“The little things mean everything,” said the DJ on K-Love this morning.
This resonated with me, the tiny pebble of a thought remaining with me for the rest of the day.
It was mid-day when my phone sounded and I saw a notification from Facebook.
Trace made your photo his profile picture.
Casual, happy thoughts floated in my mind.
Oh, cool! He liked a picture.
He found one of him he liked.
I wonder if it’s the same one as before.
As my phone slowly pulled up Facebook, it registered a picture of him…and me. A picture of us.
A picture of us?!
Several years ago I was in a relationship with a man who not only didn’t want to be with me, but was also ashamed of me. I knew this, but my dependence was so great I couldn’t leave. Our relationship was filled with struggles, one of which was very specifically over Facebook. His unwillingness to be public about our relationship—his angry resilience to an updated profile picture of us as a couple—lit the fuse for a two year long battle.
He was never proud of me. I know this because a month after the end of our relationship, up went a picture of him and his new girlfriend.
Destroyed was how I felt. My state of heart, my state of pride, my state of self—the anguish I felt was unsurpassable. Because of that, relationship after relationship, out of fear of rejection (rather than confidence in the relationship) I never asked to be announced as anyone’s girlfriend or love interest on any social networking site. I arrived methodically at the mindset, “I shouldn’t have to ask,” and left it at that.
Given my turmoil, my lost war, what an overwhelming privilege it was to see our picture—without any invitation, or prompting, or urging. There we were.
When I asked him about it later, he simply said, “I thought it was a good picture of us,” and he smiled, and he drew me near.
The little things mean everything.
I would be the first to say that social networking sites are not a worthy or healthy barometer of relationship status. What happens off-screen is what legitimizes a relationship.
Having said that, I cannot deny what joy is felt when a man is eager to share his love of a woman with the world.
Every day I grow to love him more for the man he is, the man that God created. I praise God that while “little things” are packed with a force able to create craters in our thoughts and hearts, they are equally powerful in their ability to redeem. I praise Him for redeeming my past hurts—hurts that once seemed insurmountable—with precious seedlings that restore my hope in love with time and opportunity.
I have reassurance that He knows my heart intimately and completely, and chooses to orchestrate tender moments to shine His light of glory and redemptive love upon me.
...for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything (1 John 3:20).
For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might (Ephesians 1:15-19).
...for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything (1 John 3:20).
For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might (Ephesians 1:15-19).
