From The Mud Puddle

I’ve sat here the past few days, thinking about this post. You see, first of all, I posted, then I decided to edit how I was saying what I wanted to say. I didn’t want to edit what the post meant. So with that and a terrible headache due to some eye strain here (getting older and I feel it), I had to postpone my edit. I think God works things out in ways that are good and right….so hopefully as I try to explain myself once again, it will come out saying what I want to say. Please note, nothing I say is really against what other folks choose to do, it is more acting on convictions in what I feel God has placed on my heart in how to live my life in Christ where blogging is concerned.

When I started this blog (funny, in MS Works, the word “blog” keeps being underlined as being misspelled LOL)…anyway, when I started this blog, two and a half years ago, I really was unsure what I wanted to do here. I kept knowledge of it pretty quiet, except for a friend or two. Slowly as I started to use it to post thoughts, links to sites I found interesting, my artwork etc, I started to feel a sense of what my blog was becoming to me. It was a way of introducing who I was. My blog gave me a place to come and type or post things that interested me or that I was thinking of at the time. I have always wanted it to be a positive and encouraging place to visit. I never was interested in perhaps the usual activities of trading links or surfing through people’s blogs that I didn’t already have some sort of connection with from forums or lists. I was at a point in my life that I really wanted to be somewhat silent online, minding my own business, doing my own thing. I wasn’t terribly interested in making connections with other folks. Perhaps that is good given I really never put my blog out there for many to see for a while. I think it goes deeper though into who I am offline.

Offline, in what we say is “real life”, I am pretty quite. The friends I have I’ve had for years. It takes me a long time when I meet new people to really open up and feel comfortable around them enough to really share who I am. Seems the older I get, the more this is true. I’m not going to even try to analyze that one. LOL

So what happens online is often a truer sense of what has gone on for my whole life offline….though admittedly, online it sometimes is easier to make a connection with all the physical aspects removed.

OK I sound like I am rambling, honest, I do have a point here…however vague it seems at this time.

My blog has become a haven of sorts for me online. It has become my place online…my home if you will. I control what comes into my home as much as I control my blog and what gets put on it. I have basically not linked anyone else’s blog from mine…even though through time I’ve been linked by a few here and there. I never felt that I could 100% endorse those other blogs linking mine from theirs for various reasons. Maybe it is the content, and maybe just because I dont know you well enough yet. Please know, dear readers, this is not a blanket judgment against those blogs, just a conviction that I have that I am living out in my blog life as I would in my real life. Being this blog is my home, every part should be a reflection of me and the things that I can endorse. I guess what I am really doing is trying to explain my choices of the past of why perhaps I have not linked anyone off my blog before. I say before because….well, I’ll tell you why in a bit.
What got me to thinking about all of this was a statement that I read on another person’s blog that said this:

"I've said it once, and I will say it again. No one in the history of blogging has made a successful blog without linking to other blogs, commenting on other blogs, and being part of the blogosphere community as a whole. "

It’s not that I disagree with the statement per say, it is more that I don’t adhere to it on my blog. I am not one that is concerned about how popular my blog is. I live for one, and that one is Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. I love comments, but I don’t crave them. For a long time, for the most part I blogged without any concern if people were reading my blog or not. I do have a counter, though it has always been more a curiosity than a way of keeping up with traffic. I blogged without being upset for not having comments. If I got a comment-great-but I didn’t blog for those comments. (hope that makes sense-for those of you that comment-thank you…I love hearing from you, even though I wasn’t writing for you) I would have continued to blog on my own pace without concern of whether I received comment love or not . To me it becomes a dangerous trap when we start to measure our success by the world’s terms and standards. In blogland it appears that the success of one’s blog is measured in how many comments you receive or how many times you trade links. No there is nothing inherently wrong with either of those two things, it is just that I measure success differently. My life is not my own, I do not live to please myself or the world.

Likewise when I have visited other blogs, I do so out of curiosity and to get to know the person that either posted on my blog or that I met on some forum or list. Someone once described blogging vs. what we write on a forum as a way of sharing ideas or thoughts in a different way than we might on a public forum.

I have a friend that visits here that has had a blog for close to two years. I have long wanted to list his blog on my blog because I believe it is one of the best blogs out here online. It is called WORDprints. My friend writes about scriptures that have touched his life. Sometimes he doesn’t even comment about the specific scripture, but just posts it knowing that is enough. I can endorse his blog and list it because I feel completely comfortable with where he sits with his relationship with God. I know how he values scripture and doesn’t just give lip service to those around him concerning the value God and His word hold in his life. I know that if I link it here and you visit his blog after visiting mine, that I am not directing you to a place where you might encounter some questionable content …. Or language… etc. I have known the author of WORDprints for many years online. Our families both got computers and came online for the first time about the same time.

I guess I just wanted to explain things a bit. I know I may fly in the face of what blogging is suppose to be about, if you believe that it centers around community, linking one another (without thought to the content) and many many comments. Personally I don’t believe my blog is about that in the manner implied by the above quote. (and while I can expound on the importance of community in a Christian sense-that will have to wait for another blog one day, God willing) I have never been one out to be most popular or most successful,…but merely a follower of Jesus Christ, His disciple. I want to live my life in such a way that pleases Him alone.

When I first wrote this post, I said what I wanted it to say, but was concerned that it may not be taken with the heart it was meant. It is not meant to be judgmental against anyone I do not link, but more in support of those online ….that…well you know who you are. You can also think of it like this. When we started home schooling many years ago, some people took offense at our decision because they felt it was a statement against their choices to send their kids to school or because they were teachers in the school systems. Many times, again and again, I tried to explain that our choice was not a choice against the schools, but a choice following what God had put on our heart to do FOR Him and these kids He has entrusted us to raise.

I say this because I know there might be a few that I may meet, that may even link me from their blogs….either now or later one day. This is my statement of what I am looking for if I link a blog off mine….Unity in Christ. Unity in the kinds of content, that I may not lead anyone astray for what they may find beyond here. I try to be cautious before posting a link and do so knowing that I am accountable for where you may go from my link. I do so with this in mind:

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Hebrews 4:13

Thank you WORDprints, for permission to link you from here and for your many visits and support. I pray people will be blessed as they visit you…and encouraged in their relationships with Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

I pray my words here are taken in the spirit they are meant as I make decisions that may not always involved reciprocating a link or a comment. I’d rather be free to post and link on my blog as God may guide than to feel an obligation to do anything differently than I feel is right.

Thanks for listening….and for the comments. I may want to add some of you, fine readers /commenters to my list of encouraging blogs in time. Only God knows!

Read quick, you never know when another edit may come!