We all know of ways that social media can be used negatively. I'm sure we've all rolled our eyes or hidden a friend or two because of social media misuse. I read a good/short article about it a while back ( http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/tech/5-questions-ask-posting-social-media ) in case you're interested. It makes me think even more now before I post something. But the misuse is not a soap box I feel like jumping on.
What I want to talk about is the WEIRDNESS of social media. Recently I have been made aware of just how strange it is to have so much of all of our lives on display like they are. As you all know, we made a move 6 months ago. While that's not a big deal to some, it was huge to me. There were so many things that the Lord revealed to me & did in me through that move. (If you follow the blog, you know in depth of how the Lord used this process to strip away my idols of family, fear, comfort, & more.) Obeying God was obviously the right choice & He has absolutely filled my loss with abundantly more than we could ever hope, or imagine. But, man, I have had some strange moments that were brought on by social media.
This social media (SM) epidemic is not really that old. I made a Facebook account not too long before I had Jax. I started a blog when I was pregnant with Jax. All of this is in the past 5 years. What began as casual use & very few friends even had SM accounts, has blown up & I'm now surprised when I meet someone who doesn't have a SM account. While SM changed so much over the past 5 years, my life didn't change...up until 6 months ago.
Now I'm dealing with the accessibility of things that I wouldn't have to deal with if it were not for this new world of SM.
Example One: If you followed this, you followed along with the sale of our house in Vivian. Praise the Lord! He had the perfect, sweetest family to buy it in His perfect timing. All of this was made much easier because of SM. But, after we sold our house, we like the precious family so much that we "friend" them on Facebook. So now through the wonderful world of SM, I am able to see pictures & videos of them raising their children in the same rooms that I raised my babies in. Can I just say, that is not easy for this overly emotional girl to see while trying to deal with a big move?
*Please know, this has nothing to do with the great family living in our house. We love that God picked them for it & for us & we pray that God blesses them greatly.
It has everything to do with the WEIRD new world I occupy where there is technology for me to even see this family living in my old house.
Example Two: I'm sure this works both ways, but just like I can watch that family living in my old house, I can watch our old church friends' lives go on without us.
This was not our first church family for God to call us away from. (We served one other before FBCVivian. When we left there we kept up with them through phone calls & a few visits, but we didn't get to seemingly experience the day-to-day with them.) But it is the first church family for us to be able to watch so closely after we left them. Y'all are no stranger to how we "did life" with the people & a big part of doing life with them was on Facebook too. We could see their day-to-day when we were a part of it...& we can still see their day-to-day even when we're not a part of it.
Having access to all of this information can just be...weird.
I'm not knocking SM. I maintain that, when used correctly, it can be a positive thing. It's helpful to get out church announcements & because of that, it saves money that is spent on expensive paper, etc. & frees it up to be used towards missions, or ministry, etc. Organizing things such as my Dinner Swap would have been nearly impossible without it. I even know of ministries reaching many different kinds of people through social media (like people w/ addictions, people who have had abortions, etc). It opens up communication to people who wouldn't step foot in church, or experience shame, or don't yet understand the Grace that is greater than all our sin. I LOVE SM for those very things.
But in this very interesting stage in life, I have to say that the world of SM can be a weird one. It's opened up so many things that I'm thankful for. I love that we can maintain our relationships (& keep up so well with SM) with our Faith Family, new or old, b/c they are our family forever. But like I tell D: some of the stuff we learn & see through SM...maybe we're not supposed to know.
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