My summer newsfeed fills daily with pictures from beaches to mountains of friends on adventures. While I enjoy great stories and rejoice with my friends sometimes I struggle. I chose not to share pictures of vacation and instead showed my family and here’s why.
Envy and Monotony
When a friend posts 247 photos of their Disney adventure I vacillate between envy and monotony. I envy because the drudgery and work of life sometimes wears on me. I want to escape into the pictures of your trip. Monotony shows up when I really don’t want to look at 45 pictures showing different angles of your beach.
Please don’t take this as a guilt trip to not share. Perhaps I reflect more my weaknesses than reality.
I wanted my investment in family to not distract you from your meaningful but sometimes hard work.
Family
I didn’t request a vacation because I felt I earned it. I didn’t take time off because I had conquered all the problems at work. I vacationed because my family needed some time to breathe and needed my attention.
So in seven days I largely disconnected from social media. And I dug in to focusing on family. I didn’t post, I just experienced life with them.
Our memories are memorialized in some pictures I’ll show you if you ask me. In person. And they are tied up in my heart and mind.
What I shared
So today I shared a few pictures of my family. Not the waterpark, not the restaurant, just our family.
What I will share
I likely will share photos and videos of more adventures to come. But this last week made me think of why I might not share our vacation on social media.
Conclusion
I hope by sharing this family God blessed me with I might encourage you. I hope by withholding our adventures, I might treasure them more deeply.
I deeply agree with your post. When we travel, I do not connect to social media or post pictures. I enjoy the time with my husband, friends or family members that I visit and I am always longing to see. Happy you went on vacation! You really needed this summer, more than ever!! Love to y’all.
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Thank you so much for the encouragement. I think you and Steve… Your family taught us the value of truly loving just being there with people. Just asking if someone wants more hot chocolate. 😀 Love the good memories that we share.
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Amen! We need to disconnect especially us mininsters. My wife reminded me that even Jesus needed time away and I’m definitely not Jesus.
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