Gosh, there have been so many things I’ve wanted to say over the last several months, but due to the nature of needing to be employed I’ve simply collected my thoughts into comparts and have waited to flesh them out.
Thank goodness its time – I love a good brain dump!
I’ve unfollowed so many people on social media this year. People I used to look to as inspiration, people who I was genuinely interested in their content, and the like.
Toxicity…negativity…hate filled their posts and leaked into my timeline. (If you don’t know me, you should know that I am not a fan of negativity; it messes with my vibe.) The uproar of back and forth double talk became utterly ridiculous so I just stopped following these folks.
Cancel Culture was one of the many trending topics this year. If someone did something or said something that another didn’t agree with then society (social media) needed to band together to #cancel that person. …just FYI cancel culture is still cancel culture no matter how “noble” it might be.
Isn’t the beauty of humanity the fact that we all have differing opinions? That we can each speak out how we feel about a topic because we’ve used our knowledge to form that opinion. Why do we feel the need to prove we are right and have everyone agree with us?
Celebrities, YouTubers, Authors, even food brands have all been cancelled because of one comment, one moment, or one mistake. Who are we? What kind of power do we hold that says we can be judge and jury of…everyone?
Now, that doesn’t mean that if something wrong is done that we just look away and not address it, but we don’t have to blot out someone’s existence. Where’s grace? Where’s forgiveness? Where’s mercy? (Those things have probably also been #cancelled.)
We’ve let influencers dictate to us how to think and feel. We’ve let media decide what is right and wrong. We have chosen to stand for clouded justice while slave trade happens in our own neighborhoods.
And in all of this we have forgotten the most important thing…
Each and every one of us is an Image Bearer. Designed and handcrafted at the beginning of time. Intricately weaved into who we are, made for today. (Don’t ever think that you were meant for a different time, but I digress.)
Each of us reflects a facet of the Creator.
Yes, every single person on this earth (unborn or born) bears the image of the Creator. Marked by the fingerprints of God.
So what if we began to look at everyone around us in this manner? I don’t care if you do believe in God or don’t believe in God; each of us has a concept of God. And if you’re reading this, I hope that you are someone that would pause before cancelling God, pause before tearing God down, pause before talking badly on your social media about God.
If you said to yourself “I would never do that to God,” then I ask why do we continue to do it to the people around us? No matter how much we dislike someone (and there’s a lot of dislike going around) that person is an Image Bearer. Again, we don’t turn away from wrongdoing but what if we responded differently.
Look, it’s not easy, trust me. Every day I’m tried by people who just grate on me. But I’m in the process of learning to respond differently to them. Maybe treat them kinder. Remember that they are fingerprinted. It’s different for each one.
I guess I’m saying all of this for one point…2020 has not been at all what any of us thought. We have 2-ish months left. Let’s stop giving into the trenches of the year. Respond like you haven’t.
Love Strong and Live Well,
Sarah
The Ruminative Thoughts of a Writer 