Have you ever wondered who disappeared from your Facebook friends list when your total number of friends suddenly decreases one day to the next? I’m sure there are some out there who would say they have never paid attention to such a thing. But I’m just as sure there are others out there like me who probably have. Regardless, it’s something that I occasionally think about when it does happen like it did recently when the number of friends I was connected to decreased by four in a 24-hour period.
Oddly enough, during that same 24-hour period, I had only posted two things on my Facebook timeline. One was the link to an article I wrote in my blog about a gay men’s coffee group I’m part of here in Toledo that has been a spiritual blessing to my life. The other was nothing more than a question I also posted on my blog about what people’s fears might be if Trump was to become our next president.
Of course my initial thoughts when I saw the number of my Facebook friends decrease by four in such a short period of time was that it related to the content I had written in my blog.
Could I have been connected to some people who didn’t know I was gay and who really didn’t want to associate to a gay man?
Or was I connected to Trump advocates who read my question and quickly thought I was completely against the man and doing nothing more than trying to stir up negative comments about his presidential run?
While the latter question was definitely not true in my motivation for posting it given I asked the same question about Hillary a few days later, the conclusion I came to is that it ultimately doesn’t matter whether someone unfriends me or not. The same principle holds true when someone abruptly blocks me on Facebook or doesn’t accept my friend request.
Why do I say this?
Because I’ve come to believe that the people God wants in my life, whether in person or in the digital realm, will stick around, and the people that aren’t, won’t.
The fact is, people have come and gone a lot throughout my life. That why I place stock in that old saying that people come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. And if I trust in God like I say I do, then I must try that God is taking care of who’s intended to remain a part of my life and who’s not.
So the bottom line is that while I may still at times think about that Facebook friends counter when I suddenly see it decrease one day to the next, I choose to believe that God is in control of even things like those who are meant to remain my Facebook friends…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson