Traffic and Self Worth

 

So, I have Google Analytics installed on my blog. I don't think that would actually surprise anyone, I mean, I do like keeping track of how many people are coming to visit and where from. It can also tell me how "popular" my blog is in the sense of percentages. It will also share with me how long people stay on a page. And, it tells me where y'all show up from (link on another blog, facebook, etc.) It's handy, definitely.

What's not handy about it is how I start to value those numbers on the analytics homepage.I obsessively check them to see how many people looked at my blog. And I start to wrap my value as a writer, thinker - as a person - into it. And that's not okay. 

It's not okay, because I'm truly not my analytics numbers. I'm more than that. My self-worth and my identity are not tied to how many unique visitors I receive or how many comments or whatever.

Now, I would like to say that it's way easier to write that then to believe it. When I want my corner of the world to be important, I sometimes let those gremlins slip in and tell me that I'm not good enough because I don't have enough traffic. 

But here's the thing, gremlins - the people who are coming, are people who love and care about me. And that's what matter.

Guess what?

Today went something like this:

Alarm went off at 7am. I hit snooze until 7:14.

The husband and I roll out of bed and make small talk about dreams (I dreamed a good friend of mine bought a house just to burn it down... what does that even mean?)

We made our breakfast and our lunches and then left but 7:40. 

I had class at 9 and then decided to check my campus mailbox. I don't ever get anything, but I still like the idea of checking. 

Here's what I found:

This would be my letter saying I passed comps!!!! Woo hoo!! You remember the ones which I was freaking out about?

So, I told facebook. And as of right now, I have 30 likes and 16 comments. Which, makes me feel unbelievably loved. 

And tonight, we went to dinner to celebrate. We also ate a banana split:

It was about halfway demolished here, but you get the picture.

I also had an amazing card from the husband to come home to (I love cards). It had the most amazing message inside, and had a cherry tree. 

Friends. I am oh so happy right now.

Not Actually Dr. Pepper

This isn't actually about Dr. Pepper. Even the Diet kind. 

It is about the Spiritual Formation class I have been teaching for the last seven weeks. It's with a group of 7ish women of all ages and it has been amazing for me, and I hope for them as well.

Tonight, we were talking about The Sacramental Life. When I first thought about that chapter, I imagined things like communion, saying a rosary (though, I'm not Catholic) etc. But I was deeply surprised when we got into it.

It was actually more focused on Sabbath and the blurry lines between spirituality and secular-ness.

Where it got interesting was when the authors started discussing the Trinity -- you know, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Because, that's so simple to understand. Anyway, there were two takeaways from this:

In the person of Christ, God became human (incarnation). And by doing this, he affirmed all human activity -- from the religious sacraments to laughter and sorrow and more. Because God lived it (through Jesus) nothing is exempt or "unholy", everything received equal honor and thus is sacred. Our jobs, our sleep, our gardening, our cooking, our praying... everything is sacred.

The next part is the Spirit. You know, the Holy Spirit. The Spirit allows us to move past the material things and to become the hands and the voice and the mind and the arms of God. The Spirit lets us become the person God created us to be and then the world gets to experience God through us.

These ideas, while maybe not awesome in the true definition of awesome or whatever, are still eye-opening to me. I strongly believe in St. Francis' saying: "Always preach Christ; use words when necessary." This makes me think about my life in a more harmonious way -- rather than either faith or work, it become faith and work, all through the St. Francis lens. My job is a calling, even if I'm not in ministry as a pastor or what have you.

I don't know, something feels wonderful about this. I love it. I think it it really important for me on my spiritual journey. I feel like this is the key to something which I was missing.