The Internet: To Stay or To Go?

"But I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father." ... John 14:31


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(Disclaimer: I'm just thinking out loud here, sharing my personal temptation, and not implying anyone else should bail out of the Internet. Honest.)   


Saturday, at the town library in the books-for-sale room, I spoke with a woman who never goes online. 

She sounded pretty afraid of the whole thing, but when I mentioned buying books online for a penny (plus shipping) and that my free kindle has 900 free books, she nearly did a 180. I saw those wheels in her head spinning toward Maybe I Should Reconsider This. :)

Later I felt both pity and envy toward this woman. Oh, the kindred spirits she could have met! The encouragement she could have known, the subjects she might have learned more about. The ease of shopping for, say, postage stamps and pet food online, not to mention all those terrific book deals.

But wow, how wonderful to have been spared the myriad articles illustrating specific ways our world has become more hateful/ridiculous/scary. To have missed hundreds of cruel comments from strangers after news articles and to have never seen questionable sides of friends they'd have (probably) held back in-person. To have not been subjected to a million secrets I'd rather not have known.

Sigh. 

Oh, the temptation sometimes to bail out of this Internet world! To run from it, not screaming, but silently, back to this serene retro life I've created. To just fade away and instead, 24/7 pretend it's 1975, before the Internet, when people (seemed to) not say whatever popped into their heads.

Who knows? Maybe someday I'll do just that. Perhaps I'll play Time Warp Wife and have only 1975 (or earlier) items in my home, and dress the part, also. How uncomplicated, how luxurious that sounds to me given Today's state of affairs (and the upcoming campaigns/elections which I'm trying not to dread).

But what keeps me here other than friends and the ease of shopping? This blog. In just some days I'll have written here 11 years and God still won't let me alone regarding this most rewarding thing. Grace still places my fingers upon the keys in the way they should go.

But should God one day whisper, "It's time to minister a different way, someplace else"? Most likely I'll use that as a signal to step away quietly back to my vintage world with only occasional, necessary peeks into this electronic one. 

And because I hold things with an open hand, that will be fine. More than, really, because He will move away with me on to the next adventure--and that's what matters. That's what makes Life sweetest.

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"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."  ... Ephesians 2:10


"Turn off your email; turn off your phone; disconnect from the Internet; figure out a way to set limits so you can concentrate when you need to, and disengage when you need to. Technology is a good servant but a bad master."

Gretchen Rubin

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Speaking of books, after two days of picking through yard sales, I found only one thing, but oh! I was happy because it was a much cooler copy of The Boy Next Door than the one (on the left) I'd had for years: 

                                      ... and for only .50 cents.

Free Kindle Books:


Miracle Man

The Snow's Meltdown

The Ultimate Guide to Darcy Carter

Tied to Murder