Twenty-One Benefits to Deactivating Facebook

Warning: This could get ugly.

I’ve left FB (FB), yes I am using acronyms, after all I work for the government, and acronyms are my friend. My intentions were for a week, but it has been so good, I was  gone for a total of 30 days and my mind and fingers have been retrained not to type www.fac  when they hit the keyboard or to slide straight over to the FB icon on my smart phone. I am partly joking, but I did notice I was spending more time with virtual friends and family rather than with my living, breathing present family. I know shameful and I am not proud of it, but it is somewhat true. l actually noticed when my family begin to dust me off on cleaning day as if I were a permanent fixture. Seriously though when I sit in my 2 Corinthians 5:17 chair, it just molds me into comfort, another fault of mine, I am a comfort addict, but who isn’t, right? Comfort, the one reason, I will never understand why people would want to go camping, when there are perfectly good, vacant hotel rooms.

Yes, I stray, not a good trait, but one that has led me to find great treasures. So back to my FB hiatus, I had no intention of being gone for so long, but it has been so refreshing, physically, mentally and spiritually.

Seventeen days into my hiatus from FB, our family pet of 11 years went missing. I reactivated my account to see if I could get the word out to others by asking people to share his picture/story on their wall. I read on Yahoo Finance that on average FB can reach an average of 150,000 other people through their friends! That’s a lot of free advertising! My hope was if Señor Harjo’s picture reached enough people someone may see him and say I have a friend who just posted she found a Chihuahua and doesn’t know what to do with him, because he is punked out with blue nail polish and is super laid back, true story! But it was actually through Craigslist that we were reunited…and yes it felt so good, reunited because we understood (“song drop” it my head and yes, I am that old). After our prodigal son came home, we clothed him with his Sooner wear, put a ring on his claw, shoes on his paws and we killed the fatted calf (Pizza Hut). Okay, maybe the truth is we celebrated with Pizza Hut and the only two who were truly joyful for his return were Jayden and I. So now, that Señor Harjo was lost and now was found, Operation Deactivate FB began again.

Some (okay a few) people have asked why I deactivated from FB. There are a lot of reasons for my FB Hiatus. First, it is a time guzzler. If you have been on social media you know this is true, some of you I know have even burned meals and flooded sinks, because you have a few minutes to check in on FB and forget you had something else going on and dementia sets in. I truly believe we’ve reached a new level of wasting time and it’s called Social Media. Is social media all bad? No, I don’t believe so, but as I was warned when I first set up my account, it is highly addictive. After all, knowing someone else’s business, one-uping friends statuses by showing off your knowledge, work, home, or family, or playing the hundreds of games can be an obsession. How many “likes” can I get? It is reported by FB that 2.6 million minutes are spent on FB each day! That is over 43,000 hours each 24 hour period, that’s a chunk of time, even with 200 million users, okay minus one. For the most part I am on the computer at work all day, I don’t know why I would want to go home and sit on it all night? Sad to say, outside of cooking dinner, helping with a little bit of homework, that is what I was doing. Sure, I sat in the living room with my family, but I was not tuned in.

Secondly, how do I put this? It was becoming nauseating with the vanity boost, I need to worry more about what God would be hitting the like button on, not others. I need to grow in God-pleasing, not man pleasing. My fulfillment must come from being Jesus’ beloved daughter, not from people’s thumbs up. If I am living to be fulfilled by digital comments or likes, I have totally missed the mark. Oh yeah, that’s really hard stuff, told you it was going to get ugly!

Thirdly, all the perpetually superficial or woe-to-me updates were also nauseating.

Lastly, people were using FB to be ugly towards and hurtful to our family. I was becoming attentive and outwardly focused on what others had to say, rather than what He, the Righteous One, has to say about who I am.

Anyway, my FB hiatus was all personal and not an indictment on other FBers, this is just where God has me at right now. It has been refreshing time away from the virtual, superficial relationships to the real, rich world of reality, where dinner conversations, bedroom chats and evening strolls (or chases) happen. This time away has helped me to gain new perspectives, to be entirely present to my family, intentional in my relationships and most importantly more in tune with my Father. I totally agree with Anne Jackson in her essay, “Why I kissed FB Good-Bye” when she said, “Unplugging has become essential to my spiritual journey and truly hearing God.” Let’s say, it’s been a digital fast that may continue to last. I may be going a poke to far, but my family is giving it a thumb up, we like it!

Some of the benefits:

1.       Cooking lots of new Pinterest recipes, mmmmm.

2.       Refabricated a lazy susan.

3.       Chased rabbits ….literally. There are stray rabbits in our neighborhood and Jayden’s dad told him if he catches one, he will give him $100! He totally cracked us up when he turned to us one evening hushing us and said, “Be vewy, vewy qwiet, I’m hunting wabbits!”

4.       Painted some shelves for Bry-bread’s and our bedrooms.

5.       Working through an insightful Bible Study on the Sermon on the Mount in my own time - no rush, no time frame, no deadlines, no group, just me and the daily discipline of exploring God's Word, giving Him time to marinate it in my spirit and soul.

