Bethany is a whiner and I can’t even concentrate on typing. Perhaps she’s teething? or she’s just fiery like her mom. Whatever the case, she’s a lot of work. Parents have a lot going on, especially working parents… and I’m going back to work in 2 weeks! This year has flown by, but the first few months of her life felt like a stand still. It feels permanent when you are in it, but here I am on the other side… shockingly.

My New Year’s resolution was “balance” and to “Be still and know that He is God!” For those of you who don’t know me, that is HARD for me to do. I love adventure, and I’m constantly volunteering myself for an adventure or creating one in my life… and then asking God to go before me and bless it as I scramble.

Andy and I went on an awesome date night to the Keg with our best friends Sean and Dana last night. Full of steak, prime rib and yummy bread with three cheese butter… we decided to walk it off at the waterfront. Apparently the waterfront in Nanaimo is a “spawning” site for Pokemon. For non pokemon people, we found it rather disturbing as we walked through a group of dozens of young people sitting in clusters with their eyes glued to a phone. We felt abnormal enjoying the fresh air and watching the sun set however; I did see a family enjoying it together as a Dad compared his pokemon captures with his teenage son.

I personally see no problem with enjoying these things that the new age and new generation offers but I do see a problem when we consume our free/spare time wasting our God given talents. As we continued our walk through the crowds of iphone zombies… we noticed an old man playing a sweet melody on the guitar. Not one person looked up to enjoy his tunes, but only continued on their journey through their technological world avoiding the pristine sunset and high tide. Out of all of this, we only saw 2 young, sweaty boys chasing and beating each other up. It made us miss our childhood and remember the days of capture the flag, nicky nicky nine door and frozen tag. I’m worried that there is some talent being wasted here. Again, this blog is not to judge people that are using these fun apps and games… I’m just shocked that we aren’t monitoring our time wasted on our phones. Which leads me to my whole point of this particular blog…

I’m deleting facebook.

I want to challenge myself and see if I can fully let it go, and focus on my tasks at hand. I’ve got enough going on in my life and I’ve realized that a lot of my mental health issues have been due to trying to keep up with the newsfeed, instant messenger and making sure I’ve liked enough pages that I find interest in. I have tried numerous ways to harness my time spent on facebook. For instance…I’ve deleted it off of my iphone, but then I find a way to use safari instead, except it’s annoying and less convenient so I re-add it as an App. I’ve told myself that I will just go on it after I put Bethany to bed, but then a half an hour goes by and my kitchen is still messy and Jimmy Fallon is on soon (which is my treat at the end of the day… he’s on at 8:45pm PST). I just can’t do it. My desires of “keeping up” with everyone and “not missing out” are too strong. Especially as a mom… we are sometimes stuck inside during nap time, thinking about the groceries that need to be bought, the errands that need to be run. I have a lot of things that I like to do, but I’ve lost those interests due to my wasted time on my iphone.

I’ve been finding ways to justify my connection to facebook. The pages I’ve liked, the updates I get, the mom’s swap and shop, the Christian Surfers page, connecting with my international friends, keeping my family updated with pictures of my family and the list continues…I’ve been avoiding it for too long, and the answer is quite clear to me. If I need to purchase something second hand, I look on Kijiji or UsedNanaimo or go to a good old community Thrift store. If I need to connect with my international friends, I email or What’s app them. If I need to update my family, I email them pictures of my family or actually develop pictures (like in the old days) and send them in the mail.

I’m admitting that this is going to be very hard for me for a while. I’m a social star and this is the way of the future, but I really am going to try to do this a different way. I’m not finding peace, but more anxiety. I’m not finding security, but more insecurity as I compare to other selfies, life adventures, notifications and posts. I’m just finding more, morE, moRE, mORE, MORE and I don’t need more. I need less. I want simple. I want focus. I want to find the things that I’m good at and I want to invest in what really matters to me.

Christian Surfers is obviously a dear ministry to my heart, and I will still be involved with this facebook/instagram page as well as my personal instagram. I will also continue writing blogs and if you would like to stay updated with them, you can just go to: http://www.sarahhfields.wordpress.com and subscribe to email updates.

If you would like to contact me personally, please email: hatfieldsarah@hotmail.com or give me a call at 250.713.7849 (FOR MY INTERNATIONAL FRIENDS… WHAT’S APP ME PLEASE!!)

This is going to be extremely hard for me but for those of you reading this, please see my heart in it and know that I appreciate and love you all.

Hasta Luego x o x