Tuesday, January 29, 2008

110 Visits and Suffering!

Today I took a quick look at google analytics to see how many people were still reading my blog. I thought the numbers would be low due to my sporadic posts in recent weeks. To my amazement, yesterday I had 110 visits and 145 pageviews. Now that probably doesn't sound like much, but this blog usually averages only 15-20 visits and pageviews a day.


Typically a large amount of my traffic comes from Anna's Maidens of Worth site, but I found that only accounted for 13 of the visits. To my surprise I found that 68 visitors came from a gossip site. Yes indeed! I won't link to it here since I don't want that site to gain any more readers due to my post. But it's a site that seems to have as its focus sin. One of its members must be a reader of Anna's website. This reader took good statements that Anna made and begin to twist them into negative comments about me. Then more got into the fun and they begin to take a look at my blog and the blogs of my friends to come up with things to twist. That site is popular - 16 people commented about the first person's post and added more things deride. That post was read by at least 68 people if you assume that each person who read the post visited my blog.

There are things that this world has twisted. They've taken what is good and because they can't imagine the good is true, they will twist it into something bad. And why wouldn't they? The Bible states in Romans 1 that God has given mankind over to sinful desires of their hearts. We are also told in 1 Corinthians 2:14 that "the man without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the spirit of God, because they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."


On Sunday, Pastor Tony preached on a message called the Right Stuff (download it here). It was about suffering for Being a Christian (1 Peter 4:12-19). While he spoke of how we are in God's program as sanctification, he said that we should not be shocked by trials because they have been sent to test you and are common to all believers. While he spoke, I tried to think of the last time I had suffered for Christs sake. I couldn't think of any time that I had been demoted, beaten, cursed, ridiculed or anything due to being a Christian. My lifestyle, though Christ honoring (I hope), doesn't seem to be seen by or noticed negatively by the world around me. I wondered if maybe I am too sheltered or not open enough about my faith in Jesus.


Pastor Tony mentioned that we are to rejoice in suffering because those wounds will identify us with Christ and to know our identity and be able to fellowship with God like nothing else will. Verse 14 seems to be a good verse to sum up this experience: "If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the spirit of Glory and of God rests on you."


Now the people on that website weren't insulting me directly because of Christ. But they were insulting both me and Anna because of how we have lived out our faith and calling into question our morals. Our lives don't exactly line up with what the world considers good and normal.
As it says in 1 Peter 4:19, we will commit ourselves to our faithful Creator and continue to do good. Maybe someone will come to this site and without knowing it be convicted by the Holy Spirit through something they read here. Maybe this only happened so that I would get a tiny taste of what it's like to be insulted and to help me to in a small way identify better with Christ.

10 comments:

Anna Naomi said...

It's annoying that people would do that. =( I noticed a huge spike in our analytics on January 28th as well.

Miriam said...

Thankfully it looks like that traffic was a one-time thing! Hits are back down to a safe 19 visitors yesterday. I thought it would be fun to have a popular website, but maybe being out of the spotlight is better :)

Miriam N. said...

It's so sad that people will do that and also annoying.
I wish those kind of people wouldn't read our blogs. :(

Miriam N. said...

Is that too unkind a wish?

Victoria Anne said...

Remember, dear young women, The Word of The Lord does not return without accomplishing what it intends. (Isaiah 55:10-11) As you continue to honor Jesus Christ & His Living Word uncompromisingly, you are a witness and a testimony for Him. "Now have come The Salvation & The Power & The Kingdom of our God, & The Authority of His Christ for the accuser of our brothers who accuses them before our God day & night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by The Blood of The lamb & by The Word of their testimony, they did not love their lives so much as to shrink form death. Therefore REJOICE you heavens & you who dwell in them!..." (Revelation 12:10-12a)
May you be Strong and be Bold, for The Lord Your God IS WITH you ! Also, remember that your struggle is not against flesh & blood. Also remember Jesus shed Blood has ALREADY WON The Victory as you dwell in The Shadow of The Almighty. (See Psalm 91) Love, Mom L.

Anonymous said...

Nice typos, honey. You should really proofread your work.

And there is no "God"!

Miriam said...

Miriam Rebekah

I don't really mind if they read our blogs. I think that maybe God can use what they read for His purposes. If they didn't care at all about these things, they definitely would not be reading them. But the fact that there is a certain curiosity to know what we think makes me wonder if God is maybe drawing some people to himself through what they read.

Mom - Thanks for the encouragement!

Anonymous - Thanks for pointing out my typos. I've always had a struggle with spelling and grammar so read at your own risk! As any of you see typos, please point them out to me and I will be glad to correct them. I've now reviewed all my uses of the word it's and corrected many of them. I had forgotten that a plural possessive pronoun never gets an apostrophe!


Anonymous - I pray that God will reveal Himself to you in such a way that you can't deny his existence. He is real and wants you to know Him.

John said...

To the anonymous person who commented. What is accomplished in denying invisible truth? The dark ages existed because the entire continent was ruled by Catholic governments that didn't want people to experience and discover truth for themselves and for the benefit of all.

Galileo was excommunicated for his work showing that the earth revolved around the sun, a physical truth that is invisible to the eye.

Sir Isaac Newton, once the apple fell and bonked his head, went on to mathematically prove the law of gravity. You can't see gravity, yet other physical phenomenons point to its existances.

What if all of the pioneering chemical scientists refused to
work to discover the molecular structure and composition of matter just because they didn't see it with their eyes. This scenario well describes all atheists who say there is no God.

You guys are of the same type as the Catholic church officials who excommunicated Galileo.
If you guys ruled the world, there would be a new dark age that would totally bring the world to a halt.

The reniassance and the great age of scientific discovery was born when Martin Luther revolted against a church that kept people uneducated. He lead a group of people who truly desired to know a follow the True God.

Anonymous said...

I am appalled, to be honest, that you refer to lightly to being gay or lesbian as "sin". You are no real Christian. You put real Christians to shame with your bigotry. May God help you find a good way out of your darkness. There are welcoming and kind churches that teach true Christianity. Good luck.

Miriam said...

Appalled,

Sin is not defined by individuals, but by our Creator the Lord Jesus Christ. He revealed many things to us to us in the Bible. If you've never read the Bible, I encourage you to do so. If you want to know what God sees as sin, He explains sin in many places in the Bible. I'll be glad to give you passages to look up if you would like me to - just ask.

The biggest sin - the one that will not allow a person into heaven - is the rejection of Jesus Christ as Savior. If you are to live forever with Christ, you must accept Christ's finished work on the cross. He took the punishment for our sins. There is nothing you or I could ever do to make up for the wrongs we have done.

If Jesus Christ is not your Lord, I pray that you will seek to know Him. I realize, from seeing your site, that you see my blog and the blogs of my family and friends as a laughingstock. I hope that as you continue to get a glimpse into our lives, you may see Christ. Maybe what you see here will someday cause you to question your own point of view and influence you to turn to Christ Jesus.