I don’t want to see this – protecting my heart and mind

That little downward arrow on the right side of my friend’s Facebook posts have been getting a lot of action from me lately. “I don’t want to see this” seems to be a daily click on my part. I have used this on explicit sexual posts, crude humour posts, numerous beheading posts, breastfeeding triplets on the beach posts, and watch this person be ripped apart by lion posts. 

I realize as an adult that people have the right and freedom to post what they will, and I have the right and freedom to block as I will. This is not an argument to ask people to stop posting these types of materials, even though child beheadings and glow in the dark penis battles are not exactly breakfast reading material in my eyes, but I will save THAT post for another day.

My purpose today is to challenge us all, that in a world that is increasingly evil, and perverse, we must be more diligent to protect our own eyes, ears, and hearts. We are more sensitive than we think.

One of the MOST IMPORTANT roles of a parent is to guard our child’s hearts. We do this through protecting what they see, what they hear and what they do. Most parents do an amazing job at this, and some, well let’s just say Saw 3 is probably not the best bonding movie with your 3-year-old son. (sigh)

My teens, who fight me on this on a minute-by-minute basis, assume that when they turn into an adult they can do what they want, watch what they want, and listen to what they want.  My teens live under this fantasy that once they break out from underneath our authority it will be a smorgasbord of freedom, including zombie video games, and explicit rap music.

What they don’t realize is, is that when you get older life gets harder, tragedies get closer to home, heart breaks last longer, grief cuts deeper, and our hearts and minds constantly wrestle with, is it all worth it. In adulthood we spend many, many of our years trying to heal our hearts from life events.

If you are human, then you will know this to be true. 

I try as often as I can to explain to my children that I have stronger and stricter boundaries for myself now as an adult than I ever did as a child or a teenager.  I don’t do it out of religious rules, I don’t do it to prove a point to others, I do it to protect what is still soft and untouched in my heart, and in my life, to preserve my thoughts for what is good, and to diminish the fears and horrors my imagination likes to fixate on.

Take my marriage for example. For me to treasure and guard my marriage from bitterness, discontentment, and an adulterous wandering mind, I start with my thoughts. Several years ago, I was knee-high in motherhood. I was a very exhausted, overwhelmed, frumpy, stay at home mother (I still am, I just get to shower more often). I was eager to get in shape and my go to treadmill show was MAD MEN. I LOVED that show! I loved the accuracy of the time period, the writing, the dialogue, the intriguing characters, and the deep bang on insight into the weariness of motherhood. I was hooked. Slowly the show began to focus on the mother’s desire for more, for adventure, and romance, and soon the plot line took me into their twists and turns of adultery and feeling alive because of the affairs and sexual passions. She got to escape motherhood and feel like a desirable woman, I gawked as I folded laundry. 

I could feel the longing rise up in me, and not that it is a bad thing to desire to feel like a woman and not a milk jug. However, there was this warning in my heart not to go there, and so I stopped watching the show. I loved my husband too much to start building a taste for a passionate affair. 

Take my mental health for another example: For me to guard my mind from fears, anxiety and depression, means building a fortress around my mind, whatever is good, whatever is noble gets free access, the rest I lock out. I am a writer, and therefore, I feel it is in my best interest to see what and know what is buzzing, what is in the news, what people are talking about, what movies people love. I want to be relevant and balanced in my view of what is happening in our lives as a whole, I want to be current and not religiously closed-minded. However, I guard, very diligently, what I see and what I hear. I don’t watch the news often, and I don’t watch historical films on tragic events. I steer clear of beheading videos, and I turn off personal accounts of evil and tragedy. I do occasionally look into current events to keep updated, but I do not emerge myself in the details and the gore facts. I am 100% in favour of knowing what is happening in our world and standing up and speaking out. I am in total disagreement to those who choose to go on with their day-to-day lives without a conscious of what is happening around them. Without acknowledgment, evil is allowed to fester and grow. BUT, my mind, my heart belongs to me, and my children, and my husband, and to Christ, and I do not intend to lose it to the atrocities of this world. 

I guard what is left of a 40-year-old heart, there are still many soft spots and tender ideas in my mind and heart and I intend to cherish it. I desire for my heart and mind to remain tender and without guile towards my children, and their children, and God willing, their children also. and I will sing them this song. 

  

O be careful little eyes what you see

O be careful little eyes what you see

There’s a Father up above

And He’s looking down in love

So, be careful little eyes what you see

 

O be careful little ears what you hear

O be careful little ears what you hear

There’s a Father up above

And He’s looking down in love

So, be careful little ears what you hear

 

I am taking a break from social media today, to enjoy what is good, and lovely and pure around me, and when I wake up in the morning I will continue to clean my Facebook page feed by clicking “I don’t want to see this”.  How do you guard your heart?