I’ve known for awhile that Facebook and I needed to reevaluate our relationship. It was making me irritable, begging me to compare myself to others, and stealing valuable time (if even just ten minutes in a day). When I read that motivational writer Crystal Paine from moneysavingmom.com had deleted her personal account to make more time for her “best stuff,” I seriously considered it too. But after evaluating my own situation, I decided on a better solution that will help me engage with my own “best stuff”: family and writing.
In order to stay active on both fronts, I’ve decided to keep my personal page, and I’ve also decided to start a “professional” writing page (using that term very loosely!).
The personal page will keep me connected to loved ones who want baby and family updates (and whose updates I want to read, too)—especially now that I live far from friends and family. I haven’t been great at posting these types of things, but I am trying to do better, because I want to keep my loved ones involved—and Facebook is where a lot of them hang out! (Please note: Facebook has never been much of a temptation for me, so I’m pretty confident that logging in from time to time won’t derail into an addiction. Others who have a problem logging off, however, might benefit from a different strategy.)
My professional page, on the other hand, will serve a different purpose, and a different audience. It will be a better place to put my longish, thoughtful, and/or devotional posts, which never get near the traffic that a picture of baby Sam does on my personal site (hey, I get it!). It will be another good way to speak to an audience that may not have a personal stake in my life, but that wants to read what I have to write, and that takes an interest in my writing journey.
I anticipate spending much more time on the “professional” page, because “writing true stories for his glory,” “blogging lessons of daily life,” and talking with others about my passion (writing) is what energizes me and feeds my soul. And I think that, ultimately, this type of post is what feeds others’ souls too, more than a selfie, a picture of my lunch, or even the cutest picture of Sam. Not to say these are bad…just…I want to practice moderation, and keep first things first!
May God help us all to use Facebook to its fullest…whatever that means for you! Of course, I hope that means “liking” my new Facebook fan page! If you do, I promise I will try not to post time-wasting stuff, but only that which is helpful for the Christian walk and the writer’s life. Thanks in advance for the “like”!
I walked in the church, scanned the pews for a place to sit, and found tears in my eyes.
You know that story in the Bible where God opens the servant’s eyes to see the army of horses and flaming chariots surrounding him? His eyes were opened to see what had been all around him all the time—and suddenly he didn’t feel so alone anymore (2 Kings 6:14-17).
Well, God opened my eyes last weekend. For several months I’d been ruminating on how alone I felt. And it seems I never miss an opportunity to tell my readers that I’m 1,000 miles from home. Indeed, writing to my roots has revealed that I often feel displaced in my new home, and I feel even more that way when visiting my old home.
Being in a hiatus from work and school has also laid some things bare: I don’t know who I am without my work. Sometimes I don’t know how to relate to people outside of the most functional of activities: I can be a teacher, a sister-in-law, a communications secretary and music leader for church, a Bible study leader for friends.
But what about just a friend?
I can tell you right now, friendship—hanging out, relaxing, shooting the breeze—none of these have been my strengths.
Yet despite all the off-putting, prickly parts of me, God has drawn friends to me. And at the church that day, I saw them.
There was Tasha sitting in the back left pew of the church. Her friendship was a carryover from the small group Bible study my hubby and I had for a year and a half. We still get together often, for fun things like spa days, iced tea, and girl talk.
Me and Tasha–on our cruise to Cozumel in December. The hubbies came, too.
Then, a few rows up, was Tammy, a new-ish fixture in our church, who responded to the call I made in October to start a choir. Now she has taken the reins, much relieving me, and also become a fun girlfriend.
My friend Tammy directing a mean choir in December! They sounded great. I’m at the piano to the left (you can’t see me).
Across the aisle were Ashley and Christina, two young moms whom I’d only recently come to know from our Tuesday night prayer group. They’d been in the congregation for many months before their lovely personalities were uncovered for me. Both sincere and searching for the Lord, they responded to the opportunity to pray with Amanda and me, who had recently been trained in prayer ministry.
Me and Ashley at my house for a late night Easter egg hunt. It was for the kids…really!Christina with her two strapping boys–also at my house for that late night Easter egg hunt.
And behind them was Amanda. I had known Amanda the longest of any of these ladies, yet until our prayer training, I’d hardly known her all–had not seen the beauty of her personality beneath her quiet exterior. Now we are prayer partners and buddies in ministry.
That’s Amanda chuckling on the left–we had a great time at our 2012 New Year’s party. The life-sized Barbie was my husband’s surprise in our informal gift exchange.
How did it come to be that I was so blessed with all these friends?
Last summer when Amanda and I joined the prayer ministry Straight 2 the Heart to lay our hearts bare before God and our small group—I saw that we had a lot in common. A lot of hurt, a lot of self-protections, and a lot of desire to serve the Lord if we could only know how to channel our pain into something positive.
Looking back, I think it must have been the laying bare of my heart before God and a trusted small group that allowed me to be more authentic with these others that have decided they like my company. Sure, I’m still detail-oriented and serious when I talk church business. But over the past year, I’ve had more frank and open conversations with ladies in my church than I’ve had in eight years combined.
Sharing my heart in a prayerful, supportive environment has bound me together with Amanda, and now Ashley and Christina, in a way that mere biblical instruction can’t. And as a result, I have been able to relate more authentically to others like Tammy and Tasha, and even my music committee in meetings, where we have finally started talking openly and corporately about issues our church has had for a number of years.
Showing some vulnerability not only to my prayer partners but also to my acquaintances has opened the door for conversation that goes beyond surface level…and finally, friendship.
Since deciding to be more honest with others, it’s been a relief not to have to hide my feelings—to be able to speak up when something’s on my heart—to get it out in the open and deal with it sooner rather than later. And saying things that have gone unspoken before—such as on music committee—has actually gotten people thanking me for my honesty and openness.
Do people prefer pretenses, or plainness?
While being honest can open up some uncomfortable cans of worms, in my experience, that’s not any worse than tiptoeing through church—and through life—not knowing and not being known by anyone. Being honest is no worse than feeling alone—wondering if I’m the only one who ever suffers.
As I’ve learned, the sooner we share our stories with someone and listen to theirs in return, the sooner we are brought out of our self-centered misery. The sooner our eyes are opened to the fact that we are not alone.
I’m so thankful for my friends in high places, the old no less than the new (although this post just happened to be inspired by the new). Much love to all! Here’s to many more great memories!
Since deciding to be a “real” writer, I’ve kept a low profile. Not wanting people to know I’ve embarked on a low-paying (sometimes no-paying) job, I’ve hidden my true profession behind a façade of graduate student and teacher.
I haven’t been a teacher since May 2011, but until last December, I really was a graduate student, putting the finishing touches on my one-hundred-page master’s thesis. Mostly I was done by October, but I still let my classmates offer condolences for “how hard” the writing must be.
It wasn’t hard, really, because my advisor let me write the way I wanted to write: creatively and personally (with a little academic jargon sprinkled in). I guess this “practical” approach worked because the topic was practical: best practices for teaching writing.
When a few of my fellow students heard about my personal [slash] creative [slash] academic project, they seemed intrigued.
“I’d never have thought of that,” some said.
As they scrambled to turn up sources on the databases, scouring search engines and library shelves, giving themselves ulcers looking for an original angle, I just sat back and wrote. I started from the inside—I knew what I wanted to say, and I didn’t much care about citing the scholarly conversation that had come before me, or that would come after.
I know this sounds sort of pompous, and it wouldn’t work in some of the disciplines where original voice is not prized. But thankfully, English departments operate on this truth: If a voice is engaging enough it doesn’t really matter what it’s saying—people will read it for the good writing.
And that’s the truth in the real world, isn’t it?
People who don’t care a lick about golf will watch Tiger Woods because he excels in his sport. Same for most Olympians and Olympic sports. Who watches bobsledding or curling on a regular basis?
But millions watch the Olympics because it’s fun to watch pros do what they do best.
Funny, then, that I feel I’m still hiding in the wings, waiting for permission to “come out” to do what I do best.
Well, not so funny, I guess. I have no doubt that the hiding is due to the overwhelming personal content of my writing. (It’s not really about the money.)
In order for me to write about the things I write about (mental illness, family dysfunction, deepest fears) and be respected, I feel I have to be either a mental health professional or a pastor, or some other authority who can talk on these things at a close, yet safe, distance. That, or I have to make the writing itself attractive. Because the topics just aren’t.
Still, I am convinced that these topics are worth discussion. Worth a master’s thesis, a doctoral dissertation, and many book series. I am convinced that all this painful self-reflection is what more people ought to be doing, but aren’t. But if it’s so worthwhile, why aren’t more people doing it?
Because: Like graduate students fumbling for research topics, we are afraid of ourselves, and we are afraid of what self-examination might reveal. So we look for other voices to latch onto. Let someone else be the guinea pig—or the “straw man,” to use an academic term. Then, if our life thesis fails, we can partially blame the voices on whom we’ve built our own.
Well, I’ll stand behind my own work. To the thesis examiner who said my work got uncomfortably personal at times, I would remind her that everyone else who read it said it was the most memorable thesis they’d ever seen. She was more comfortable in the theoretical realm, and that’s where she encouraged me to return. Toward the end of the defense, we had a more informal discussion about how we felt about publishing—how we felt about others reading our work—and this professor said she felt terrified thinking others would read her academic writing (not to mention any personal stuff).
Just like she couldn’t understand me being so personal in writing, I couldn’t understand her being so guarded (about dry academic prose). Perhaps she is worried that others will smell a rat—that of inauthenticity. And I guess if I were not being true to myself, I might worry about the same thing.
But after denying myself public expression for so long, I think having to live in hiding is far worse than living exposed. After spending time in a theoretically constipated English department, I think living vulnerable is better than living jealous of writers whose real-world topics you only dare poke with a critical stick.
Perhaps my guarded professor would even agree. At the end of the day, she passed my thesis unconditionally. Call my writing what she will, that day she called me a master.
Lindsey Gendke 