Please Stand By...

I'm back!!!

I'm sure most of of you (all of you?) are thinking, "where did she go?"

My blog site has been down for almost two weeks.

--

It was a few days before I realized that what I thought I had done to "auto renew" my domain name did not work (it disappeared from the internet!) and then it took a few more days of trying to figure out how to get it back online and failing before I contacted Google.

Then it took a few more days to get the answer I needed and then a few minutes ago, I was in and....voila! My blog site is back in business so to speak.

What I did not anticipate during this process was how much I would miss it.

It's not that I have been particularly faithful about consistent posting. It's not even that I have a horde of faithful followers (except you, Mom! I see you out there!) who have been filling my inbox desperate for my return. It's not that I am changing lives....

...or am I?

What I have realized over the last two weeks is how important it is for me to have an outlet. To have a voice. And even if no one really listens all that closely, that's beside the point. I need to be able to say something.

The idea of my blog site being "out there" in the great purgatory of the internet made me sad. My initial whim to start a blog and that first post I wrote over four years ago (4 years!!) has grown into something that I enjoy knowing is out there in Cyber-land. I have recorded precious memories of baby's born, races run, trips taken, friendships made and lost, and journeys still ahead of me.

As I re-read that first blog post, there are many things that are the same.

- We live in the same small but cozy house.
- We still have "enough" and it is actually enough.

But my writing style has changed. The layout of my posts have changed. I've changed. In short I have come to realize that this blog is me.

It's me...on the page.

And without its existence, I have to admit feeling a bit...lost.

So tonight when everything updated and I clicked on the link to view my site live and it was actually there, well, I let out a little whoop of joy!

I guess the saying, "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone," holds true.

My blog site's absence turned my thoughts towards it and once I understood its value, I became intent on getting it back.

It's funny that this should happen during this time of my life when I'm celebrating my first season of Lent. Growing up in a Pentecostal church, we never celebrated the liturgical calendar. I didn't even know there was such a thing. But the more I've read about it and the more I've seen other friends celebrate it, the more intrigued I've become.

This is the year I decided to crack open my Mosaic Bible after Christmas and follow Epiphany, and then decided to continue on and for the first time -- decided to give up something for Lent.

As I continue to remind myself that I am abstaining from this thing on a daily (hourly?) basis, I realize that there is an amazing correlation with the departure and return of my blog.

The keen awareness of my desire for this particular item has also served to make me hyper-alert to it. I realize that my frustration over the thwarted desire only serves to push me towards Christ to take the place of its absence.

However, without that emptiness, I know I would not see and feel my need for Him so keenly.

It's the absence of something that highlights how we truly feel about it.

Good or bad.

Intense or apathetic.

Heart-felt or duty-bound.

And now I know...my blog is a vital part of who I am these days and what I am doing and saying. I need to make the time to write and to create.

And I also know that my need for Christ supersedes it all -- even those things I hold dear and depend on the most.

It's a good reminder to be open to absence in my life -- painful or not -- because without it, I might never know the value of what is present.