Not too long ago, I lost 700+ of my Facebook friends. When I found out, my heart stopped. What happened now?! Oh, we have had tech problems before, but how did this happen? I talked to my Ivan and my social media publicist and they couldn’t figure it out. Finally, we realized that when I initially joined the Facebook nation, I was working at an office. When we launched Robyn B Ministries, we opened another account. My former office cleaned it out and my friends were lost. Gotta love technology, don’t you? Siiiiigh.
The next few weeks, I worked hard at reconnecting with FB friends and “refriending” them. What a chore! These were ministry colleagues and connections, friends, extended family members and ministries I had “liked”. The texts, calls and emails began to flood the office to find out what happened. Some even thought they had offended me so I blocked them. We were soon reconnected. I still am hearing from people who felt I dropped them off my friends list. If you were dropped from my friends list, please send a friend request right away and I will accept. I want you back! Please forgive me for any inconvenience.
This situation got me to thinking about friendship and how friends can come and go. Oh, we may share some experiences and then as time passes, we drift apart. There are, however, friends that last a lifetime and I am blessed to have quite a few of them. You know what I mean. You can be apart for a long time and as soon as you see each other, it was like you were never apart.
From time to time, I look back through my contact lists and find friends I haven’t connected with for awhile, so I will email, text or call them and see how they are doing. I may look back on a Chained no More class roster and call to catch up on what the Lord is doing in there lives now.
We had a Bunko party at our home a week ago and the house was full of lifelong friends. It was so comfortable as we laughed, prayed, played and enjoyed too much food. Memories came back of experiences we shared in a church we all used to go to. We have seen each other age, go through very serious challenges, watched each others’ kids grow up and now see new chapters in our lives. It was beautiful. Some of these friends we are connected by Facebook, but we are all connected by heart and the blood of Jesus. We won’t be dropping these friends EVER because we will spend eternity together. I love that!
“A friend loves at ALL times…” Prov. 17:17
Here is a challenge….go through your memory, contact lists, and maybe photo albums and try to connect with friends you haven’t seen for awhile. I’ll bet it will make you smile and will also make them smile. If there was a rift between you and an old friend, isn’t it time to forgive them and try to reconcile? Can you? WILL you?
The Bible is full of scriptures about “one another”. With technology allowing us to isolate ourselves in front of a computer screen and away from face to face contact, I am going to keep looking for ways to make and keep more friends and not losing them. How about you? Take that, Facebook!