Taking a deep breath..

And the Facebook fast begins again today...

It's kind of silly.  I was counting down to this day, almost anxiously awaiting it.  The further away you get from Facebook or constant social connectivity (at least that was my experience), the more you feel like you can breathe.  The more you can relax.  You're no longer living in a fishbowl, of sorts.

No one needs to know whether or not I'm still in my pajamas at 9 am, but for some reason, the social setting of sites like Facebook just compel the user to put information like that out there.  I have a bit of an addictive personality, and that rush that you get with every "like" or comment is addictive.  It feels good to think that people care about what you are doing and want to see what you have to say. 

That feeling of acceptance and what seems like love/admiration (although, after being FB-less for a month, I doubt the authenticity of most of that) becomes almost a drug.  People - who used to only log in once a day or so - build up to posting and updating their status reports every hour.   They find themselves needing that rush, that fix, in everything they do.  In my personal experience, it wasn't because I thought everyone needed to know what I had just done or thought or experienced....it was because I had started to believe that I was that important that people were anxiously awaiting news reports about my life.  I had started to put myself - and my next "fix" of admiration - as the center of my universe.  My drug (aka admiration) had become the focus of everything that I did.

But that was wrong.

My priorities were messed up.  I am not the center of my universe.

God is.

He needs to come first.  Only by putting Him first will I be able to grow in holiness, which should be each person's goal.  I want to be a saint for Him.....but how can I do that when I've put myself first, and not Him?  It's not possible.

After God, my husband and family must come second.  They are my vocation:  wife and mother.   It's not just me that I have to worry about getting into Heaven:  it's them, too.  I care just as much about them spending eternity with God as I do about myself.  But, how can I focus on them when my whole daily world is revolving around myself on this pedestal that I've created?  It's not possible.

So I step back - again - from Facebook.  My reason for signing back on was purely to share news and pictures of Baby #3's birthday.  He's been three years old for a week now, and it's time to log out again.

It's time to breathe and focus on what is truly important in life:  my Creator and my family.

I'll pop in occasionally to say hi, but it will be few and far between.   The temptation is too strong to put myself into that top position again.  I don't want people to see me.  I want people to see Him in me.

"Whenever a child is born, a crown is made for that child in Heaven, and woe to the parents if there is not a head for that crown!" - Fulton J. Sheen

Our wish, our object, our chief preoccupation must be to form Jesus in ourselves, to make his spirit, his devotion, his affections, his desire, and his disposition live and reign there.
-Saint John Eudes