this one’s for you social media.
for the impressive ability to alter people’s minds and create a need to impress,
a need to be validated.
truth tells me that I am not a slave to anything here on earth-but you, you plant a lie that i am your slave.
you put a pink bow around a rose and call it a gift-but once i accept it the thorns of culture and insecurity poke wounds.
each time i realize the pain your thorns have been inflicting , i drop that artificially sweet rose.
i remind myself that using you is not for me-its for showcasing eternal glory.
i use you to glorify a counter-cultural truth that beauty is nothing i can muster up on my own but simply celebrate.
i use you and don’t apologize.
but you try and trick me.
you hold out a rose,
congratulating me in some form of validation i forgot i don’t depend on.
you say my pictures are beautiful and push me to share more and more,
a deeper consuming need to focus on how well i can display the things that are becoming increasingly less visible to me.
i look up far less at the beauty my creator is walking me through because my focus is only ahead of my where my camera is looking.
but sometimes i look up, tired of smelling your aroma that is far too sweet to be anything real.
i stand in forests and on mountain tops and along oceans that hold a beauty that can never be fully captured.
a beauty that does not need your validation.
the oceans will still roar and the mountains will remain firm, for they come from a creator who said
“it is good”.
want to hear something?
my creator said something even better when he created me.
he called me more beautiful than a field of lilies.
he called me precious
and beautiful
and a masterpiece.
he whispers in my ear and tells me to look up.
look up at the path we are walking.
he tells me to look down and release the rose that makes my hands bleed.
he reminds me that his hands already bled for me.
he holds my hand and we walk forward.
