What My Facebook Posts Won't Tell You

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I Samuel 16:7 
"The LORD told Samuel, "Don't look at his appearance or his height, for I've rejected him. Truly, God does not see what man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD sees the heart."
 
Recently, I was pondering Facebook, and really, there seem to be mostly two types of posts—the supremely happy ones (the everything’s perfect here posts) and the raving mad rampages (the if I don’t say this I’ll explode posts). Don’t get me wrong; I do enjoy seeing people’s happy moments and sharing in the milestone moments and updates from my friends, but as a still relatively new arrival to Facebook, I feel like our generation is being somewhat misled.  Think for one minute about the posts that can create the “we’re perfect” appearance, whether or not that’s even the intention. Honestly—have you ever known a “perfect” family? Think about it--is yours even close? The focus on the appearance of what some people have that others may want can lead to coveting, and we all know that’s not healthy.

So in the sense of fair disclosure, I want to clarify the status of my family. Take my recent 25-year anniversary trip with my husband, which went surprisingly well apart from the fact that I had the bronchitis crud by THE NIGHT WE ARRIVED.  My close friends know about our last vacation to the beach, which by the way my husband absolutely despises. He loves to fish, but make him feel like he has to approach a beach (unless it’s dark and he wants to walk along the shoreline), and he becomes an unhappy camper. Me? I love the do nothing but lie on the beach and read and sleep and listen to the water. As a result, between fire alarms that went off CONSTANTLY from the moment we laid our heads on the sheets to the torrential rain to the fights we don’t normally have (about food, of course) that led to driving home and dodging deer the last night instead of sleeping, it was a disaster we can now laugh about, but it wasn’t fun at the time! It was so bad, the first thing my friend asked when we returned was if it was a "beach trip." LOL!

Let’s see . . . tonight as I type this my daughter is alternating between studying Plato and cleaning her room—a self-declared disaster zone she now blames on me for (get this) not beating her enough when she was younger (her words, not mine!). When one gets unbearable, she tries the other unbearable for a little while, and then comes back. The middle child is off work tonight and is doing what he loves best—ignoring us and playing video games while holed up in his room. You know the alternate reality beats this one entirely! My oldest has escaped the nest. His stories are his own—ask him sometime--or I’m sure Hanna would love to share some of his or our more dysfunctional moments. My husband had to buy a new kitchen faucet today (Who doesn’t love unexpected expenses?) and install it after working all day and going hunting (seeing nothing of course) and then going to church before coming home to the mess under the sink. Me? I haven’t been to work all week—personal days for vacation that I got sick on, remember, and then just sick days because I have the crud. Sounds Facebook worthy, right? Hey, but I got new floors for our anniversary, and we will be cleaning up the mess we made to get them installed for quite a while, I am thinking . . .

Needless to say, I’ve hopelessly warped my children, and my marriage is just a gift from God that I probably do more to damage than sustain on a quite regular basis. But there is the truth, right in the middle of all the mess . . . God is more gracious and merciful than I could ever deserve, more patient and compassionate than I probably will ever know, and more worthy of praise for anything we possibly do right than any of us. So just in case we ever look like we’ve got it all together in those Facebook posts, know that you’re only seeing the surface. There’s a story behind it that I am quite sure would either amuse you or horrify you. Just ask!

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