"May Your Real Life Be As Perfect, Someday, As Your Life Is On Facebook"

Have you ever heard the sarcastic blessing that goes something like this, "May your real life be as perfect, someday, as your life is on Facebook"? I enjoy Facebook. I like looking at all the smiling faces, people enjoying vacations and dinners with family and friends, it makes me smile. I like celebrating new births and weddings via my different friends on Facebook's pages and the photographs they post there. Facebook can make life look perfect; however, most folks over 10 years old, who are breathing, know that life isn't perfect, that every day can mean some new challenge or difficult problem to face. Honestly, many people find turning 11 and starting middle school tough, kids that age can be pretty cruel. Life gets more "real" around that age , middle school might well be called the "first level of the school of hard knocks" where we began developing the tougher skin  needed to navigate through the twists and turns ahead of us..

I know some people feel the need to be what they call "transparent" or "real" on Facebook.  Not me, I feel like most adults know life isn't perfect, and so I choose to take the glass is half-full attitude when posting. For example, the other day I posted a picture of me and my oldest granddaughter out to lunch.  It was a special one-on-one time. What I didn't post was, we were actually trying to pass the time pleasantly until she went to have her wrist x-rayed. Just that morning a few hours earlier, she had slipped and fallen while shopping with her mother and re-injured the wrist she had broken last spring. Thankfully it was just a sprain and not another broken bone, but our time together was special, and that was the part I wanted to focus on that day.

Most marriages have ups and downs, most people suffer themselves, or have friends and family that suffer from various illnesses (some very serious), people lose jobs, business owners deal with the ebb and flow of fickle economies, and the list of hardships is endless. I am thankful for friend’s posts that alert me to areas in their lives that might be helped by prayer.  Every morning I spend time praying for friends and family who are in need of prayer for healing, for improved job situations, for many types of difficult challenges. My prayer list only seems to grow it never seems to get shorter. .  Hard places and difficult challenges are rarely unique to individuals and finding others who have experienced, faced and even conquered various obstacles can be comforting and encouraging, but if there’s a blessing in the midst of misery, I try to focus on it. Each day has its challenges, but each day also has its joys and blessings too. Thankfully my days are filled with the beautiful smiles of my grandchildren, the blessing of my husband coming home each evening from work, and sharing time together with friends and family.  Even little blessings, like the hummingbirds coming to my feeder throughout the day, bring me joy and lift my spirit.

In the Bible there are many instances where the Lord blesses or delivers his people from difficult situations and in thanks they piled-stone upon stone to create a memorial, and remember and commemorate his grace and mercy in their lives. I feel like my Facebook posts are kind of like those stones, they commemorate the blessings and the grace and the goodness that the Lord bestows on me daily. So when I make my posts,  I realize my friends and my family know my life isn't perfect, but I do have a lot to be thankful for.

 In the future when you see my posts on Facebook, I hope you'll think of them as, “stones”. When I see your posts on Facebook I'm going to ooh and aw over your pile of blessings as well. Besides, lifting all those "stones" will keep our attitudes in great shape during the ups AND downs of life!!! Happy hefting (er, posting) see you on Facebook.

Just a little postscript:  My oldest grand daughter, Taylor, is starting middle school this year, feel free to lift her up as she begins this new chapter in her life, she's a wonderful kid, I'm praying it will be an awesome time for her.