Show of hands. How many of you, like me and Tara, have a running #thingswecan'tshareonFacebook list?
That list includes hilarious slip-ups, memorable comments, and intimate things that -- on one hand -- we immediately want to share when they happen for the inevitable reactions we know we'd get. But then we remember in the nick of time that we have reputations.
Filters are kind of important. We use them for drinking water, air purification, and for internet content. They protect us primarily from bad stuff getting in. But they can also protect us from overexposing, venting, or damaging our personal image.
As I was working on our 2020 Christmas letter to friends and family this past December, trying to whittle the year down to some of the major events worthy of recounting, I was reminded that there are so many precious moments that Tara and I share. So many inside jokes and silly memories -- things that still make us belly-laugh when we recall them, but things that only we would truly find funny, cute, or worthy of recounting. They also happen, in many cases, to be things that would also be deeply embarrassing if they actually made their way onto social media...
And all of them are things we wouldn't trade for anything.
We live in a world that abides by the creed, "Pics or it didn't happen." So we share everything for the validation. We overexpose because we live for the likes. All of our experiences feel more legitimate and exciting when they're community experiences. We video and share our kids' special and embarrassing moments, because we like to know that we're not alone in our parenting struggles. We broadcast our "failure to properly adult" to reassure ourselves that other people are lazy and irresponsible too. Every nook and cranny of our lives, no matter how ugly, can become spotlight avenues for exploring our sense of self-worth.
Thriving off of the opinions and reactions of others might fall into a Type A personality block in the sociologist's book, but in biblical terms it's actually called the fear of man (Prov 29.15) and it can truly undermine our worship of God and our ability to properly love, value, and serve the people God has placed in our lives. After all, instead of using others to stroke our own egos, our primary objective as Christians is to model the missional mindset of Jesus, which is to serve (Mark 10.45).
This is just a short little post directed to husbands and wives, intended to think together with you about the benefits of protecting certain things and treasuring secret moments with your spouse. If you're married and reading this, remember that the #thingswecan'tshareonFacebook list is a special thing for you and your spouse. Not everything in your marriage needs to be proclaimed from the social media rooftops. There are so many private things between me and Tara, special things afforded to us by our marriage covenant, that are privileged moments. You and your spouse would be better served protecting those things by sharing them only between the two of you, than by giving other people windows into the special things that should stay between you.
Today, Tara and I are celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary. Throughout the course of our decade-long relationship, we've been recording our memories and moments -- our road trips, house purchases, and coffee dates -- but it wasn't until 2018 when a certain little boy came into our lives, and then a little girl two years later, that our Photos libraries truly began exploding our cloud storage. We are certainly guilty of overexposing our kids on Facebook (I mean, who could blame us? Our kids are darn cute), but even in that realm, we would be wise to beware of how much we conflate real life and social media. Sometimes the precious moments we have are cheapened by sharing them; sometimes the value of a memory is found in the bounds of privacy.
Maybe at the heart of this post is a statement about maintaining an appropriate level of marital and familial transparency. On one hand, I believe that Christian marriages and families are called to a community of accountability. It's called the Church, and being part of it means surrendering my rights to my independence. It's critical that we are transparent with one another so that we don't fall into undiagnosed or unaddressed patterns of sin. But at the same time, there is also a sacredness to be preserved in our marriages, a privacy and protection warranted by having and holding none other from this day forward. Over-publicizing on a public platform is often the natural result of over-publicizing in smaller settings: how much of my marriage am I comfortable sharing with close friends? Family? Do I have a tendency to complain about my spouse, our children, the challenges we face as couples, etc -- all without my spouse knowing what I'm revealing, much less being comfortable with that level of detail? Are our divulgences TMI, or are they sensitive to the fact that our marriages are to be upheld in honor, mutual respect, humility, and propriety?
So here's a post on social media about the stuff you shouldn't post on social media. What a world we live in. Would you join me in striving to protect what is precious in your marriage by seeking to love and respect your spouse, preserving your special intimacy and allowing no outside influence or internal friction to damage your unity?
Live together, laugh together, rejoice together, worship together. Share what's appropriate with others, ask for help when you are lost, and commit to having the same conversation again and again -- if that's what's necessary to persevere. Relish the things you can share with absolutely no one but your spouse. Remember the command of
Hebrews 13.4, which demands the marital union and all the intimate things that go along with it should be protected and upheld.
That's been my goal for the last 9 years. Lord willing, Tara and I will maintain that for the next 9 and beyond.
Sweetheart, thanks for laughing at me and with me all this time. I love you.
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| February 25, 2012 |
Very well written, well intended and timely when so much of what is being expressed on social media is unfiltered.
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