PTSD from #ElectionNight
You don’t understand how serious and how hard of a job being a Social Media Mentor is until you survive the week of the 2016 Presidential Elections (#ElectionNight). Every other status and tweet is about the election, blaming Trump, blaming Hillary, blaming you and me for being white, blaming the neighbor’s dog, and the name-calling is horrendous. Even “the church” gets the blame for the roguish behavior of people leadership or a congregation can’t control. So it’s been a tough week for me for very different reasons.
I’m on Social Media about 6ish days a week from sun up to sun down, looking for people who need a friend, a mentor, or someone to listen on top of a full time job, helping churches connect with people online, and keeping up with writing obligations. So this election week brings me into a near state of depression (or as I jokingly say, PTSD).
Today, in fact, I had to firmly shut my laptop and just quit.
I had to go for a run and appreciate once again where God has me serving. I look at the churches in my community and I am proud of them for how hard they work to love others even when that love or their help might be rejected. I understand grief. I have been grieving since 2008 and I am still grieving, but not for what you think.
I am grieving mainly for how we are putting politics (left and right) above our faith in God, and how we associate being a Republican with being a Christian when the two have nothing to do with Salvation according to the Bible. Christians who put down the church because of a few people put down the very people you and I have come to love who serve so selflessly in their communities.
The divide is very deep in our country. Part of me is pleased to see more and more statuses reflecting a plea for unity. The other part, like today, is grieved to see Christians tearing down the body of Christ without a thought to unbelievers and how their words may be perceived by them and the world, or how it defames the workers in the field who are doing the jobs of twenty because of a lack of volunteers out of love for their communities; love for even the people who are rioting and causing damage.
My question to everyone: What if we flood the internet with stories of what God is doing through you or others to reach our communities? What if more good stories outran the bad ones?
I’m taking a Social Media Fast week after next for a couple of days. I’m going to be focusing on this year’s verse from Matthew 4:19 (CEB) to ask God to show me HOW to reach the unreached, the unloved, and the unchurched. Human nature is complex.
So, don’t mind me; I’m just suffering from a little #ElectionNight PTSD.