Has social media ruined Christian fellowship?

The following post, was originally written Oct 11, 2014. This was the day after we found out we were not adopting a child we had been anticipating for 5 weeks.

As of late, my wife and I were contacted by someone looking to do a private adoption with us. At this point, we were skeptical, however it was impossible to hide the hope we had in potentially finally becoming parents and feeling a self worth more than just husband and wife.
The family was specific in that they wanted a reformed Baptist family raising the child, to which we replied that fits our description. Then the social workers got involved and told the family that there are great Catholic families out there looking for children, the grandfather of the child mentioned “If we were Muslim, you would never have brought up a different religion, you would have had to oblige”. And at point, they mentioned the way they approached us was illegal. This was the first sign of intimidation towards the family.
So the family advised the social workers of what they wanted for the adoptive family, and they obliged. The mother of the child was not 100% stable. And so the social workers preyed on this, and used it to their advantage and told her she would have the final decision on where the child would go.
However, at the end of it, they had her sign a document that was for public adoption, which means she signs over every right to the province.
When the mother and her sister finally signed a document retracting the entire process, and another document passing all decisions to her sister, the social workers again mentioned the illegal process, and said the new documents were invalid.
Now another family potentially has the child that may have been for us. The family giving up their child is seeing a lawyer to see if any integrity was broken on behalf of the social workers.
All this took place over 3 – 4 weeks. And I can say, it is the most painful process, especially when we got the call saying the child was lost. I can only compare the events to watching your child get hit by a car, and there was absolutely nothing you could do.
My wife is numb with pain, I am trying to stay strong for her, but know my own strength is limited. We are trying hard to keep faith and hope.
But the other hard part is, that our own church family, none have contacted us. We always tell everyone when we preach the gospel that the love of Christ overbears all. I have to admit, though I know God loves me and is pulling us through this, I don’t always feel it. And during this emotional time (for both my wife and I) our church family didn’t call us during the first part of our trial.
Everyone however is using Facebook to tell us how much they love us and care for us. Has Facebook and social media replaced what Christ preached? As well as what Paul and all the preachers of old taught us? We were taught to love and support each other. But now, it seems that social media has taken over. Text messages are quicker so we can move on with our day. Too many things to tend to, I’ll just send an encouraging thought.
The problem is, we can’t cry through a Facebook message when the hurt is too heavy. You can’t hug your phone and arms grow out of the other person’s phone to translate the hug to you. There are some human interactions that will never be replaced by social media. I have to admit, I am very emotional with some things, and other things, not so much. I am always compassionate. And I am also very strong in supporting my wife. However, in the last series of events, my wife needed support from women. And not for them to talk, but just for them to listen.
And I needed support from men, a shoulder that I could rest my head on, when my wife is not resting her head on my shoulder. Though I’m not much for hugs, I could have used a few.
John 11:35 is the shortest verse in the bible. However, at times like this, it’s also one of the strongest ones to show that humans have emotions. We sometimes say things in our hurting emotional state that hurt others. We will do things irrationally. And then that verse comes to mind. “Jesus wept”, or in other translations, “Jesus cried”.
Jesus, being fully God and fully man, was not immune to emotions when Lazarus died. And I think the emotion lasted longer than it takes to read the verse. It takes ½ a second to read it. But he could have very well cried with the people for a few hours.
It’s ok to have emotions, it’s ok to cry. It’s ok to be hurt. But what we also need are other people to encourage us in our hurt. The hard part is, when our Christian family is more concerned with verses of encouragement than they are with hugs and tears.

And for the record, we are not angry with our church family. Our emotions have taken over, and it seems everyone is a target when you feel low.