6.       Sat up Nana’s Photography studio with Little Brave.

7.       Attended the National Night Out, Jayden produced the last laugh for our neighbors when he blamed the much needed rain on global warming! He also had a conversation with the Moore Police Officer about gang activity in our community. The officer actually thought he was being quizzed by my 10 year old, when he said in his Barney Fife voice, “Wait a minute….do you already know all the answers?” Plus we got free pizza and crazy bread!

8.     Had a great visit with a Pastor and church member from one of the churches we’ve visited.
9. Framed my autographed Billy Mills Olympic Gold Medalist in the 10,000 meter race poster. Billy Mills remains the only American to win the Gold in the 10K, he is an American Indian and he credits God for his abilities.
10. Framed our caricatures we had drawn over the past year.

 

11.   Helped our son move again, he is following in my steps…a proud mommy moment! Since writing this blog I've discovered he is moving again. One year I moved like 6 times! It is a true miracle we’ve been in this home for 8 years.

12.   Made some freezer meals – big accomplishment for me!

13.   Got back into couponing.

14.   Sold five things on Craigslist – part of my purging of stuff we don’t need or use – makes Darryl really happy.

15.   Had some deep conversations with Jayden about romantic marriage proposals. He totally keeps us laughing.

16.   Had some BIG APPLE, as in New York fun and teaching with Darya on the word “relative”. I bet she will never forget what that word means!

  

17.   Watched a few movies with the family, for the most part even the TV has been off at our house.

18.   Completed four Pinterest Projects! Count them four! Super fun and rewarding projects! 1) Created two super cheap large poster sized fun photos for Darya and our bedrooms; 2) hemmed up Darya’s new jeans keeping the original hem using the European Hem method. I wished I would have known this when I was hemming up Megan and Brandon’s jeans; 3) took a t-shirt that was too big for Darya and turned it into a shirt that fits; and 4) did the picture transfer to wood thingy.

19.   Had three crazy dreams, I will never forget, that paralleled my devotion and bible study and established my word for now, which is “steadfast”. So it is plastered all over my office, computer, car, mirrors, because I don’t want to get spiritual amnesia and start trying to do things on my own.

20.   Most importantly more conversations and time spend with my husband, children, grandchildren, and my Father.

21.   Lastly, rest and freedom. J

I was asked when I deactivated my FB account did I have withdrawals? Maybe the first couple of days my thoughts went to checking in on FB to see what was up, but it passed quickly. I even deleted the App off my iPhone – completely cold turkey!

Do I think FB is evil? No, like I mentioned it was personal for me to deactivate for a time and I checked back in over this Labor Day Holiday weekend to update my Picture of the Day. I am thankful for my picture of the day project, it is a simple way for me to go back over time and quickly find a picture I want to reprint and/or identify a date when something happened. I used it to find my pictures I printed into engineer prints.

And now if you’ll bear with me, I’d like to share something that’s completely unrelated to all that stuff, not that any sort of cohesive narrative structure has ever stopped me before. After a year and a half of praying, God has moved our little family from our comfortable church home of 12 years, I didn’t like it. Remember, I am a comfort addict. It was much more comfortable being where faces, processes and life are familiar and easy, but God. Yes, don’t you love but Gods? No, I did not just call God, a but God, but wait, maybe I did. Every time our previous pastor would say, “But God” our little family would get a chuckle, I know we’re weird, but God is a but God, because when we feel like there is no hope, no help, no understanding, scripture tells us differently with the “but Gods”. Here are a few…

But God did not allow,

But God gave it to Abraham by promise

But God will be with you,

But God meant it for good,

But God will surely visit you,

But God delivered him,

But God has taken away my justice

But God will wound the head of his enemies

But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever

But God is the judge

But God knows your hearts

But God spoke in this way

But God was with him

But God has shown me

But God has raised Him from the dead

But God be thanked

But God has chosen

But God has revealed

But God gave the increase

But God has called us to peace

But God is faithful

But God composed the body

But God is one

But God, who is rich in mercy

But God had mercy on him

But God who tests our hearts

But God, who also has given us His Holy Spirit

And one of my favorites:  But God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8) Who can forgive sins? But God alone. I was incomplete and lost, but God found me and made me whole.

It’s been two months since God called us out on faith to the Land of Uncomfortable, but God has been faithful. After all He did not call us to be comfortable, to be stagnant in our service and worship to Him. He came in and interrupted our lives but He is starting a new thing. One word that came to me about year and a half ago was to “allow God to MESS up your life so the MESSiah can show you more than you ever thought possible.” As painful as it has been, God is making a way in what seemed like a wilderness, He is showing us rivers in the desert. He is giving new relationships and overwhelming us with His grace. I hope to share more on this new work He is doing in and through us later. There is so much that has happened in the past to bring us to where we are now and it is so exhilarating because ONLY God can do the things that He has done in our lives over the past year and a half. He is taking our inadequacies and filling our lack with His grace - I must stop now, or this will turn into a novel! To God be the Glory…great things He has done…and is doing…and will do!

“And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” 1 Peter 5:10