I wanted to let the blessed internet know why I’m taking a break from her. Well, less the internet/social media and more of a break from “likes”.
Social media as a whole is not the problem; it never has been. Honestly, social media has become one of my favorite things on the race because it makes it so easy to keep up on the little things going on in everyone’s life. I was able to watch on Facebook live that my sweet cousin is having a baby girl!! I have followed her journey through pictures and status updates. I have followed a presidential election from a different continent and seen the hurt, excitement, and emotions of the people I know. I have been able to update my supporters on the things God is doing while on the field. I have invited people into what I am doing and what my life is looking like for these nine months. I am forever grateful that the internet makes living across the world easier.
But that is not all social media has been doing while I have been on the race. Likes on a picture have become the deciding factor of my day, the way I feel loved and cherished. I will delete my pictures if they do not get enough likes. I feel forgotten and unloved when my friends don’t post a picture with me on my birthday. I literally define how much someone loves me by how often they post with me, and then define how much everyone else likes us by how many likes the picture gets. I look at photographs and wonder if this is worthy of ____ likes. I will spend 15 minutes of my day editing a picture with the perfect filter instead of embracing what Jesus has for me in the those 15 minutes. I will watch scenes from behind a cell phone camera instead of watching them with my own two eye balls.
I want (AND NEED) to dwell with the Lord and find rest in what He calls me. You see, so far the race has been A LOT of tearing down what the world calls me and who I thought I was. The problem with this stripping down is now I know a good amount of what I am not, but very little about who I truly am. I am now in a season where I need Jesus to fill me up with truth and light. I want to be in a place where I am not living behind a camera trying to capture moments perfectly. I want to dwell in a place where I am not consumed by making my life look a certain way to the rest of the world. Instead, I want to fully live in these moments. I want to laugh harder and take all the mental pictures I can. I want to see moments through my own eye balls. More importantly, I want Jesus to fill me up with all the fullness of HIM. I want to depend on his love and adoration.
I am not taking a break from social media, I am taking a break from “likes”. I want, and need, to find my value and worth in simply who I am and who Jesus calls me. I want to know what it is like for me to live freely in Jesus and his love for me.
With that being said, I have decided to continue posting my pictures on VSCO where I don’t know who sees them and I can’t numerically measure the amount of people that “like” it. I have had a VSCO for over a year, but I am now seeing the simplicity in the app. I will still be posting some to Facebook because I don’t want to suddenly cut people out of this journey that have been here since day one! I’m saying goodbye to instagram, biggunsdenton, and snapchat for awhile.
Thank you all for the love, prayers and little messages of encouragement I have been receiving. Y’all rock. See ya soon.
Linds
