Social media - it's a downer sometimes

Yesterday I was at work, when I paused to look at my Facebook as the dishwasher was running. I saw something that made me angry. I yelled out loud, "NO! Oh my gosh!" My coworker was walking back to the back and heard me and said, "What?" I told her, and she was angry for me. She also yelled out loud. My brain immediately went into panic mode, and I worried about all the worst case scenarios, the "what-if"s... in that moment I became totally judgmental of this person, jealousy reared it's ugly head, and sadness clouded my vision.

I can count 11 people that I would actually wish they would post more on Facebook or twitter or blog, and that I want to know what books they're reading, what movies they like, what God is teaching them, and more. Some of them don't live around here, like my cousins, so I can't always just catch up with them so quickly. But others I do see regularly. 11 out of my 624 friends on Facebook.

Today I was reading, "The End of Me," by Kyle Idleman, and in the chapter about humility, he talked about social media.

"I introduced myself to an out-of-town guest at our church recently. We' never met before, and he said, 'Hey, I feel like I know you because I follow you on Facebook and Twitter.' Immediately, this struck me as funny. I thought, You know only what I want you to know about me. You see the danger? Without even thinking about it, we stand in front of as many people as possible and make much of ourselves."

I've read a million articles over the years about things you should or shouldn't post on Facebook, annoying habits that people don't like on Facebook, reasons why social media can be bad (although it also can be good), how it takes up so much of your time, how you can become sad / jealous /angry etc... And yet somehow I'm still on all the time. Now there are weeks that I'm on less, because I'm busy or trying to take a break from it, but it doesn't last all that long. I hear some people say, "Eh, Facebook isn't that interesting to me," and I think, "I wish I felt that way!!"

And here's the deal... As soon as social media becomes something that pulls me away from God, it's got to go. Then it's a sin. I'm not just talking about the amount of time I spend on it - that could be a factor though - I'm talking about the way it makes me feel when I'm on it. If I read things from friends that are encouraging, funny, and reading scripture, then awesome, I feel like I've gained wisdom or that I've been built up. I hope those are things I share the most. But there are a lot of times that's not the case when I'm on Facebook. I see those people who are in their second marriage and are my age, and think, "What? How did they get married twice before I got married once?" This doesn't mean all is fantastic in their life. I see people who get married quickly at 18, and have been married for the past 10 years and wonder what boat I missed. That doesn't mean all is perfect in their world. I see the people who get to travel the world or go on mission trips every single year (or twice a year), the people who love their jobs, or the people who live in fancy houses. When it begins to cause worry, stress, or anger, it's not good.

When I was at the leadership retreat this past weekend, I didn't feel the need to be on Facebook much or post much, because I was enjoying the time with the people there. It's that quote I've heard before like, "I love hanging out with people who make me forget to look at my phone," or something like that. But this week I've worked a lot, went to a funeral, and had a day and a half to just be at home doing nothing since it was Thanksgiving and we didn't have bible study, so I've been on Facebook more because I've wanted human interactions. The irony right? It's one thing to write back and forth on Facebook with someone, because you're having a conversation, verses just scrolling through everybody's lives and random articles and videos.

By someone reading my facebook, that doesn't mean they know me or what's really going on in my life. I don't often share what I want a close friend to pray for me about or what's bothering me in life or even what God is doing in my life sometimes because I don't want to just share it out there for non-believers to read if they have no idea what I'm talking about. I want that depth and closeness with the few directly around me, in person, face to face, shoulder to shoulder, not from the comfort zone of my bedroom sharing out to 600 people, of which only a handful of people will actually see it. It's worth the effort to engage in people's lives in real life and be intentional, than to quickly click post on whatever we think about or feel like sharing.

We're all at a masquerade on Facebook, displaying our beautiful masks, but hiding behind it is the faces we don't always get to see. But I can honestly say that I love the people with bedhead hair, sitting in pajamas, just sharing our hearts and not facebook statuses. I love hearing the laughter instead of reading "LOL" or seeing the laughing/crying emoticon. I love getting hugs instead of "likes" on Facebook. I love talking for an hour or two instead of just messaging on Facebook for a while. I love sitting outside watching the sunset change over time instead of running outside during work just to get a picture or two because I don't have time to watch it. I love actually praying for someone in person instead of saying, "I'm praying for you!" online. Don't settle for the false closeness of the internet and forget what it's like to spend time with people in real life.

