Since I started this website on June 20, 2012 there have been many changes, additions, and improvements done to it. That won’t stop. Anytime you see something in a different color font or in a bold font there is a link to an earlier post (or perhaps a video clip). It’s always worth checking out. Recently I have enhanced the tag feature to get to some of the more popular or useful posts. These are a bit of essential reading for new readers of the site and blog.
One thing you wouldn’t have any real idea about is how many people visit the site. That number has steadily increased over the year and a half or so that we have been posting. Granted, we started small. We averaged somewhere in the 30 – 50 visits per day that we posted in the first few months. Eric Hammond, my good friend who created the site, said back then, “Think of it this way, you basically have a college sized classroom choosing to read your website every time you post.” It was a nice way to think about it.
As I mentioned earlier the numbers have grown steadily as time has gone on. Granted, we are far short of 1.5 million hits per day range that would bring in some lovely advertising dollars but that has never really been the goal anyhow (Oh, I wouldn’t be against that mind you). However, something interesting happened on Tuesday.
You see, whenever I post something about Trey, the numbers go up. Generally, when I post something very intimate and, frankly raw and heartbreaking, the numbers go up. If it is just a post about faith or emotional needs the numbers aren’t quite as high. Then, Tuesday happened. The numbers since the first of the year on posting days are: 305, 138, 83, 238, 275, 378, 231, 169, 101, 201…and then Tuesday’s post about Bella was…412! It isn’t the most ever, that belongs (I believe) to this post with 458. However, I love the fact that this was a simple post about a little girl trying to make her way through life as it is handed to her.
The other interesting thing is that there weren’t a lot (if any) “shares” on facebook. Normally, the number of times someone “shares” a post on facebook the numbers bump up significantly. What I care about is that more people are given the opportunity to be blessed, touched, taught with each time a reader “shares” a post. Thus, if you are ever moved in any positive way by something you read on my site, please feel very free to share it with others. We have always strived to be open, honest, and vulnerable and allow God to move how He sees fit throughout this entire process. You never need to worry about it being “sensitive” or “personal” we are waaayyyy past that!
Thanks again for caring about and reading about my Sassy Princess. Thanks for caring about my whole family.
Here is the weekly Prayer Post from my sister Cathy Muscara from her blog – To My Audience of One.
Thank you for praying for our SuperHero Trey!
What’s Your Story?
I read this saying by Priscilla Shirer this week and it knocked me off my feet:
When God speaks, when He intervenes, when He permits a circumstance to rise up around you, it is your opportunity to write a story that people may still be talking about many years from now. Your life is God’s story being told and His character being displayed.
Think about the familiar Bible stories from Sunday School:
Do you think Noah was planning on having movies made about him while he tended to the huge task of building an ark?
What about David out in the fields with the sheep? Wondering if there would be a Veggie Tales about him?
What about Mary on her donkey? What was her focus? Two thousand years from then, toddler girls in blue gowns at Nativity scenes, ceramic and wooden images of her adorning everyone’s homes at Christmas time? I think not. “She pondered these things in her heart.” Luke 2:19
What about you? What kind of life are you living today? What is your focus? What is your story?
Trey certainly has the focus for today thing down pat! He’s not worried about tomorrow or next week or treatments or clinical trials or even what anybody thinks about him! He focuses on his parents and his family, blueberries, broccoli and a few TV shows! That’s it! Yet God CERTAINLY is using Trey’s opportunity for hundreds/thousands of people to read God’s story in living color!
Jay writes this week’s prayer request: Trey’s oncologist said that there may be a trial treatment available for Trey here in Pittsburgh that could be available as early as this week. I do know this. Your prayers have been as important to Trey’s condition, if not more so, than any medicine or treatment he has received. Thank you so much.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways
and My thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is My word that goes out from My mouth:
It will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:9-11