Can You Comment on That?

Comments.

Remember when you first became a blogger and you didn't quite understand what comments were or even how to leave them on other people's blogs?

Do you remember how you felt when someone first left you a comment?

I can! I can remember all of these with a huge grin and a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. It's what happened when I awoke one morning following a dream I had that I believed was inspired by God. He told me to start a blog and even what the name should be.

Now how to go about beginning a blog shouldn't require a college degree to get it going, and in fact thanks to Blogger, with simple and easy to use templates, I was all set to go and launch publication once I figured it all out in a matter of hours.

I think the biggest challenge was figuring out just what should I say for my first post. Should I talk about the purpose of my blog? Or about who I am?

I think I went for a combination of both.

What started out as a online journal of sorts, turned into so much more. I wanted something to look back on in a years time and see just what kind of life I have lived in the last year. I wanted a written legacy of the good times and bad times. I wanted to see how I weathered storms and how I got through them still in one piece for the most part.

What I didn't expect was that there would be people out there, all over the world, who would browse the internet and stop at my blog. Not only stop there, but read what I had written. Why did what I write even make a difference to someone?

But it did.

They let me know.

In a comment.

In that one small box that appears at the bottom of each post we read, lies a window to share with the author anything you wish to say, good, bad or hopefully not ugly.

I was in heaven. Never before could one person imagine just what a comment could do to you personally.

People cared.

People related to you.

People shared something in common with you, both through your good times and bad ones.

People are good, no great when they inspire you with their thoughts, their time and their loving words that fit in a box that make your day.

As an author each day of what comes to mind to write about, I love to hear what it means to you, personally.

Did it impact you? Did it encourage you?

Did it make you laugh or cry?

Did it make a great memory of the past come fading back into the light as though it happened yesterday?

Not sure if this makes sense to any of you but I wanted to take this opportunity after blogging for almost a year now to let you know just how much comments mean to me personally. They are worth so much more than any amount of money you could ever give me.

They inspire me. They tell me you care, you've read what I have written and it's not even important whether you agree or disagree, it matters because you've taken the time to share with me your thoughts and feelings. For that alone, I love you one and all and would whole heartily share with you to take the time to let people know you've been by, you've read what they have written and how it's impacted you.

You just never know how your one comment can make a huge difference in how that person's day is going and how you just made them smile more than anything that could have happened that day.

Comments do that for bloggers. They are payment and rewards from you, the readers. Please take the time to comment today!

Stepping Stones

Ever wake up one day and find out you have a new "follower" on your blog? If you're like me, it's an exciting feeling, like I have a new friend. Someone who connected with me on something I wrote!

But do you ever stop and wonder how they got to your site to begin with? Here is my theory.

We post our blogs and at the bottom are labels for our post. We try and sum up what we wrote and label it because if there are people out there searching for something, we hope God directs them to our site to read what we wrote.

Another way people arrive is when we receive blog awards from fellow bloggers. Usually they come from people that are followers of ours, and enjoy the things we write about from day to day. So when we nominate them for a blog award or we receive said award, people click on the links provided and follow us.

I also believe people click on the titles of blogs that sound the most interesting. There are quite a few really good ones out there. Check them out when you can. We love to hear from you!

The other way I believe people get here is from other bloggers. They read the comments from their favorite blogger or they see who their blogger is following usually from a blogger favorite list on peoples pages and they use these as "stepping stones" to find us.

My favorite way for people to find me is through God's prompting. I believe He can use this forum to bring people to him, help hurting souls find comfort and joy again, and create a body of believers out of the Internet.

Either way you have arrived here. I hope you enjoy it, and decide to "follow" and stay for awhile. Grab yourself your favorite beverage of choice, mine being ice water in the early evening, since I am giving up soda and fast food for my own personal health right now and enjoy yourself while you are here.

I would also encourage you to post comments so I can know how this post has touched you or how you related to it. Today for example, how did you find yourself here in the first place? Can't wait to hear all about it, and so do the bloggers that follow as well!