Ironically, I was on a social media fast when all the crazy started. One day, I went to Wal-mart and was shocked to find all the toilet paper had vanished. I had not seen any of the posts relaying the condition of our stores and community. When Hubby told me schools were out, I was genuinely shocked. I was so out of the loop! I started to get on Facebook and Instagram a little bit to become aware of the heartbeat of our world and how people were reacting to the crisis.

I started scrolling and, over the next few days, I was encouraged to hear people speaking hope-filled thoughts and sharing positive ideas. However, I began to feel uneasy when it seemed that everyone (but me!) was coming up with hilarious quarantine material! Witty memes popped up by the minute and shelter-at-home ideas bombarded my feed. Hilarious confessional videos of parents went viral. Everyone (it seemed) was facing this crisis and doing so with instant social media popularity! I felt the pressure to generate my own unique spin on #quarantine.

Also, now that all the kids are home, ideas and suggestions to make the most of home education are almost too much to take in. Everyone is sharing resources, current statistics, and ways to stay connected with friends. The material available for us to watch and read is overwhelming! The pressure is on…

I am the first to say that we need community. We need to feel like a part of our world and we need to lend any support we can to those in need.

However, let’s not allow this virus to make puppets of us. Let’s not spend our newly acquired “free” time scrolling, clicking, watching, and zoning out. Let’s not feel envy because someone came up with an idea we wish was our own. It might actually be beneficial not to saturate our minds with the latest news developments every hour.

What if we spent these days of cancelled school, cancelled sports, cancelled parties, and cancelled salon appointments to cultivate.

Let’s get off our screens and take a walk in the rain.

Let’s say no social media before 6pm and read books instead.

Let’s mute the notifications and just sit with our kids and listen to nature’s music.

Let’s limit our media intake to a set time amount each day and explore the things in our world that are limitless.

Media has a way of manipulating our emotions and messing with our heads. Let’s give ourselves a break! All the information we ingest can steal our joy and peace licky split. I know. I’ve been there.

On the other hand, a heart that is following God will evidence love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

This virus won’t last forever. Everything will get back to normal.

When it does, do we want to look back on this season and realize we simply stared at our screens more than usual?

FYI, I wrote this post for me. If anyone else benefited, great! If not, I still needed to read what I wrote!!