When I was fourteen-years-old, a young man came to my house one hot summer afternoon to say, “Hi.” In true southern gentleman fashion, he pulled into the driveway on his four wheeler and asked if I wanted to go for a ride. My wide-eyed mother took one look at his wind blown blonde curls, and his sly half smile, and the twinkle in his vibrant blue eyes, and she decided an invitation to come inside for lemonade was the appropriate way to spend the lazy afternoon. He shyly tucked his chin and put his hands in his cut off blue jean short pockets and came inside to the solace of the air conditioning. We sat apart from one another and drank lemonade and laughed for one glorious carefree adolescent afternoon.
After he left, my mother began an interrogation worthy of any Law and Order episode. The questioning abruptly ended when she noticed the muddy boot prints my friend left on her prize white shag rug.
For my readers who remember the shag carpet of the 70s, you intimately understand my descriptors. I hated that rug. We literally had a “carpet rake,” and one of my chores was to rake the d*&# thing until the fluffy white fabric regained its pillow bounce. When she saw mud ground into her precious polyester fiber over hours of hormone filled teenage angst, she didn’t care much who he was or why he came. Her only concern became erasing any trace he had ever existed.
He died two days later in a car accident. Drinking was involved. His death was violent and tragic and needless. And when I returned home from the funeral, wrung out from the emotion of it all, the shadow of his footprints remained on the carpet where he had been…warm and vibrant and young and a possibility.
As I sit to write about COVID-19, this is the memory that floats to the forefront - the life cut so tragically short. All the potential that was never realized. The collateral damage suffered. And 30 years later, the memory looms so raw and real, the flashes cut across the mind in true Freddy Krueger form.
The World Health Organization reports 6,416,023 deaths from COVID-19. Very few people did not intimately suffer directly either by losing a close loved one or watching a loved one suffer intensely from the most severe variant of this illness. Drawing a parallel between social media and COVID-19 I do not take lightly. This devastation never goes away. The footprints always remain, tracking their existence long into the future.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that 21 % of all adults have a documented mental illness. That is a staggering number. To put that in perspective- if you are in a room with five other people, one of you has been to a doctor and actually received a mental health diagnosis. But what about the other four? According to this graphic, at least one of you is experiencing mental illness also! The estimates are that approximately half of all Americans are emerging from the pandemic with mental conditions that are documentable and treatable, but only that one in five makes the decision to seek needed assistance.
The statistics jump even higher when we begin discussing American youth. And what is one of the biggest contributing factors to their anxiety and other issues….
You may think I keep harping on social media, but if study after study keeps telling us how much these programs are damaging our children, why are we still allowing access?
Because no one thought they would be the one to get COVID, right?
First, if you or someone you loved had a serious case of COVID, you would never ignore it. You would seek treatment IMMEDIATELY. So if you or someone you love has a true problem with media that is causing extreme emotional distress or other major problem such as a pornography or gambling addiction, treatment is 100% necessary. These are not issues that can be sanitized with carpet cleaner and raked away. The imprint is forever.
Second, remember, “Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same kind of sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world.” 1 Peter 5:8-9 (CSB) You are never alone in whatever suffering currently stalks unseen in the darkness surrounding you. Resources may seem scarce. Fear paralyzes reasonable thinking. Despair calls violent and tragic and needless. Overwhelmed, the devil convinces you that you are alone. You are simply wrung out from the emotion of it all. But NEVER forget or if you have never heard…
Third, God is always sovereign. “For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through him and for him. ( Even the internet ) He is before all things, and by him all things hold together. Colossians 1:16-17 (CSB)
If you’re anything like me, I forget this sometimes. I cry out over the suffering around me and do not understand why the world continues in this tragic Freddy Krueger form.
When I can tune out the noise and find elusive silence, I hear the whisper..
I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.” John 16:33 (CSB)
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