A Pinterest Lesson

I wasn’t calm last night on Pinterest. Not calm at all. And I usually am. It’s my new favorite thing, but last night it all went sour. Sitting at the computer in the dark, I was glad my Mom couldn’t see me, because it would have confirmed her belief that computers and all things that are spawned from computers are straight from the pit of hell.

I was obsessed, you see. With that little empty board on the left that is the first thing I see when I open my Pinterest page. It’s the one that says, “Create a board.” And I don’t want it there. I want the first thing I see to be all my beautiful boards, not that sad empty one. It mars the landscape. And last night, I sat there frazzled, already beyond tired.

I couldn’t even move it down to the bottom.

It……was…..something……I……couldn’t……control.

The worst thing was that on every single profile I looked at? They didn’t have it. Their pages were all nice and pretty. Only their wonderful pins were there. What did they know, that I didn’t know? That is what was mocking me.

And the truth was, that was the real problem. I felt like I was alone. Like I was the only one in the world of Pinterest that didn’t know.

I felt like I was back in first grade and I could see myself sitting at my desk, struggling with math, as usual. It seemed everyone got it but me. I can still remember it, that day a classmate sauntered by. I can still see her face as she shook her head at me as she went up to hand her finished paper in.

I can still remember the day I had to stay after, again with math problems. Again in first grade. A classmate’s sixth grade sister came by and she was mad that I was crying, mad at the teacher for making me stay after.

That’s how I felt last night at the computer. Alone. And the devil taunted me, everyone knows but you. Everyone has the answer but you. As I crept off to bed, unsuccessful in my endeavors, Elaine snickered at me. “I am the only one that has it….” my voice trailed away and she smiled and shook her head. She knows how weird I am.

This morning I woke up groggy, not a very happy camper. I felt kind like this guy:

I found him on Pinterest, of course.

Carrying my lifeblood cup of coffee back into my room, I opened my devotional for today and God brought me to tears through it. This is what it said:

July 18th, by Sarah Young”

I AM NEARER than you think, richly present in all your moments. you are connected to Me by Love-bonds that nothing can sever. however, you may sometimes feel alone, because your union with Me is invisible. Ask Me to open your eyes, so that you can find Me everywhere. The more aware you are of My Presence, the safer you feel. This is not some sort of escape from reality; it is tuning in to ultimate reality. I am far more real than the world you can see, hear, and touch. Faith is the confirmation of things we do not see and conviction of their reality, perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses.”

And then? When I got to work I had a co-worker pull up her Pinterest profile and she had the empty pin too. And I didn’t feel so alone anymore.

You see, the problem, or what I perceived to be a problem was still there, it was just that now I had someone to share the burden. To make me feel less alone.

Even enjoyable things can be marred sometimes because all we see is the thing we don’t like. Not the hundred things of wonder all around us.

Pinterest learned me.

And even if the empty board taunts me until Kingdom come. I will be okay with it. I will.

I think.

Facechurch

I had no sound on my IPhone for half a day (and a night) yesterday. I got it damp and the speakers died. It spent the night submerged in rice, which seemed to do the trick since this morning it seems fine. If I didn’t know it before, I know now. I am too dependant on it. On a gadget. I never thought I would be one of those people.

I admit it, I like when I hear the little chime that tells me I have a text. It’s almost a Pavlovian response with me, I instinctively reach for my phone. And last night the non-noise was almost deafening. Not that I get that many, mind you.

I even like the other little warble that tells me I have an email, even if it is FTD again telling me I need to order flowers.

The truth is, my phone is just the vehicle that connects me to others in my little community. The people I care about are in my phone……not literally but you know what I mean. I have a voice memo of my Dad and my niece talking. He’s 84 and someday after He’s gone to Heaven I will let her listen to it. I haven’t gotten around to saving that somewhere else yet, and I would be very sad to lose it.

This morning as I was checking my Facebook news feed over coffee, the thought came to me:

Facebook is like church. A community of like-minded people gathering together to encourage, enlighten, strengthen, humor, help and support each other.

But this visiting is what we used to do over the back fence, or on the front porch swing.

In my Mom’s day none of the women worked so they would all gather at one house or yard and bring their kids. They didn’t have Facebook back then, they didn’t need it. They had their own community.

