I hope you’re getting the right picture

My last post was about the danger of the single story. Ironically I then had a conversation about how social media gives us such opportunity to create single stories for ourselves. We all want to present the exciting, together, beautiful story of our lives. We all buy into each others’ mythical cyber lives everyday. I know I do. I also know how hard I work to pick the pictures, posts and stories that create a mythical-looking cyber life for me also.

I want to break-down that myth a little for you.

 

 

I hope you’re getting the right picture. I hope you understand that the pictures holding cute babies, in-front of beautiful backdrops and standing atop mountains all make up about 1% of my life.

 

 

 

I hope you’re getting the right picture. That even though I always look happy and surrounded by people, the pictures I don’t post are the quiet nights I spend at home, sitting with my bible reading the bits that start with “lord, why have you forsaken…..”.

 

 

 

 

I hope you’re getting the right picture. I may be successful at sewing lovely things, mastering new recipes and finishing great books. I haven’t posted the bag of failed crafts that didn’t work out so well for me, or the recipes that I’ll know not to use next time.

 

 

I hope you’re getting the right picture. I get to go out dancing, on road trips and overseas adventures. I also have to drag myself to work on Monday mornings. I also do hours of paperwork and work in an office, too chaotic to think to take pictures most of the time. I also get home some nighst and put my pyjamas on before 7pm. I also sometimes run out of clean clothes at all. I also spend day-after-day seeing the same roads, the same scenery, the same places….and amidst that same scenery I forge deep and meaningful relationships and see beauty everyday!

Don’t be deceived by social media or the lie of a single story. The deep beauty of my life is not captured in the scenic photos or nice posts, its in the beauty of my everyday. The Mondays where empathy for each other flows freely between my workmates and we earnestly pray for energy. The quiet nights when I journal until I’ve emptied my mind just enough to glimpse God’s goodness. The times I get to cook a simple meal for my housemate so that she can eat before we have people over. The beauty is often in the moments when my hair is a mess and my make-up long worn off. When I’m failing miserably to meet any of these expectations of success.

In her book ‘Jesus Feminist’, Sara Bessey describes the Kingdom of God as:

 ‘those moments of transcendence, as if the thin veil between heaven and earth is fluttering in the most normal and ordinary moments of our lives and then we cant breathe for the loveliness of the world and each other and just like that, our souls remember something, we recognize him there’.

I hope you’re getting the right picture. My life IS as good, beautiful, picturesque, fun and full as the pictures tell…..  It is also hard, lonely, sad, challenging and very ordinary. The beauty is that in those amazing moments, and in the mundane, the Kingdom of God is present and coming.