My Social Media-less Life

When I went to bed last night, I had no intention of writing another post that would put two of them on the same date, but here we are.

I have three friends who all have published works:
L. Beth Campbell…
Heather O’Brien…
and of course, my friend Rachel Newhouse that I talk about almost every blog post since we became best friends.

Why do I bring that up? Because the fun thing about living in the 21st century is that it’s about three steps from impossible to sell something without social media.

I mean, you can sell without socials, but unless you’re an overly outgoing person, the best place to sell something (especially to your friends and family, oddly) is online. So there have been more conversations involving social media lately in my life.

Last night I mentioned to one of these friends that I had a bit of an argument with the Lord about how I would sell once I start publishing books. As I was telling the friend this silly little thing, the Lord simultaneously reminded me, “I want you to be separate from the world, not doing what the world does.”

There are a lot of things I’m learning in this season of life, but narrowing my life so completely wasn’t apparent to me until that moment. And while the Lord and I were talking some more today it became clear that what I need to do is share this portion of my journey as well, the portion that involves learning how to surrender completely and narrow when He says.

Grief is weird. As is evidenced by this entire blog (starting as far back as last August), grief comes in different waves, in different ways with different things, and it looks different every time.

I don’t know that I would say I’m grieving the loss of social media still, but I do realize that it was such a part of my life that sometimes I still think of a pithy line that would’ve been funny as a Facebook post, or I take a picture and want to share it with a pithy line… although the second one is easier to get over because I can just share said picture with a few close friends that I text from time to time and get almost the same reaction as if I had posted on Instagram.

The pithy “Facebook posts”– while funny– don’t seem to want to make it past a thought in my head since I rarely remember to tell anyone about them and I just mourn (however briefly) that I am mostly in a bubble.

But that’s the thing: being a Christian, I’m supposed to be living differently than the world. Sure, social media isn’t inherently bad in and of itself. But what is it really adding to a Believer’s life to be on social media? Are we really accomplishing what the Lord is calling us to do? Sure, there are a lot of people I would never have known existed had it not been for social media. And I’m sure everyone reading this can agree. But with the way life in the world is… would we have heard about them eventually anyway?

I also think of some of my more favorite celebrities (there are very few) who either don’t have social media or hardly ever use it… and I figure I’m in pretty good company.

Of course, you might be thinking, “Well yeah, Erica, but they’re famous! They don’t need social media to help them out. People already know who they are!”

And that’s true. But I’ve also heard interviewers ask these people why they don’t have social media. One of them basically gave the answer that it wouldn’t be healthy for him, and he doesn’t really see the need. If someone needs to contact him, they can talk to his agent. And with fans… well he’s a celebrity. We all know who this person is and would definitely stop him on the street to tell him how much we love his work.

This person– to my knowledge– isn’t even a Christian and they don’t want social media because they know it would be detrimental to them.

Look, I’m not saying that anyone who considers themselves a Christian should immediately delete all social media and be like me… but what if there’s something we’ve been missing as Believers because we’ve been too busy wrapped up in social media and what other people think?

When I was growing up in the 1990s, we all had those “What Would Jesus Do” bracelets. Even I had a couple for a short time! And a lot of people have a lot of different opinions about what Jesus would do based on their interpretations of different passages of Scripture. But I think I know what the ultimate answer to that question would be:

Jesus would be set apart. Holy. Just like His Father in Heaven… and just like we should be.

Social media has done a lot of good things in the past 18+ years… but I’m wondering if maybe there’s another way we can set ourselves truly apart as Believers and what that might look like. Is it less social media? None at all? Is it becoming more involved in the local soup kitchen because no one else will? Is it becoming involved in local politics instead of complaining about them?

For me, it was getting rid of social media and learning how to communicate with people outside of what happens on the internet. As I mentioned many months ago, I can hear the Lord more clearly than I had in years. And it gets better every day.

What is that thing that would help set you apart? Well… only you and the Lord can determine that together. Just be ready when He asks you to do something you’re not expecting. As my brother used to say (and maybe he got it from somewhere else), “When you least expect it, expect it.”