Leadership retreat

Things I learned this past weekend:

-Fish eat frogs
-There are such things as a sleeping bag with legs, and sleeping bag coats
-How to play Settlers of Catan
-More about my friends' lives - their personalities, strengths and weaknesses, stories from their pasts, and more
-I learned what the word antebellum meant
-Jellyfish are 95% water

Getting Chili's for lunch was a great start to the weekend! I was riding in Bryan's new truck and I didn't think about how it was higher off the ground so I fell out of it the first time we got out at Chili's. LOL. After a car trip of good conversations to the lake house in Alabama, shortly after arriving, I enjoyed sitting on the swing on the dock catching up with Emily while Adam and Bryan canoed out to a sand dune to get arrowheads. Oh, but first, when we got there we couldn't find where the key was, and Emily really had to go to the bathroom, so we were frantically trying to find the key. Of course. After a while, Bryan, Adam, and I played Settlers of Catan, a strategy type of game. It was my first time playing it. We had great food all weekend. We had some time where we played music through one of my speakers in the background. Friday night we filled out some questions about ourselves and then shared it with others, and we tried to guess who it was (since one person was reading them out loud). Emily said if she could be any form of water she would be a jelly fish since it's 95% water! HA! The second thing we did that night took about 3 hours...

We each went around saying nice things about each person, or something we wanted them to know. There were tears, laughter, and encouragement. We didn't finish until around 3 AM, and while we were exhausted, it was good.

Saturday morning after breakfast Emily did our devotional, and then we had a meeting. After that and before lunch, some of the dishes were cleaned and lunch being prepared, the guys used leaf blowers to get all the leaves out of the way in the giant yard, and we had some good conversations on the porch with beautiful weather. After lunch, we had some time to ourselves, a fire was started, I sat on the dock for a while with some people, and then some people went on a canoe. The sun set around 4:30 PM since we were just over the time zone changing line. It was pretty, I took pictures, and the temperature started dropping pretty quickly. We went out by the fire to discuss our next topic coming up in bible study. Back inside we hung out until dinner. After dinner some people played Settlers of Catan and cards, part of the time we watched them play games or watched funny youtube videos, etc.

After things were winding down for the evening, some people were still playing cards, and others were sitting in the living room either falling asleep or talking. We had some good conversations for about 2 hours with dim lights and blankets, and the simple times of sitting and talking does my heart good. I don't need fancy entertainment or expensive food to have a great time. It was so nice to get to talk to Robert and Alicia more too during part of that time! Over the course of the weekend we talked about (at least the conversations I was it): dinosaurs, books, movies, music, video games, the bible, crazy stories in our lives, dreams, supernatural stuff, angels, heaven, speaking in tongues, our jobs, school for those who are in it, different aspects of church, who we would talk to in the bible if we could have lunch with them, things about our families, things from our past, our strengths and weaknesses, how bible study is going, if it rained before the flood in Genesis, told jokes we knew, prayer requests, different aspects of our love languages being how we relate to others, how different things were a year ago at this time and how they could be so different again in a year from now, why we say drinks in a certain order at Starbucks, adoption, being deep and shallow in different areas of our spiritual life and bible study, sin and how we should recognize how great it is for God to forgive us but also not have a negative view of ourselves all the time, not taking leadership too personal when things don't go well or if thing do go well because it's not about us, not looking at our lives to determine if it was successful or not by the amount of things we did but if we had grown closer to God and brought others closer to God...

Sunday morning I did a devotional after breakfast - I read some from a devotional book, and then asked everyone what they thought it looked like to struggle well. We followed up with that on asking how everyone's relationship with God is, and where they want to improve. After, we cleaned up the place and went our separate ways home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpYEJx7PkWE - Statler and Waldorf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE5xZKszXMQ - Herman Cain bad lip reading

"When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer." - Corrie Ten Boom

Random thoughts from this past week

My random thoughts over the past week or so...

"I realized
No, we're not promised tomorrow
So I'm gonna love you
Like I'm gonna lose you
I'm gonna hold you
Like I'm saying goodbye 
Wherever we're standing
I won't take you for granted 'cause we'll never know when
When we'll run out of time so I'm gonna love you
Like I'm gonna lose you." - Meghan Trainor

This song applies not only to somebody you're dating/married to, but to all friends and family. I don't want to take people for granted.

