I had to rest, regardless of my responsibilities. I exist in a thin place right now, and I can see the other side, the side where something snaps internally and I break for a while and go away. It is quieter there, simpler – but I cling to what I know and pray to stay conscious – for him, for my babies, for my family.

My life, it seems, is a constant humbling, a constant breaking, and I realize that there is no true humbling that can ever make me proud of myself, no matter how I wish it. I think it may always be terribly uncomfortable to my dust. I wonder why I asked it, but I asked grace, and He gives grace to the humble, and I should be as despised as He, because I am not greater.

♥

I know I say things that others don’t say. I still can’t make sense out of why they don’t say them, because sometimes saying the hard things opens the door to redemption, breaks down walls in relationships. Sometimes it hurts, but sometimes you have to trust that the other is speaking from their heart, and you speak back from where you are, and if you each keep speaking, eventually, you start hearing, and seeing what you didn’t see.

I wonder why I can’t have the nice gifts, the ones that have others saying the sweet, excited things about me, why my gift is to speak and to say what is. I want the gifts that love easily, that share, that serve. But I have to THINK about doing those, and I never feel quite right in my own skin when I try to put those on and give them. I am too self-conscious. The gift that I have to give, the way I love, is to speak my heart, let people know me as me.

This is not a popular gift. *I* am not a popular gift. But I have no idea how to be anyone or anything else.

♥

It is only about three weeks until I begin my treatment, the intensive treatment for my Lyme disease I’ve never undergone because I had to stay functional. Three months on this treatment, my doctor says, and it could be life-changing. I have no point of reference for “life-changing.” I don’t remember normal. This is my year of tired, of laid-out, of weakness.

I never thought about death before this year, about what it would be like to close my eyes and not be alive anymore. I fight the feeling of helplessness, the realization that no matter how I pretend time doesn’t affect me, it is marching grimly on, and it really is too late for some things to be.

I learn to be alive in the moment.

It hurts sometimes.

♥

I won’t ask you to forgive my ramblings here. You’re on notice that anything goes in this space. Some things, I just have to write my way through, and if I don’t write them to be read, they don’t make sense to me. I’m so weird, but I’m going with it today. *grin*

Thanks for the love yesterday, and your prayers. I think they are helping.

By kellē | May 24, 2011 | depression, from here, health |

Vagueries

Sometimes I choose silence because I love, sometimes because it is forced, but there are times I have to speak in cloak and vagueries about what goes on in this restless heart. Today is one of those days, when I choose silence and speak about what I can’t speak about. And you may call me a contradiction, and I would agree.

What didn’t I learn about being a person that makes me such a catalyst for others to reject or hold at arm’s length? What is it about me that I can’t change, no matter how I try, that will always lead others to keep their walls up?

I never learned the levels. You know, the ones where you are this kind of friend with this person, and that kind of friend with that person. I can only be me in any given situation, and I never intend to offend, but I always do, because I don’t know what level I’m supposed to live on with them or where I fit in their world.

I’m not perfect, but I am what I AM, and God, in His grace, leaves me here and asks me to love, and let me tell you, there is nothing so hard as loving and keeping my eyes and my heart wide open when I KNOW I’m not wanted.

And I yelled at God about it the other night, raised my fist at Him about it, and He looked at me the way I look at people sometimes and quietly reminded me that this, this is what I do to Him.

I am hurting bad about conversations I’ve had and conversations I haven’t had, and it’s all up in my face and in my gut and all the comfort He gives is an invitation past my fear, to open the door of me up to Him and let Him in, all of Him, everything that He is that I fear, everything He is that I cannot control.

I am angry, and I am HURT, because laying down my life and bearing with another is the hardest thing in the world to do when you don’t see a change and you are rejected, and yet here He bears with me and takes that pain on Himself, and I have asked to love as He loves, and right now I. Don’t. Want. To.

I’m blowing apart today, and if I don’t rest, I’m going to lose my mind. Did you know that a heart actually can hurt when it breaks? I’m only a human. I’ve got nothing to bring to the table, just words and thoughts that make others angry and make them think that I’m trying to be better or best, and really, I’m just me, and this is my life and my heart that I’m opening up to you to share because I thought you wanted to know me, and I want to know you and your heart, but for all this mess of humanity that has to know it all and be right all the time.

