Intentional Facebooking

I had a moment on facebook today. You see, since my surgery I have been spending a lot of time online, because I get sick of TV and frankly there isn't much I am allowed to do since my surgery. So, I have been desensitized, as fast as the click of the fingers. Want to know what happened? Well, I am going to tell you. If you don't wanna know, stop reading now.

Someone posted a quite startling picture of a nude woman, with several extra curves (vital parts covered), and it had a story along with it. This was the story:

A while back, at the entrance of a gym, there was a picture of a very thin and beautiful woman. The caption was "This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?" A woman, of size unknown, penned a letter in response and this was it:

"Dear people, whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, seals, curious humans), they are sexually active and raise their children with great tenderness. They entertain like crazy with dolphins and eat lots of prawns. They swim all day and travel to fantastic places like Patagonia, the Barents Sea or the coral reefs of Polynesia. They sing incredibly well and sometimes even are on cds. They are impressive and dearly loved animals, which everyone defends and admires. 

Mermaids do not exist. But if they existed, they would line up to see a psychologist because of a problem of split personality: woman or fish? They would (likely) have no sex life and could not bear children.Yes, they would be lovely, but lonely and sad. And, who wants a girl that smells like fish by his side? At a time when the media tells us that only thin is beautiful, I prefer to eat ice cream with my kids, to have dinner with my husband, to eat and drink and have fun with my friends.I thought it had a great message."

I went to the bottom and hit "share", forgetting that it was attached to a picture of a woman who was naked. A little bit later I got a notification of a reply. The reply was from someone we have not known long. He is the pastor of the church we have been attending. He just reminded me gently how inappropriate the picture was. I about tripped over myself getting back to FB to delete it. I was mindlessly posting...being unintentional. I meant no malice. I had great intentions. However, I very well could have been the stumbling block for someone else. The Bible tells us not to cause another to stumble. It's a conviction I have...and yet, I did it.

I am blessed that I had someone who thought enough about it to speak up. I cannot imagine if he hadn't, and had just passed it. He might just think of that picture every time we attended his church. He might not, but I don't like the prospect at all. How many times do we become desensitized and numb...how many things do we pass on unintentionally causing others a stumbling block? How much harder to we need to work on being intentional in our social networking?