Facebook saved my soul. Well, that may be a little bit of an overstatement but God certainly used it to lead me into a relationship with Him and a friendship unlike any I have ever had before.
“But Ruth replied, ‘Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.'” Ruth 1:16
Growing up, I attended two different denominational churches which gave me a fairly broad introduction to God. I’m grateful for the foundation that it laid in my understanding of the Bible as the Word of God and Jesus as the Savior of the world. But somewhere between that understanding and the world’s enticements in the forms of people pleasing at any cost, self-reliance, compromise, insecurity, impurity, the pursuit of guys and the like, I became religious, hypocritical and spiritually exhausted. My attempts at filling my soul with people and pseudo-spiritual philosophies left me still starving for the truth and for God.
was part of the front desk staff. Prior to becoming Facebook friends, we only had one interaction, but looking back at our conversation, one interaction was enough. She was completely transparent about her life, telling me things that I would’ve thought she only shared with her closest of friends. Francis of Assisi said, “Preach the gospel. If necessary, use words.” That day, through sharing her life with me, Ivy lived out the gospel and it opened the door for the beauty that was to come, both for my relationship with God and my friendship with Ivy. Under the “About Me” section on her page, Ivy talked about how she spent her days before Christ trying to numb the pain of thinking of deep things, like her eternal destination. She used things to try and fill the emptiness that only God could fill. And then, she wrote, she became a Christian and her entire life changed. And I believed her. So, I sent her a message. I remember re-reading it a couple of times to make sure it sounded okay and then sent it, nervous but spiritually desperate. She immediately replied and we got together a couple of days later over coffee. Our meeting was amazing. For every question that I had, she answered it with the Bible and I thought, “Wow. I can’t wait to know my Bible like that…” She was honest and vulnerable and just all around cool. I didn’t feel like I had to put on a got-it-all-together mask. And that was the beginning of a loyal friendship.
A couple of weeks later, Ivy introduced me to the Milwaukee campus ministry. I met a group of young people who were excited about God and who loved each other…and they hugged! It was a beautiful sight and I wanted to be a part of it. Two months later, I was baptized into Christ! Every day, more and more, I am humbled and amazed by God’s incredible, soul-filling love.
Three months after becoming a disciple, I ventured off to East Africa. When I returned to the States, Ivy, her husband Damon, and their two children, Andi and Mack, had moved to serve in the Springfield Church of Christ in Springfield, IL. It was bittersweet because I knew God was going to use the Brog’s in a great way in Springfield, but Ivy wasn’t near me nor did we ever get the chance to say our see-you later’s. But like Ruth followed Naomi to Bethlehem, so God allowed a ministry training opportunity to open the way for me to follow Ivy to Springfield. For the next seven months, we worked together, not as fellow YMCA employees, but as partners in the Gospel. I never, in my wildest dreams, would’ve thought that the really nice lifeguard from the YMCA would become my Naomi—a mentor in the faith, a loyal sister and a best friend. God has truly encouraged my soul through our friendship, and shown me how he can and will use any outlet to reach humanity, even Facebook!
Editor’s Note: Becca just moved to Chicago where she began graduate school and is serving as an intern in the Chicago Church of Christ downtown campus ministry.