There is more to us than our rightness or wrongness, and if I’m wrong, I’ll shout it from the rooftops, and if I’m different, I’ll shout that too, because God didn’t make us all to be the same or to be right all the time. He made us to know Him, and He loves us, and He sent Jesus to die for us, and THAT is all that really matters, in any relationship, no matter what right we think we have.

And for today, this is where I am. I hurt. And there is no way out of this hurt. So if maybe you who read wouldn’t mind bearing with me and praying for me…

By kellē | May 23, 2011 | from here, God n me |

Whirlwind

It occurred to me as I was hiking up an airplane walkway today that sometimes in life, things happen too fast for processing. Not every moment is meant for full understanding; sometimes the best memories are made when you don’t try and make sense out of everything that is happening. When you open your heart to life and it happens, it can take you by surprise – and it doesn’t apologize, either.

Today has been one of those days that had me breathing. I didn’t have time to think today, didn’t want time to think, but thought anyway, on a last-minute flight north, in a rental car shuttle passing through country I know, on a familiar road that holds too many memories…

I grew here, grew up here, knew God here, lived life here. This is where I learned to step out on my own, to be independent and as self-sufficient as I could be. And now I’m here, without my husband or my babies, alone again, trying to remember, not sure if I even want to.

I’ve been on the verge of tears all day, as if a wound is tearing open and I’ve no idea what it is, but I want to cry for all the memories, all the life, all the loss. I thought I’d lived beyond it all, and yet here it is, the same light, the same roads, the same traffic, the same trees, the same blue in the Virginia sky, and I’ve changed, but everything that was part of me then is part of me now.

I cannot possibly hold all of this, and yet I’m here to keep my eyes open, to experience something with a friend that goes so deep I’m scared to feel it with her, to hold the memories for her that she doesn’t want to lose.

I’ve been to eternity and back today, I think, dwelling full in the now, thinking in forever, chattering about nothing and everything at intervals. I have run in the rain, flown by myself, kissed my children goodbye, and committed to something I didn’t plan. I’ve carried my own bags, talked to complete strangers, lived in my own skin and forgot worrying about it.

I can say what is today. For the rest… I don’t know. Maybe the pictures will tell.

I need to sleep. It has been a whirlwind of a day.

By kellē | May 16, 2011 | from here |

Blur

It is nice having a place where it’s okay to ramble again without guilt or pressure. I fully intend to leave this space quiet some days. It’s a free spot. A place where I can pretty much do what I want to do, say what I want to say. I’m not trying to garner readers here, not attempting to build a business or hold any brand up. It is funny to me how having one place free makes me feel free in every other place too.

I get to post any photo I want, even the blurry art or my Polaroid playtimes. I guess I’m still learning my voice at my new blog. I’m still not quite sure what sound Kelly Sauer Photography has when she speaks. I think she ought to sound a little like she knows what she’s talking about, but tonight, she really only wants to remark candidly that while zoom lenses may not be for everyone, they are invaluable to someone like her, because her body doesn’t move as efficiently as the fully-healthy, gym-working-out, greater photographers out there. They may be a crutch, but hey, she’s used one before. Heck. She’s been wheelchair-bound.

I think there are a lot of things I want in life that I don’t want enough to ask for them. Or perhaps I’m too scared to want them or to ask for them, because asking always leaves room for the giver to say no. If I don’t want, I won’t be disappointed, right? I used to live by the mantra, “It never hurts to ask.” And that is true. But the not-receiving what I ask? That hurts. And then I just feel stupid for asking in the first place.

I told someone yesterday (the first outside person I’ve ever said this to) that I’ve never once asked God to heal me.

I am half-embarrassed to admit that, but only half. Everybody else was praying for it. It was the predictable thing. I had to be perfect or better or functional so they didn’t have to worry about me, didn’t have to notice me, so I wouldn’t inconvenience anyone. I figured God would rather listen to their prayers than to mine, especially after the thing He told me to pray didn’t happen.

