It has been an interesting evening. I’ve just spent a couple of hours transferring Facebook posts to my blog. Allow me to explain by sharing the post I just made on Facebook….
I’m a talker. I’ve always been a talker. I’m one of those kids who always got in trouble for talking in school. I can talk to complete strangers at the grocery store or on an airplane. I’m that person.
I’m a reader. I love to read. I love to let my mind soar to far away places. I love to let my imagination bloom in new ways. I love learning. I love the written word. I can literally read the dictionary and enjoy it.
Then there’s writing; this is where thoughts and the written word converge. I would love to be a writer. I think my brain goes faster than my hand, and when I try to write my thoughts tend to get jumbled. I don’t feel worthy.
Now let’s factor in social media, shall we? Sometimes when I begin to make a Facebook post, what was meant to be short and sweet becomes quite lengthy. This post is probably a prime example. While sitting at Nate’s weekly class at the library, I began to make quite a few rather long posts from my heart and sharing what was on my mind. I began to label them with #LibraryThoughts to be able to keep track of them. They seemed to touch a lot of people. Many private messaged me thanking me for what I’d written and saying it was exactly what they needed in that moment. There were several suggestions that I should start a blog. One day, I suspect through IG, I accidentally made a “personality page” on FB. I decided I could make that the place where I begin writing my Library Thoughts. Then this spring at the Regional Real Estate Conference, we had a speaker who said that we should be blogging. I spoke to her between sessions. I told her about my musings and my page, but that I don’t have an actual blog. She said to me, and I quote, “Then Facebook owns everything you’ve written. You need a blog.” It took me a few weeks, but I finally just did it. I set it up and shared a couple of my Library Thoughts just to test it out, see the layout, and get the feel for how the tools work. When you set it up, you can make the settings so it automatically posts to your social media sites when you publish. Well, I linked my blog to that FB personality page. Then Nate had his first foot surgery. I decided that I would chronicle his progress through my blog. Perfect timing! That is what I’ve been doing every couple of weeks since the beginning of June. I’ve written a couple of other blog posts in between. It’s been a blessing to me to chat with people about their kids’ experiences or saying their child has flat feet, but they didn’t know it was possible to do anything about it and thanking me for sharing. Well, I didn’t know until just recently that anything could be done to help, so I figured I probably wasn’t the only one.
So…I’m over here minding my own business today when I realized my blog post from late last night was flagged saying it can’t be seen by others and giving me the option to mark as spam or delete it. When I clicked in response “not spam” it gave me a message that it would be reviewed against the Community Standards. It’s not just that particular blog entry, but every blog entry that has been shared to FB has been removed. I was angry. I was ranting about all the garbage on FB and how that crap can be allowed but my little ole blog is scrubbed? I’m wondering what on Earth has drawn attention to my milk-toast blog, and I began to wonder if it had to have been reported by someone to get me on the radar of the FB police. That’s an interesting thought, now, isn’t it? I’d like to think that’s not the case.
That brings me back around to the speaker at the conference. The one who told me FB owns my words. I had created the blog, chronicled Nate’s foot progress, dropped a couple of lines in there, but my words still lived in FB.
This evening I have taken the time to move MY words, MY Library Thoughts, to MY blog.
As I have done so, I’ve been thanking the possible person who possibly reported my post to the FB police; thanking them for lighting this fire within me. I’ve had a scripture in my mind. I’m no Joseph, the Lord isn’t using me to save a nation or many lives, but He has used my words to touch people’s hearts. Rather, I’ve allowed Him to inspire me to write words that have meant something to someone somewhere. The words in my mind and my heart — “what was meant to harm will be used for good.”
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive. — Genesis 50:20 NASB
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. — Genesis 50:20 NIV
But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. — Genesis 50:20 NKJV
Reset & Restore 