In challenging times, where do you go for comfort and support? Many people turn to social media to both give and receive encouragement during the ups and downs of life, like a death in the family, an illness, a fractured relationship, and more.
Social media can also provide care and a space for personal expression during the challenging seasons of life. Many online tools also provide ways for people to extend support to someone facing hard times.
We can simultaneously honor the value of posting to someone’s Facebook wall and the value of conversing together face-to-face and heart-to-heart. The more we can encourage one another to use a range of support tools in healthy ways, the better.
With the guidance of prayer and good judgment, we are offered the opportunity to utilize social media in meaningful ways.
Online communication platforms have great potential. They can strengthen human connections, provide support to those in need and encourage emotional expression. May we use the tools we have been given in thoughtful, life-giving ways.
This message is excerpted from “Social media in times of grief,” by Emily Carson from the June 23, 2016, Gather magazine. Today we commemorate Bartolome de Las Casas, missionary to the Indies, 1566.
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