{Friendship Friday} Uninvited and social media

You all know I'm obsessed with audio books, but I have some internal rules/ boundaries for those too.

I almost always prefer to hear a book read by the author unless they have a terrible voice.

I also noticed that I enjoy hearing Christian non-fiction much more if I listen to it (God's word penetrates my heart more by listening) than if I read it.



(I get about 3c - R0.42 - if you buy the book through this link - too sad!)

So when I read last year that Lysa Terkeurst released a new book, Uninvited, I was so excited but she does not narrate the book.

And the chosen narrator doesn't get super excellent reviews.

So I did the next-best thing: I searched for podcasts with her on it, and that's actually how I found God Centered Mom (and have been hooked ever since!).

It was a great podcast (listen to it here on itunes - it's episode 131) and I wanted to share some things that I learned and am trying to do.

The purpose of her social media page is to invite in, not to exclude

This one really spoke to me. All the pics of friends' faces on Instagram can make other friends feel excluded.

I have been guilty of posting pics and have other friends comment and say "I'm jealous". I don't know if it's a cursory statement or if there is real hurt there. So I've been trying to be mindful of that and instead post pics of the food, or something else so that if the friend wants to out themselves, they can, but when I say "had a great lunch today" that is something we can all appreciate (!) without feeling uninvited.

We are addicted to the likes and acceptance, so post and don't look

She said she challenges herself regularly to post and not even look if there are likes for 24 hours.

I took this one up as a challenge and you'll often see me post something in the morning and I don't look again til after work.

You know what happens? You get on with your real life! It's awesome - more books are read, more kids are played with, more kitchens are cleaned, more recipes are tried (I've tried 24 new recipes in the last 5 months!)

(I've disabled all notifications so I'm not at all tempted, even when my phone is out, to see the "engagement" on my feeds)

Sometimes rejection is God's best protection

She tells herself that if she is "rejected" by someone she wanted to be friends with, maybe that is God's best for her life, especially if she knows she didn't do anything "wrong".

Isn't this good? It definitely helped me with my  "unable to let go" personality.



Friendship hurts are real and valid

It's not like a death that does hurt but is at least final, but with a friendship hurt, someone is choosing to walk away.

I can talk forever on this but let's just say, feelings are completely valid.

Don't bash, hash or trash

That's something she lives by - don't bash your friends, don't hash (re-hash/ over analyse things. If you have an issue, deal with it) and don't trash them even in the "sweet" ways women often do, expressed as concern but is actually gossip.


Use your social media for good - to ease the loneliness ache in others.

Do you think about the way in which you post on social media? That it might hurt others' feelings?
Do you keep checking back to see how many likes your post has?
What really stood out to you?