I am not a fan of Facebook. Before you want to start throwing arrows let me say that I didn’t say I disliked Facebook. I just said that I am not a fan. In defense, I am not a fan of Spanks, low-rise jeans and bras with an underwire. There are just things in life that we learn to accept and realize that they have their place.
I know the intent of Facebook and with a lot of things the intent sometimes gets muddied. When it first became popular my kids were telling me how I needed to participate. Their selling point was that I could find out what other people were doing, and I could share with everyone what I was doing. My reply to all of this was “I don’t want to know what everyone is doing. In fact, sometimes I would rather not know especially regarding my nieces, nephews, church family, etc. Ignorance is sometimes bliss. My other response was if I want people to know what I am doing I will tell them otherwise it is really none of their business, to which I got the eye roll.
Not too long ago a group of women were standing in our church entry way discussing something of
extreme importance
. When I walked up one of them looked at me and said, “Oh I forgot you don’t do Facebook”. A few years ago, Kathi Lipp was the speaker for Inside Out and she spoke one session about how what people say to us is not necessarily what we hear. So now repeat this statement and put a little snarkiness(that’s not really a word but you know what I mean) in your voice
“Oh I forgot…. you don’t do Facebook”.
See what I mean. I guess because I don’t do Facebook that I have a black mark on my character.
Now don’t misunderstand me Facebook can be very helpful and yes, we use Facebook to share a lot of information from Women’s Ministries. It can be a very useful tool. I guess I must be very honest and the one thing I do not like about Facebook is that it makes me feel bad. I see a picture of a former classmate and she looks half my age. I see a married couple that we are friends with, and they have been on a wonderful trip to some exotic location. I begin to compare our family with the pictures that I see of others and I could go on and on. I guess bottom line Satan has found my weak spot and he uses it big time. It had gotten so bad that I just quit looking at it during the holidays.
Galatians 5:26 says “We will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.”
(
THE MESSAGE)
Thank you Jesus. Message received. Each of us is an original. One of a kind. Carefully and wonderfully made. Then that got me to thinking about Women’s Ministries. Do we really think of each woman in our church or individual Women’s Ministries group as an original or do we come up with a template of what we expect them to be and then if they don’t conform to our pattern we kind of leave them out. If you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, He has given you at least one spiritual gift. Something given especially to you because he wants you to have that gift and use it to further the kingdom. Do we take the time to listen to the hearts of the women in our groups or do we come up with a master plan and then expect all to fall in line? I think passion is so important. It is what drives us or at least it should.
I want to challenge you in the next few weeks to take a good look at the women in your church or groups and really look into their hearts. What are their gifts and especially what breaks their heart? I bet you are going to be blessed beyond measure when you see all the potential, giftings and passion that has gone untapped. You will find that you are surrounded by a whole group of originals.
