Social media is a funny thing. In fact the entire way technology has changed how people communicate and interact with one another is interesting. I think it is so strange that I can be "friends" with so many people on Facebook and yet very few of those individuals I would actually call friends. Yet, I want to be connected to them in that way. Whether it is an old friend that I really wish I still talked to or just someone I once knew that I like knowing how they are doing from time to time, on Facebook, I have LOTS of friends.
I bring this up because it was social media precisely that presented the issue when life took a turn for the worst 2 weeks ago. I was talking to my Mom about it actually a few days after we lost the baby. I told her how strange it is because when we first found out we were pregnant it was exciting and it was easy to tell all my "friends" via facebook. However, when something like this happens. Something so tragic and not exciting, how do you tell those same friends? Who really wants to read a Facebook status about a miscarriage? I mean, it's awkward right? But, it's life and we are friends, right?
I still haven't figured that out. Any of it really. How to tell people, friends, the sad things as easily as the happy things. How to not be friends with people who clearly have no interest in ever going to coffee with you or be involved with those kids lives you hope to have one day. How to truly have relationships outside of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and text messaging. Because when something like this happens, you crave relationships and not status updates. You crave hugs from people who really care and not just a thumbs up on the world wide web. You crave conversation and hearing the words that they care and understand. You crave life beyond a screen.
I have learned a few things over the last two weeks. First, God's timing is everything. I have learned not to base whether you are ready for something on your age or where you are at or where your friends are at. God could still be seeding you to prepare you for your harvest when you are trying to push forward. How can you possibly experience the harvest without proper preparation? Secondly, relationships are so important. Not the Facebook kind. The kind your great-grandparents had. Because when life changes you via hardship it's the relationships that keep you going. When I feel that pit in my stomach thinking about what May 15th won't bring, it is my relationship with Christ that keeps me going. When I am crying at night before bed because I am sad, it is my relationship with my husband that calms me. When I want someone who gets me or to make me laugh, it is my relationship with my family. When I just want good girl talk because they don't judge me for just wanting to rant about how much this sucks, it is my relationships with my girlfriends. Relationships matter. They carry you through happiness and everything else that matters in this life.
Maybe, today, call someone you haven't made the time for. Go to coffee with your sister. Rekindle that friendship you miss. Reach beyond the screen.
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