Thursday, February 03, 2005

Why My Interest In Blog Stats



I found your candid comments to my last post interesting and fun. They reminded me that we all blog for many and varied reasons.

Some of us blog to clear our heads of all the words inside spinning like clothes in a dryer. To express our creativity.

Others want to keep a written record of their days so they'll not be lost in obscurity.

Some people write to be heard. To share their story, their opinions, their journey. To perhaps explain why they are the way they are--reaching out for understanding and sympathy from family and friends.

Some share humorous words so to carry a little gladness to people's hearts.

And others use blogging to share their faith...to fling out to the world the One who has given them incredible freedom and joy and hope.

I blog for probably all those reasons, but I go heavy on the last one.

Blogging is the way, the means I have chosen to share with others the freedom I have found in order that they, too, may find it. May find Him.

The numbers of people visiting my blog fascinate me because they represent real people. You. And throughout my days I pray for you--for everyone who visits my blog. I pray all sorts of things for you--fun, peaceful, hopeful things. Glad things for even those who accidentally stumble into my blog and then run madly away after realizing they have landed in Christian territory. :o)

For you see, my stats counter--all those numbers--are rather like seeds in the Bible's parable of the sower of the seeds. To me, each number represents a valuable life--the heart of a seed, if you will. And well, when I see the seeds pouring in, I pray for them--that they will fall upon fertile soil and grow strong, tall and free.

So that is why the numbers matter to me. Each number represents a beating heart, one which matters indescribably to God.

And my referrer's list--that list of your blogs at the end of my right hand column--I click on your individual blogs to see where you are coming from, both figuratively and literally. Then I ask God to let me see your blogs through His eyes--they look amazing that way. I see things that otherwise I would miss. And sometimes I see your requests for prayer boldly printed in the headlines of your blogs, sometimes down in an obscure little corner. But I see them.

So that is why the referrer's list matters to me.

Because you matter.

And that is why I blog.


***

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main... Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."...John Donne (1624)

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me..." Galations 2:20

No comments: