I quit social media

I’m sitting here smirking at that title because who would have thought. If you know me, you know I’ve built my successful career on social media. And if you don’t know me, well, hi! I’m Kass, and I completely idolized instagram.

I’m going to just start off by saying that I am not a writer. And quite honestly, I’ve been praying about these words that are being placed in this blog post. Four-ish weeks ago, after so much conviction on my heart, I held my thumb down on the instagram app and hit the, “delete app” icon and haven’t looked back since. I immediately texted four people to tell them my very random news. These incredible humans are my 2%. If you want to know what that means, you can read the other blog post here in a few days. But these friends in particular know my vulnerabilities, my weakness and strengths, just as I know theirs. They had seen the shift that was coming, probably before I knew. I want to share their responses when I gave them the news and asked them to help keep me accountable:

“Proud of you!”

“woooooow praying for sure! something I would recommend is making a plan on how you will spend your time because so often when we give something up we just find something else to fill our time and we don’t actually grow closer to God we just distract ourselves another way, trust me speaking from experience!”

“Kass I am proud of you for following God’s conviction on your heart. That is sometimes really hard but living in His will for your life displays so much growth and maturity in your walk of faith! Proud of you! Will help keep you accountable and walk with you through this”

“Oh my goodness! That’s huge Kass! I’m actually really excited for you. What made you like come to this decision? On your own, or were you talking with friends or Brett? Were you just talking with God and He’s like, “ok, it’s time to delete it!”, Is it temporary or permanent? Oh, I’m excited for you! That’s pretty freakin’ cool!

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Maybe I was expectant of replies such as, “oh my gosh why would you do this? This is where you make money!” But it came no shock to me that these friends responded in the way they did. God places people in your life for His greater plan. And there’s certainly no mistakes here in His placement.

Even now as I’m typing this, it’s really challenging finding the right words, or series of events that took place. I have always wondered how this blog and my social media apps would play out in this story; and God has made is so very clear that this is all for His plan.

I’ll never forget the very first time I heard the song Graves Into Gardens by Elevation Worship + Brandon Lake. You know when you hear lyrics and goosebumps immediately cover your body, tears even fill up your eyes? That’s exactly what happened when this song came on. I truly believe this was meant to be heard and ever since, I’ve just had this indifferent feeling about my instagram. It was constantly playing in my head, and when I asked Alexa to play top worship songs while I did the dishes, this one always came on first.

“I searched the world
But it couldn’t fill me
Man’s empty praise
And treasures that fade
Are never enough
Then You came along
And put me back together
And every desire Is now satisfied
Here in Your love

Oh, there’s nothing better than You
There’s nothing better than You
Lord, there’s nothing
Nothing is better than You

I’m not afraid
To show You my weakness
My failures and flaws Lord,
You’ve seen ’em all
And You still call me friend

Graves Into Gardens ft. Brandon Lake | Live | Elevation Worship

My social media journey has shifted and changed so much throughout the last few years. I mean, I remember when it first came out and all we used it for was to put filters over our photos to repost on Facebook. This was a time way before the 24-hour stories were a thing, or influencers. And now its subconsciously a place where I was seeking all of my validation and self worth, literally based off of my followers, what filters I was using, how many likes I was getting on my pictures or views in my stories, hoping for a reel to pop off and go viral, how aesthetic my feed looked and so on. And I was allowing people around me to play into that. Quite honestly it’s really sad writing this out and admitting to myself that this was consuming so much of my time and energy, that it became my priority. This is not to say that there aren’t incredible ways to use social media as a tool to reach people and create friendships or a community or connect with someone going through the same season or situation as you. I’ve seen the beautiful aspects of it as well, and experienced them. But it becomes so very dangerous when it becomes your entire identity.

I didn’t recognize who I was anymore. Kind of weird to say, but also the truth, because you can be anybody on social media. And this is such a hard topic because I rarely see people discussing it. So hi, here I am, trying to find the words so that maybe if you feel or have felt this same feeling, I just want you to know you’re not alone. I was defining my self worth based on sales that I was generating, or how I looked in my stories, constantly just on my phone watching reels to get content ideas, stressing out about what content to produce. Like, I’m sorry but WHAT? That is not who I am, and certainly is not what God says about me.

“For it was You who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise You because I have been fearfully and wonderfully made” Psalms chapter 139 verses 13 and 14

There’s no denying that social media is here to stay, and honestly I’m happy about that! It really is a great tool when boundaries are set in place! To be truthful, I was not disciplined enough to create these boundaries and before I knew it, it completely affected my family. I was so hyper focused on creating an authentic space for the world, that I completely dismissed maintaining my real-life space. I was negligent of relationships with those who didn’t work for “social media” and I hurt a lot of those friendships because of my actions. I was holding my phone more than I was holding my babies, and that’s really hard to admit. I’m going to tell you about a story that happened almost one year ago, and it gave me a new perspective. I didn’t want to be known for always having my phone in my hand, always worrying about social status, followers, ect. I remember a time where my only goal was to reach 10k followers on my instagram- like it would suddenly solve all of my problems. Update, it doesn’t solve anything. I see more people engaging and sayings like, “OMG congrats on hitting 100k followers, you’re my idol!”, rather than texting a close friend asking how their day is, or telling them how proud you are of them for waking up for the day, we fixate on these crazy expectations that we all made up and call them accomplishments on social media.

One of the four friends I told you about earlier, quite literally changed my life recently. It’s not very often that you have a friend, let alone a friend group, that loves you so much that they can call you out and it come from a deeply rooted place of love. She texted me one morning asking if we could either get together or facetime depending on our kids nap schedules. A few hours later, we were on facetime, each in our kitchens, tears flooding our eyes, and she spoke the truth of what what consuming my life and what was hurting her. It was an extremely hard conversation, but one that God had placed on her heart. There was so much peace and love being portrayed that I listened to those words and could instantly feel God doing something. The conversation that was exchanged that day, all lead to this exact moment. Her prayers over me, in time were answered, and we could see His goodness throughout it.

Saturday, July 23rd was the day I deleted my instagram app and instantly prayed that God would make it clear that this was what I was supposed to do. The next day, I went to church, and listened to one of my best friends preach an incredible message. When she was done, the band came out to sing a closing song, and you’ll never believe the song that came on…. Graves Into Gardens. My eyes swelled up with tears knowing that God was like, “I see you, and I’m proud of you for making this decision. Lean on me and let me handle it.”

I believe that God has provided the audience that I have on my social media channels, for His glory. That regardless of your beliefs, that you are always welcomed here, for exactly who you are and where you’re at. We are all created in His image, with a purpose. I knew in my heart in order to find my true identity, so that I could actually come from a place of authenticity, I needed to completely give God control of the situation; to teach me the ways of discipline, to be a wife, a mother and a friend. To seek Him first in every situation. The further I dug into the Word, communicated the challenges and triumphs with my husband and best friends; the easier it was to see the light of this season. I’ve had to lovingly allow myself to step away from relationships or situations that were not propelling me into what God was calling me to be. I thought this would be easy, and some parts of it have been, but it’s also been a time of grieving of what once ‘was’.

We must begin to treat our areas of influence as opportunities to advance God’s reputation to the world, not our own reputation. Faithful obedience means risking our position of influence in order to demonstrate that God is worthy of following

I wish I could describe this feeling; the complete freedom of not having the worlds expectations of me, telling me who I am and who I’m not. I’m in a complete season of craving growth and challenges; but lasting joy will come when God is in the center; not when I am empowered, but when I rest in His power.

xx