I’ve figured a lot of things. There’s a cynical cost-benefit breakdown I make before I ask Him for anything, and it usually ends up with me getting distracted and not asking much at all. I find myself looking up at Him and screwing my face up because I just don’t get Him or me or most of life.

There is a queer in-between that happens between full blur and focus in my lens, when I see the impression of a thing, but just can’t see the thing itself, and I’m left wondering what in blazes I’m looking at, but it sure is pretty. That same in-between occurs when high-pressure systems meet low-pressure systems, and the sky turns weird yellow, not sunny, not gray, just sultry and indecisive. The one is beautiful, the other feels a bit dangerous, as if I should take cover, but maybe not?

I feel as if I’m in both places with God at the moment, blurry beauty coming into focus without the surety that I am safe to stand out in the day without something happening. He doesn’t really want me to do anything about it right now. Just wait. I think He’s building desire in me. I think He’s sorting me, sifting, humbling.

Asking for healing, it’s a risk.

If it comes, I won’t have convenient excuses to keep me from taking too much responsibility for my own failure. I’d have no reasonable choice but to live and pursue life if I can no longer claim the weakness that has acted as something of a safety net all of these years. Or if it doesn’t come, I feel as though I’d get another well-deserved lesson in how God doesn’t betray people, and His grace is sufficient for me.

But glorying in my weakness isn’t exactly… There’s a difference, you know, between saying, “Oh God is glorified in my weakness, praise Him!” and saying “Thank You, God, for the thorn.” The one is said standing in triumph, hands and eyes raised skyward; the other whispered with head bowed and knee bent.

It’s the difference between spirituality and humility, I’m guessing. And I’ve been too proud to bother with the spirituality for a few years now, but too proud – and too afraid – to dare the humility.

I’ve a feeling it’s going to come quiet. I may not even get words for it.

I guess sometimes the waiting is a bit blurrier than I’d like it to be, especially when I don’t know what I’m waiting for.

By kellē | May 13, 2011 | from here, God n me |

Prayer.

She stands beside me and sets up her project, grabbing at my arm, pointing out what she needs, fussing petulantly.

I am finishing something I am doing, thinking that a good mom would simply meet the need without being asked, but frustrated that she will not ask. I tell her that if she asks me, I will be happy to help her. She fusses some more.

After I have spanked her and sent her to her room, she wanders off to do her own thing, and I sit and stew, Mama-love suspended for the moment by frustration.

God would have reached for me doing that to Him. Why am I so upset with her?

Because I want to be treated as a person. Not as a vending machine. I don’t want my babies to stay babies. I don’t want to be a mama to babies forever. And my three-year-old is articulate and quite able to explain what it is she wants. She doesn’t really need me to make her problems my problems.

I think of one place where Jesus instructs us to “ask” and tells us if we do, we’ll receive, just as I told Pip.

“But God knows what I need already,” I reason, justifying my own wordless, fussing expectation of God.

Just as I knew what she needed.

I realize I still don’t speak to Him if I don’t need to. Still don’t ask him for anything if I don’t absolutely have to. I don’t interact with Him as a person I love – I deal with Him as an unknown Something to fear. As much as I believe He wants relationship, I wonder. How much, really, do I want it?

Read more

By kellē | May 11, 2011 | from here, God n me, pip |

Refresh.

I feel as if I can breathe again.

I know I’ve been writing at my other blog (the one that will be going away as soon as I have a chance to adjust image sizes and transfer things where they need to go) but I don’t feel as though I’ve really been writing. So now I have a place just for my writing and my rambles and the things I post without worrying too much about comments and what my readers are going to think. You know, the things I just have to write.

I don’t have much more to say, except that I’m so ready for this.

If you want to read more about this transition, you’ll have to check out my other blog. That’s where the photos and the nonsense and the colors and the branding and the photography stuff lives now. This spot is just for me, a place for a restless heart to breathe.

Bookmark or subscribe if you like. I am glad you came.

By kellē | May 10, 2011 | from here |