REST Day 2: What'd I do this for?

Hey, how's it going over there? How did it go yesterday? Did your fingers itch, like mine? Were you glancing at your phone out of habit, checking for notifications, wondering what you were missing?

Whether or not you post on social media very much, chances are you're trained like Pavlov's dog to drool, or at least jump, whenever you see a notification on your phone. Ooh! Someone thought of me! What's happening? What'd I miss? Who did what?

Okay, maybe that's just me, but also mayyybee I'm not alone. Social media makes up a lot of my social network and lot of my relational context, well, it happens through my phone. I think it does for a lot of us.

So yeah, to be honest I felt a little lonely, a little lost yesterday. I missed my notifications.

As I let myself feel the emptiness, the loss of notifications, the loss of one kind of social context, I kept asking myself, "What'd I do this for?"

I did it for the positives I counted during the day:

I felt freed up from any distractions other than taking care of and playing with my kids

I took care of my house a little more (the bathrooms said thank you). 

I intentionally texted with a long-unseen friend to set up a playdate with our kids.

I prayed more.

I did it, this REST, so I could focus on what really matters to my heart. And when I add up these things, the tradeoff was, and is, very much worth no new notifications.

While doing music with the kids yesterday, I came across this Youtube of Sandra McCracken's "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go." It was the song my husband and I ran out to after our wedding, but it's been some time since I've listened to it fully. It was a reminder why Lent, why any sacrifice, no matter how small and first-world it is, is meaningful:

O Love that will not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in thee;

I give thee back the life I owe,

That in thine ocean depths its flow

May richer, fuller be

O light that followest all my way

I yield my flickering torch to thee;

My heart restores its borrowed ray

That in thy sunshine's blaze its day

May brighter, fairer be

O Joy that seekest me through pain,

I cannot close my heart to thee;

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

And feel the promise is not vain,

That morn shall tearless be

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust lifes glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be

The song affirms that when we give our lives back to God, the source of life, life and  joy and love come back to us more fully. 

Be encouraged: giving up something, in our case social media, it's a tiny death, but even such a small sacrifice might mean more life. 

And of course, that's what Lent, and Easter, is all about.

JOURNAL PROMPT
So how about you? What'd you do this for? Take a minute and either write about or list the reasons why you gave up social and what you're able to focus on instead. Please share in the comments!