Pictures Lie

Many years ago, before the internet was in everyone's homes (and purses or pockets), my aunt and uncle bought a house. They lived in South Dakota, and they bought a house in Florida sight unseen, except for the pictures that were shown to them by the realtor. It looked like a nice house, so they recruited some family, packed up their cars and trucks and caravanned down to Florida.

My parents went along to help them move into their new house. When they arrived, they discovered that the pictures were not totally accurate. They didn't show the bugs jumping from the carpet, or the dirt so thick on the floors that when clean, they discovered a completely different color underneath.

From this trip, my family adopted a saying that has been quoted over and over again.

"Pictures lie." 

The same is true today. Only now, we sell more than just houses. We are selling ourselves. Just like the pictures of the house in Florida, we try to only portray the good in our lives while creatively hiding the ugly side. It's all over social media. People and their "perfect" lives. Or so it seems.

Am I saying I think we should go around airing our dirty laundry all over the internet? Of course not, but we do need to think before we post.

Here are a few examples of how pictures lie:

A couple years ago at Easter time I made this fun project with the kids where you grow grass on a hill with a tomb in the side of the hill. On Good Friday, we talked about Jesus dying on the cross, and being buried and then when they woke up on Easter morning, the tomb was empty! We had used Legos for Jesus and the soldiers guarding the entrance. So, naturally I took a picture of the kids as they got their first glimpse of it that morning. Looks great, right? Truth is, if my memory serves me right, my patience was thin this Easter morning. I snapped at my kids more than necessary. And, if you could see the picture that was taken before this one, you would know that one of my children wasn't wearing pants.

We had a short warm-up here in Minnesota a couple of weeks ago that warranted some time outside and even a walk down the street. I love this picture, because I love this boy. He's so much fun, but truth is he didn't hold my hand for long. In fact, it is sometimes a struggle to get him to hold my hand at all while we walk through the parking lot, or to cross the street. I will ask him, "Do you want to hold my hand, or have mommy carry you?" If chooses neither, I usually end up carrying a screaming child who just wants independence that he's not quite ready to have.

 Anja and I were having a special day together. We had dropped off the other three kids at a friend's house, and we went to get her five year old pictures taken. Someone might assume that we get time together like this all the time, but truth is one on one time is rare with several children. We get it on occasion, and when it happens it really is special.

This picture reminds me of a great summer that we had as a family. And isn't this just the quaintest (is that a word) picture of a Minnesota cabin day? A dad fishing with his kids. A perfect picture to put on Facebook. Truth is, I'm sure this moment when they were all sitting still in their chairs lasted about as long as it took me to snap the picture. Then Anja was probably up and digging through the worms, or getting too close to the edge of the dock to which the oldest child would nervously yell for her to back up or she might fall in.

This picture was taken from the top of the hill near our camping cabin in Custer State Park. We hiked up to take in the view. The sights in this park truly were magnificent, but truth is, this was the last leg of a fun, but difficult week in Denver. My husband had been gone for three weeks at training, and then came home for a week only to need to travel to Denver for another week of training, so we decided to tag along. Packed in a hotel room with a child who has night terrors when life is out of the ordinary, and one who misses home after two days away, with daddy gone all day long, and no naps except short ones in the car. Let's just say that by the time this picture was taken, we were all ready to go home. In fact, we had planned on staying for four nights, and we cut it short and only stayed one.

So many times, a simple picture can communicate more than we even realize. The person seeing it on whatever social media site you use often sees more than just what the picture shows. Some of it might be true, and some of it, I'm guessing, is completely off base.

Unfortunately I think people take advantage of this. We use social media to make ourselves look good; to show off our picture perfect lives, when in reality none of our lives are picture perfect. We all struggle with real things. And social media often feeds so much discontent. We don't think other people have the same struggles we have. Afterall, look at all of their pictures on Facebook!

I am not saying that we are responsible for how others read meaning into posts we put out there, but we are responsible for the motive behind our posts.

Here are some questions that might be helpful to think about before posting a picture:
Will this post bring glory to God, or glory to Me?
Why am I putting this on (fill in the blank)?
Is it to build myself up?
Is this going to encourage someone, or breed discontentment?
Am I trying to get attention from a certain person/people? If so, why?

If we took an honest look at why we post what we post, we may realize that it is more self-focused than God-honoring. So, before you post a picture, ask these questions, because sometimes pictures lie.