When we see other people in situations similar to ours, it's funny how easy it is to give them advice that you can't hardly follow yourself, or that you've already failed at. It's easy to say, "Oh, trust me, you should do this. I didn't, and should have." And yet you wonder, if someone had told you that 6 month ago, would you have followed their advice?

To the people who only say or think negative things... can they change? Or are they forever stuck that way? Even if they have depression, can they change the way they see things or say things? Can they search for the positive things, or is their negativity just so deeply ingrained in them that they can't?

Little kids have such excitement over things. They also unashamedly show off. They want you to be impressed with their clothes or shoes, their new ability to write words, their toys... "Watch!" "Look!" "Do you see my new shoes?" "Do you like my dress?" I hope that I never lose my childlike excitement over things. But I also know that sometime the little kids in all of us still want to ask people, "Do you like my dress?" "Did I do well in singing/taking pictures/on my presentation?" "Look at my new car!" "It's my birthday!" We all want the people we love to love us back. We all want to hear words of affirmation and encouragement and compliments. Sometimes we voice that, and sometimes we don't.

This upcoming weekend is our leadership retreat. We go twice a year, and this will be my 4th one. I love these trips. We don't go anywhere after we get to the lake house - on past retreat with bible study people we would go hiking, go into small towns to shop and eat, etc. But on these trips we don't go anywhere else. And I'm totally ok with that. I like playing games, laughing, and just talking to everybody. These weekends do a "quality time" person some good!

"Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus." - Philippians 4:6-7. This verse has been something I've come back to again and again over the past year. Maybe, in hindsight, I'd say it was my verse for the year. I have felt some of the strongest peace from the Lord over this year. That's not to say I haven't battled everything that is the opposite of peace, but I come back to this verse and I come back to the Lord in prayer. And truly, there is this peace that exceeds anything I can understand. Sometimes my brain says, "Hey, THIS IS TERRIBLE. Why am I not freaking out?" For the times when I have peace in the middle of terrible things, I know that it comes from Him. I know that it also comes from prayer that my friends and family have prayed over me. I can't imagine not having this peace, for those who don't know Him. I can only see it in other people's lives, how the tiniest things set them off into panic and anger, and I ache for them to have the peace that God provides.

Will you go?

"There's this place I want you to go and show others who I am. It isn't the most glamorous place in the world, but the people there need My love, and I want them to know that I am real and that I love them. You must be ready with boldness, ready to answer questions, and ready to love unconditionally as much as you can. They are lost, they are being held captive by satan, and they are blinded by the world. You will be a light in the darkness. Your life will be so contrasted to theirs that they will think you're weird or ridiculous or crazy, but that's the only way they'll come to know me. Some of the people there you will see every single day. Others you will only see every once in a while. Will you go?"

"Yes Lord, I will go! Where is it?"

"Starbucks."

Your faith is great.

I've been thinking about Peter walking on water recently, from Matthew 14. "But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink." (14:30) He was all cool getting out of the boat, and he was already walking on the water, but when he saw the storm around him, his focus was off. And Jesus asked him, "You have so little faith. Why did you doubt me?"

I'm in the same boat as Peter. I see the storms. The what-ifs, the fears, the irrational thoughts, the waiting, the frustration, the jealousy, the sadness, the anger. But what I want to hear is, "'Dear woman,' Jesus said to her, "your faith is great. Your request is granted.'" (Matthew 15:28) 

I think about how we are called to persistent and bold prayers, and for me, I think, how could I NOT be persistent and bold in these prayers that are so important?? How could I live life ignoring what makes my heart heavy, what I hope for most in life, what breaks my heart, for the lost who are all around me? In the past few months I have really dug in and prayed for these things, and I have found that more often than not, when I really pray for these things, I end up crying. Sometimes sobbing. Yes, that's sometimes what makes me not want to pray for them, because I don't always feel like crying. But to ignore them is like walking away from shattered glass, hoping I don't step on it later because I didn't clean it up. It must be dealt with. And what would I miss from God if I didn't pray? 

"One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up." (Luke 18:1) I am the persistent woman asking for the same things over and over, like the woman asking the judge for an answer in Luke 18. I'm like the persistent neighbor in Luke 11 who keeps knocking at the door at midnight. "So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most." (Hebrews 4:16)