Fix Your Face, part 2 (when you fall on your face)

“Even if you fall on your face, you’re still moving forward.”
Victor Kiam

When the deal fell through, I fell also.

On my face.

Literally.

Which is why in my last blog post I talked about the mom who told her young son, “Fix your face.” Her words reminded me that I couldn’t fix mine, and neither could anyone else except God, and, so far, he hasn’t.

It’s also why I wasn’t sure there would be a part two to “Fix Your Face” – I wasn’t sure I was willing to share the emotional pain of the fall.

When the accident happened, I was out to dinner the next evening in sunglasses and laughing with friends about tripping over the cement block in the coffee shop parking lot in Wilmington, N.C. I fell moments after finalizing details for a contract to franchise a dog magazine. Since the contract didn’t align with our talks, I was almost certain the deal was off. Even with evidence in writing, I didn’t love and respect myself enough to confront the discrepancies.

The fall represented that attitude – “not enough love and respect for myself.” So did the next year of my life that I spent hating the bump left in the fall’s aftermath. Knowing I struggled daily, my husband encouraged me to talk with a plastic surgeon about scraping my nose down to size.

“Not until I love myself the way I am, then I’ll consider it,” I said.

The bump wasn’t my nemesis; self-contempt was. I got up from the gravel knowing I needed a fix for how I let others treat me, as well as a fix for how I treated myself. In light of that reality, I began calling my nose the “love bump.”

The fall prompted changes that were, in hindsight, necessary to bolster enough love and respect like …  

• Practicing gratitude (despite the bump on my nose) because my teeth were in my mouth instead of on the pavement.

• Speaking up to people I didn’t like and people I did like and people. Any people.

• Warming up to the idea that I was worth standing up one more time than I fell down.

The accident happened in 2007. Because of an invitation in 2013 from a friend (orchestrated by God, I’m sure), I had the opportunity to consult at no charge with a respected plastic surgeon. She said my nose was an easy fix. She also said there was a chance the bump would callous after surgery the same as it did after the fall, and it may possibly grow back and possibly grow bigger.

Our appointment ended, but not before I reflected on my commitment, “Not until I love myself the way I am, …” Instead of reconstructing my outsides, God had worked inside. I wish he had opted for both, but the inside job was most important, for sure.

When I left the surgeon’s office, I knew I was closer to being fixed than if I had signed up for surgery.

How often do we opt for a quick fix instead of lasting results? What’s manifesting outside of you that really needs fixing on the inside?

WRite wHere I’m supposed to be – I am more and more receptive to God’s reconstruction, and, no, not of my nose.