I remember back in high school when I first created my page. Back then Facebook was a privilege, well really it was a secret because you literally had to lie about your age to create an account. In 2006, as kids, the protection from the strikes of the world around us was more intense and of more concern.
Now, I did have a MySpace account before I moved up with the big dogs but it was something about having the ability to walk on forbidden land that made almost everyone become over excited about getting a Facebook account. Even if we didn't have any friends really on there yet, being able to say we had one seemed like enough for a lot of us.
As time progressed, and as Facebook became more popular, more accessible to the public period, somehow it became more of a necessity. More of an obligation to have and with that obligation came the responsibility of its upkeep - your public appearance. Suddenly there was more of a need to care about what other people thought of you.
Originally, I didn't care about Facebook because everyone was still on MySpace...or even Bebo (remember that one??). However, after a while I decided to really give it more of my attention. Along with that decision came questions. What part of me should I show the world? What should I post? How often should I post?
I knew that my relationship with God was important (it had been since I was old enough to really have an understanding of His importance to my life), but posting deep statuses about God was just weird and uncomfortable at 15. I also cared about my reputation at a young age as well, I wanted to be liked and accepted but I also what to be honest.
Going back to old post (some which are just embarrassing...), I started remembering who I was when I posted them. Old friendships, old relationships, old concerns, a lot of which I struggled with internally. Just liking me. Within that struggle, my posts reflected my insecurities, my desires of being accepted by my peers, my desires of being accepted by guys and my desires of being accepted by myself. All were issues in which I struggled with added on to understanding where God came into play. It was honestly mentally exhausting.
So as of now, I reflect on my journey of learning how to be honest about myself and what I had to offer the world. A lot of my struggles were internal, (and I was just praying about this not too long ago), I could have gone in a totally different direction. We see it all the time, young men and women, taking different roads to just answer all the questions about themselves created by themselves in their heads. So yeah, the direction that my life is going in now was and definitely still is motored by grace.
The amazing thing about Facebook is that by the time you click "post", that status has probably been altered, rearranged, created then erased then recreated again numerous of times. The ability of being able to have the control to alter your life is probably one of the key highlights and addictions of Facebook. Being part of the Facebook era meant being part of that privileged group but reality has hit me plenty of times (hard) in reminding me that once you log off, life still happens. You can't recreate words you've said, block certain people (as much as you would like too), you can't always tag someone in a moment of your life, and most importantly, you can't delete a decision once it's been made.
Although overall I can say my life has been blessed, getting to a place of gratefulness hasn't always been easy. How I got here is where the foundation of my story lives....and I haven't even began to speak on that roller coaster yet. The things I've been through, the bad/ wrong decisions as well as good ones is part of the reason why I can be real about myself now.
But getting to this point wasn't always easy....
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