i have gotten past the part of simply sending a letter requesting support. in fact, some of you reading this may have already received two or three letters asking for support. so now i’m starting to have to get creative. i have put up posts on my facebook but when they are just sent out there, i am finding that no one really feels a sense of responsiblity (that’s not entirely true, i have a good friend who donated simply on this basis, but i would say that she is likely the exception). so what i have been doing now is going through each person on my facebook list and sending them a personalized message trying to figure out what has been going on in their life and sharing what has been going on in my life.
for those of you who have not gone through all of your facebook friends and sent them a personalized message, i would say this has been quite an interesting experience. i am learning what most people have probably already realized – that not all of our facebook friends are that much a part of our lives. i am trying to catch up with some people that i have not seen in years. i am learning that many of my friends are now married and have little ones. it’s great to see what everyone has been up and to try to catch up in their lives. however, i fear that i am coming across as inauthentic since, along with my inquiries as to how they’ve been, i am also linking my blog and requesting support. to those of you who may be reading this due to receiving a facebook message from me (and likely not having talked to me in a while) i want you to know that i am interested in what is going on in your life and i feel blessed to be able to reconnect with you via facebook. it’s just that it is difficult to try to reconnect with others, for one. and two, it is very difficult to share your faith without knowing how the other may respond.
my goal is not to force my views on others, or to guilt anyone into supporting me. i simply want to share what is going on in my life, how i have received freedom from Christ, and how i want to live out my convictions. i can understand how the idea of “religion” can be offensive and how i can seem presumptous by sending this out. i do wonder when others have particulary strong reactions to what i am saying or to what i believe what is going on with them that makes the reactions so strong. i admit that i can have strong emotional reactions to differing views but i am willing to assess what is going on and talk this through with others – not just to confirm what i believe, but also to understand what is going on with me.
so, now i’m going to try to sum up this post. it has been a great process to try to reconnect with others, though it involves putting myself out there in ways that i admit make me uncomfortable. i think that each person who crosses our paths can be an important part of our lives and with resources like facebook we should be trying to reach out more and more rather than simply accepting that we have facebook friends but continue to live in our own little world (and this is referring to myself).