And while people are still meeting at backyard barbeques, front yard garage sales, neighborhood Bible studies, and yes, over the back fence and the porch swing and the neighborhood pub……

……..now they’re communing over coffee, twitter and Facebook too.

Even churches are using social media in a big way. Just about every church has a “Like” option. Does yours? And shame on you if you haven’t “Liked” your church!

The world may change, but people never will. We are hard-wired by God to live, thrive and work in community.

My phone is happily ringing, dinging, and playing music and every time it chimes with life today, it makes me smile.

Because I know my peeps are in there.

****Note: I had to change the title of my post which was going to be The Church of Facebook, but someone already wrote a book by that title……I had no idea!

Pulling over and slowing down

And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. Mark 6:31

Last night on the way home, I heard music literally spilling onto a page. It was piano, and the notes were played so fast and yet so perfectly they sounded as if they were spilled, not played. If you have never heard that I hope you do someday. The notes made me feel as if I were sitting in a grand but restful drawing-room in a Downton-like mansion.

Lately I have felt the need to pull off the super-highway of social media. For awhile, I was twittering, pinteresting, face-booking and instagraming all at the same time, simultaneously. Oh, and add blogging into the mix, and reading other’s blogs as well as trying to write my own.

I forgot why I was writing and who I was writing for. I was playing the comparison game and it was wearing me out. In light of that, I have decided that if an activity doesn’t give me a measure of peace, then I will stop doing it. Of course, that doesn’t apply to work, I have to do that.

Sometimes life is like what happened to me in my car last night. I was driving along minding my own business at around 75 MPH when all of a sudden the engine lost power. There were no warning lights on the dash. Nothing to tell me anything was wrong, other than the fact that all of a sudden, cars were zooming by me and I was slowing down.

I had to pull over, and fast. I put my flashers on and got to the side of the road and adjusted the floor mat which I thought maybe was a contributing factor in why I slowed down, I thought maybe it got caught underneath the gas pedal. I cautiously started driving again and it seemed fine, so once again I got up speed and zoomed my way home.

By the time I pulled in the driveway, an indicator light did come on which turned out to be the EPC (Engine Power Control).

Suffice it to say, I have had a warning light to slow down my activity on social media for a time. And I have.

And it has been good for my peace.

I will still blog and get on Facebook and all the rest, but now it will be like touching down and checking in rather than full immersion.

The desert is a peaceful place……and I want to bring that to you in this blog. A little corner away from the multitudes and noise and confusion of the world. I want to bring the peace of Jesus here.

Because sometimes you just have to pull over and let the others just zoom by. If you need me I will be sitting at the base of these trees.

When you need to find your way home

Sometimes it is very easy to get lost amidst all the traffic online. Being engaged in social media can be a good thing, but it can also make you feel lost in a crowd. You look around and all of a sudden you are in a dark forest full of words and soup and you feel like yours disappear as soon as you hit.

Publish.

You remember when there was light on the path, sunlight filtering through the trees. You were encased in warmth of community, of comfort. You were there once, but you aren’t so much now and you are not even sure how it happened.

You didn’t notice at first just when the sun went behind the clouds. It all got to be confusing and noisy and you noticed less and less peace and more and more pressure.

But there is always a way to get home.

As a writer, as a person, as a believer.

To me, that is the best thing about what we believe. With God, there is always another chance to get home. Every moment, every day. We just need to be reminded how easy it is. How easy to remember that we are already wearing the ruby slippers.

My three taps……..

Getting alone with God in a quiet place.

Remembering who I am writing for, and why I am writing.

Open the pages of the Words He wrote to light the path again.

And really, the truth is, we are all daily prodigals aren’t we? Every day we confess our failings and once more He cleanses our hearts, clears the way for progress, and we get strong enough to go on.

He is just over there in fact, standing right beyond that thick stand of trees you can’t see around. It’s amazing just how close He was all along. “God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ Acts 17:28

When I lift my gratitude and focus back to Him, I realize that, like Dorothy, I had everything I needed all along. All I had to do was remember.

And just like that……. I am on a hillside sitting in the Narnian sun with my arm around my Aslan.

Home once more.