Last week our pastor gave us a homework assignment: Fasting.
I'd been toying with the idea of taking a social media break all year. This assignment finally pushed me off the fence and off my Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Nothing profound happened.
And yet.
I don't remember feeling the uncomfortably familiar, deep levels of frustration or rage at my kids last week.
So I guess that's kind of profound.
Scrolling through my feeds had become my go-to numbing device--my top distracting mechanism. I'd find myself turning on my phone like some kind of twitch I'd picked up--in moments I didn't even have enough time to open the app, at times I didn't actually want to be distracted. I knew there would be nothing new (since I checked 8 minutes ago) or more interesting than what was tangibly in front of me. I knew I didn't want my kids to see the back of a phone every time they looked for my face. I knew that God uses quietness and that I wasn't allowing myself to be quiet.
Even with all this knowing, for some reason, I wasn't ready to give up social media. So I put limits on when I allowed myself to use my phone, but continually stretched those limits. Not wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater, I continued to pray to God for an increased "ick factor," as Beth Moore puts it in the Quest Bible Study video. "Lord, let me find my addiction to distraction disgusting."
I'm not staying off social media.
But I appreciated the break. I'm only now realizing how addicted to it I was. There are so many people far more addicted to it than I, that I didn't even put myself in the same category. But when I think about how much I wanted to stay off and didn't? Yeah. Addict.
Once I made up my mind, it wasn't actually difficult to stay off; I didn't even miss it that much. I did feel somewhat out of the loop a few times and, from time to time, I got curious about what people were up to. But I felt more present in my own skin. I enjoyed knowing what my kids were up to and interacting with them instead of photographing them to share with my followers (social media lingo now sounds creepy to me--"my followers"--*shudders*). I enjoyed having some extra time to do some projects I hadn't been getting around to (small things like cleaning off the top of the fridge). I enjoyed laying beside my sleeping kiddos and staring at the ceiling, refusing to break my fast and refusing to fill the time with a new distraction.
The week felt slower, with plenty of open space to think. When my kids demanded interaction, I wasn't upset that they were distracting me from my own distractions. I wasn't ready to do the work (you know, praying, cracking open a Bible, etc.) of filling the empty space with the Holy Spirit. But I enjoyed knowing that He was with me in the empty space.
Now my task is to figure out how to enter back in without allowing Social Media to consume all the empty space I appreciated having. The empty space that God can use. The empty space that got the top of my refrigerator cleaned. The empty space that allowed me to value my kids more highly.
I'd been toying with the idea of taking a social media break all year. This assignment finally pushed me off the fence and off my Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Nothing profound happened.
And yet.
I don't remember feeling the uncomfortably familiar, deep levels of frustration or rage at my kids last week.
So I guess that's kind of profound.
Scrolling through my feeds had become my go-to numbing device--my top distracting mechanism. I'd find myself turning on my phone like some kind of twitch I'd picked up--in moments I didn't even have enough time to open the app, at times I didn't actually want to be distracted. I knew there would be nothing new (since I checked 8 minutes ago) or more interesting than what was tangibly in front of me. I knew I didn't want my kids to see the back of a phone every time they looked for my face. I knew that God uses quietness and that I wasn't allowing myself to be quiet.
Even with all this knowing, for some reason, I wasn't ready to give up social media. So I put limits on when I allowed myself to use my phone, but continually stretched those limits. Not wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater, I continued to pray to God for an increased "ick factor," as Beth Moore puts it in the Quest Bible Study video. "Lord, let me find my addiction to distraction disgusting."
I'm not staying off social media.
But I appreciated the break. I'm only now realizing how addicted to it I was. There are so many people far more addicted to it than I, that I didn't even put myself in the same category. But when I think about how much I wanted to stay off and didn't? Yeah. Addict.
Once I made up my mind, it wasn't actually difficult to stay off; I didn't even miss it that much. I did feel somewhat out of the loop a few times and, from time to time, I got curious about what people were up to. But I felt more present in my own skin. I enjoyed knowing what my kids were up to and interacting with them instead of photographing them to share with my followers (social media lingo now sounds creepy to me--"my followers"--*shudders*). I enjoyed having some extra time to do some projects I hadn't been getting around to (small things like cleaning off the top of the fridge). I enjoyed laying beside my sleeping kiddos and staring at the ceiling, refusing to break my fast and refusing to fill the time with a new distraction.
The week felt slower, with plenty of open space to think. When my kids demanded interaction, I wasn't upset that they were distracting me from my own distractions. I wasn't ready to do the work (you know, praying, cracking open a Bible, etc.) of filling the empty space with the Holy Spirit. But I enjoyed knowing that He was with me in the empty space.
Now my task is to figure out how to enter back in without allowing Social Media to consume all the empty space I appreciated having. The empty space that God can use. The empty space that got the top of my refrigerator cleaned. The empty space that allowed me to value my kids more highly.
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