Sunday, October 29, 2017

Are periods or mental illness too offensive for Facebook?

Last wast week I posted a Tiny Bible Bit, which you can read below and it was fairly popular, so Facebook told me, performing better that 95% of my posts.

So, I decided to fork out a few dollars and pay for the post to go to a wider audience.

And... It was rejected by Facebook.

Take a read of the post below and then guess why...

Mark 5:25-26 - And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.

Periods.
I'm not talking about punctuation.
The other one.

For some of you reading this, they will just be a part of your life. For others, they will be quite foreign.

If you search YouTube for people, primarily men (unsurprisingly!), being clueless about the menstrual cycle then you'll be inundated with results.

I'm guessing, in the first century, the knowledge men held about the female anatomy, never mind the condition suffered by the woman who approached Jesus, was just as foreign.

As a woman, she was an outsider.
With her condition, she was an outcast.
As a patient, she was a mystery.

As a person, before Jesus, she was important enough to stop for and heal.

What might be an equivalent, misunderstood, condition today?
Depression?
Bipolar disorder?

No matter what it might be, remember that those we misunderstand, shun or avoid are welcomed by Jesus. 
They are important enough for Him to stop for.
They are significant enough for Him to transform.

Perhaps we should be more open to engage with those with mental illness because they are the very people reaching out for Jesus.

To quote Facebook "Your advert wasn't approved because it doesn't follow our advertising policies, which apply to an advert's content, its audience and the destination it links to. We don't allow advert's that use profanity, or refer to viewers attributes (eg race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, name) or harass viewers.

So, why do you think I was rejected?

Is the word period profane?
Is the mesural cycle offensive?
Did I offend clueless men?
Is mental illness a taboo topic?

I don't know, but it seemed to strike a cord for quite a few, and (in a slice of irony I find funny) especially liked by women.

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