Facebook is a social network service and website that began in February, 2004. It is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc, and as of July, 2010, has more than 500 million active users. “Users” of Facebook may create personal profiles, add other users as friends and exchange messages. In January, 2009, one study ranked Facebook as the most used social network by worldwide monthly active users. I am NOT one of them, but both TJ and my husband have their own Facebook pages.
Both of them enjoy connecting [and reconnecting] with people. My husband is now talking to former classmates from his high school days. He hasn’t seen some of them since they graduated more than forty years ago. TJ also keeps up with his friends, his cousins, and his fellow airmen.
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| A picture TJ posted on his Facebook page from Kuwait. |
As I said earlier, I am not on Facebook. I already sit at a computer most of the day at work, and the last thing I want to do when I get home is to sit down at a computer once again. But occasionally, I will sneak into this social network somewhere out there in cyberspace through my husband’s page. I normally do this when he tells me about what somebody else has posted, and I have the desire to see it for myself, or when I want to pull pictures from TJ’s page.
This morning was one of those times. Someone encouraged Facebook users to write thirty things about themselves, post it, and then pass the idea on to thirty other Facebook users. TJ must have decided that he wanted to become one of the links in that chain, so he sat down and cranked out thirty statements about himself. My husband saw it and suggested that I might want to check it out. I began working my way rather quickly through the list, until I came to #25. TJ said, “There is something better then my momma's cooking - my dad’s! Hee hee”
Now, I will admit that it has almost become a family joke that I only have about three or four recipes that I’m good with, and after that we go out to eat. To be sure, it is not really that bad, but I am by no means an “Iron Chef!” In fact, TJ is right: His dad can whip up some incredibly awesome dishes when I step out of his way in the kitchen!
I also discovered that as I was reading through TJ’s list, it was as though I was learning things about him through his own eyes. His honesty and transparency, even in creating something like this list, was amazing to me. As I considered some of his observations about himself, I caught myself nodding in agreement and saying to myself, “Yup, that’s TJ alright!” There were also times when I could not help but marvel as I realized he was sharing some of his deepest desires and most private feelings. [For example, I had no idea that he desires to have “an Army of children” someday].
As I quietly and respectfully read his heart, which is really the only way TJ knows to write something like this list, my heart could not help but swell with pride for him. Interestingly, the very first thing he put on his list for others to know about him was, “1. I am severely passionate about loyalty and honesty to my friends.” Nothing could be more accurate about TJ than that statement. He also wrote about his intense passion to serve, “I love the military, but hate my job, only due to the fact that I want to give more.”
But far more than learning what he desires, or once again seeing how passionate he is about serving in the military, was the immense joy I felt as I read about his faith in the Lord. He wrote three separate statements about his relationship with God:
“I love my life, but had to fight and work to get some of the things I have today; but it was always God that allowed the things to happen the way they did.
“I don’t always do what I should to honor the Lord, but He gives me more grace than I deserve, and always forgives me, His love I will never fully contemplate.
“[I am] saved every day by the grace of God.”
Amen, TJ. Amen.
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