Social Media Sins

I feel the need to post this, and have felt the need to do so for quite awhile actually. This week, yet another post on Facebook shocked and upset me to the point that I felt I shouldn’t put off writing this post any longer.

Elder Jeffery R. Holland tells us:  You never “check your religion at the door.” Not ever.

My young friends, that kind of discipleship cannot be—it is not discipleship at all. As the prophet Alma has taught the young women of the Church to declare every week in their Young Women theme, we are “to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in,” 13 not just some of the time, in a few places, or when our team has a big lead.

“Check your religion at the door”! I was furious.

(Israel, Israel God is Calling. 2012. https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/article/ces-devotionals/2012/01/israel-israel-god-is-calling?lang=eng)

I understand that having standards can be perceived as being difficult, or hard, or even inconvenient. But I also know that they are only those things if you allow them to be. Those of you who are flaunting your disobedience on social media are hurting more than yourselves. You are hurting those who are in your family, and may need a strong example of being a believer in their life. You are hurting those who are not members, and look to you as an example of what a Mormon is, and are damaging their perceptions of the Church as a whole.

Elder Holland even tells us that you are giving up your privilege to be with your family eternally, and possibly receive the condemnation of “The sins of the children be upon the heads of the parents.” Why? Because if you teach those around you that sinning isn’t a big deal, that you can “check your religion at the door”, those people fall into the category of those unable to receive the fullness of the gospel in their lifetime.

Now, if you decide to sin that is up to you. Please, for the sake of the rest of us stop posting your sins on social media. Don’t post a picture of the coffee you bought today because you NEEDED it. Don’t post pictures of yourself wearing clothes that caused you to break covenants made in the temple, just because they were CUTE or STYLISH. Stop posting pictures of parties where you may not actually be consuming alcohol, but it appears you are.  Don’t tell us about a movie that you saw or a book you just read that is Pornographic. It’s not ok to “take a break” from church, even for one week or even one hour.  Just STOP.

Make a stand. It’s not hard. Just say, “No thank you. I choose not to…” Because it is a choice, you always can do something, you just choose to not do it. I know people who have done this countless times EACH DAY. Even if the decision is, “ok. I will sin.” Choose to not post it for all to see. Your relationship with God is yours, it’s private, and it needs to be protected, even if your relationship consists of the philosophy “I do what I want.”

I’m sorry you chose to give up blessings in this life. I’m sorry you chose to not be with your family eternally. I’m sorry you think that you are more important than God.

I need you to know one more thing. You are making more work for the rest of us. It shouldn’t be up to me to teach your daughters about modesty in dress and bearing. It shouldn’t be up to me to teach your sons that those types of movies and websites are in fact damaging their spirituality. It shouldn’t be up to me to help a wayward person understand that just because you don’t have a testimony of certain principles, and don’t live them, that they shouldn’t forfeit the eternal blessings that you have because of your example. And even if my calling isn’t with the Youth, or with the adults, or anything at all. I still worry about them, I still want to help them, and I still need all the help I can get to be an example of faith, trust, and how to let God lead you in life. And yes, even how to love the sinner while condemning the sin.

To be very honest, I have had a very hard year spiritually. It’s been rough. And a lot of it is because of the reasons above. People have been checking their religion at a door, and I have been fighting tooth and nail to keep mine intact, as well as undo damage done by the examples of those who know better and strengthen the testimonies of those who I love.

I do not consider myself perfect, staunch, or a zealot, by any means. Far from it. But I am doing my absolute best and it is my sincerest wish that everyone else would too. Walk away from the coffee, put down the dress, don’t drink a ‘mocktail’, stop reading the romance novels and movies, and if you are struggling post inspirational pictures and quotes that will help you focus on what is truly important, instead of flaunting your sins to the rest of us.  

Stop Asking Me That Update

Last week, I shared the original link to my post Stop Asking Me That on Facebook since it showed up on the memories page that they have. I felt it was still relevant, and will be relevant for quite awhile until there is a cultural shift among us to cause the phenomenon to change, or ideally disappear completely.

When it was originally posted I got quite a bit of positive feedback on it. This time around was no different, I received feedback from several people thanking me for sharing it again. And especially for giving voice to their thoughts and feelings on the subject. And that, my friends, is one of the reason I go on what my husband calls "Jaq Rants". I know that I'm not the only one that feels the way I feel about these things, the only difference is I seem to be the one to get so fed up with them that I HAVE to say something.

Since the original post, I have gained some more insight into the subject and would like to share a bit of it. Hopefully, someone who read the original post and disagreed with it will gain some more perspective here and be more open minded to understanding why the subject of having children can be so sensitive and upsetting to people.

(At this point I am not going to repost the entire original post. You can read it here.)

"Each mention of babies or children is extremely painful to them. You can NEVER know if you are saying something to this person."

Yes. A million times yes.
Not only is bringing up the subject of "When are you going to have kids" or "Why don't you have kids yet" painful beyond description for these people, every day life is.
They can't drive past a park with children playing in it without pain.
They can't pass a school without pain.
Even going to church is painful, seeing families with babies and older children, even when the children are crying or misbehaving. These people want that so badly, and deeply, that they would take your misbehaving child on their worst day .
They go home at night and curl up in a ball and sob. They cry out to the Lord for a child, or if not, the strength to understand why they aren't blessed with children, or to endure life without receiving the deepest desire of their hearts.

And you aren't helping by talking about nothing but children around them. You are causing more pain and damage to them, especially as you ask and pressure them about having children of their own.

Why don't they just tell you? If you knew you wouldn't do that to them. Well, like I said before, because things like this are often deeply PRIVATE. These people are not going to walk around telling you that they can't have children and seeing you happy with yours causes them emotional pain so deep that it physically hurts.

"Some people don't want children. And that's fine because it's their choice. Did you hear that? It's their choice, not yours. Stop trying to guilt trip them into something they don't want, and don't pass judgement on them for following their path, not your interpretation of what their path should be."

Some feedback I received on this one was from a couple who have not yet decided if they are going to have children or not. They currently are leaning towards not having children. And every time they visit family they are asked about when they are going to start a family. They are told "We want grandkids, when is it going to happen?"

The subject is not brought up in a joking manner. These family members will not let the subject go until they have a timeline, for heaven's sake.

And this couple doesn't know how to tell the family that they don't want children at this point, and may never want children.

The thing is, it's the couple's choice and decision. Their families have NO BUSINESS pressuring them into it. Not having children is not selfish. It's not. It's responsible. Having worked the past year with extremely low income families, I can tell you honestly that I wish some of those parents had made the decision to not have their children. Children born to those who don't want them, or are on the fence about having children, are the ones that suffer. If you are mature enough to know that you don't want children, don't have them.

As for the rest of you, don't pressure these people into having children to satisfy your own selfish desires to be an aunt or grandpa or whatever. The children are the ones who will suffer the consequences of not being wanted by the two most important people in their life, their parents.

"I'm going to advocate a little for my generation here, some of us are not ready for children yet for various reasons."

We have watched you struggle. We have watched you make huge mistakes in life. And we see the looming consequences that you will not have to pay, but we WILL have to pay. You didn't always think things through, and left us with a mess to clean up. We are learning from your mistakes and trying our hardest to not repeat them.

We don't want that for our children. We would much rather start them off in a financially stable home. We would much rather they have two parents who love and support each other, or if we must that the single parent is well enough off that our children don't bear the brunt of poverty or neglect because mom or dad is exhausted from working all day just to keep food on the table.

We want our children to be healthy. And sometimes that means delaying having them because we need to make sure we are healthy;physically, mentally, and emotionally; before allowing children in our lives. We can identify when we aren't mature enough, or if we feel like we still need time to define ourselves before giving ourselves over entirely to a new human. We want to guide them, and love them, in the best possible way we can, and to do that we need to take a little more time to figure out who we are and who we want to become before we can help another human do the same thing.

Give us a break, we are trying to, and for the most part succeeding in, doing the right thing here.

Finally, I want to put it this way, brace yourselves for this because I really had to mentally prepare myself to put this in writing, even though I have said it a million times.

When you ask a couple when they are going to have a baby you are literally asking them if they are having sex. And that is most definitely none of your business. There were several occasions when I was asked when we were going to have a baby, and it took all I had to not say, "Well, that's a good question, and when is the last time you had sex with your spouse?"

If all of the above information has not gotten through to you, hopefully that last paragraph did. You don't want anyone knowing about your sex life, so stop asking them about theirs.