Monday, May 25, 2009

Blogger Appreciation Week

Welcome to "Blogger Appreciation Week" we are so glad that you are able to join us in this time of sharing and encouraging one another in the blogging world! Blogging opens up a whole new world of opportunity for fellowship and encouragement with people from all over the world...incredible!

Why I write:
I love to write! I have been writing since I was a teenager. Back then I wrote for myself, mostly a lot of poems. It was a way for me to escape from life. It was a way for me to express my feelings without being told that what I felt was wrong for some reason or another. Writing has always helped in the process of cleansing my heart. I believe writing is a gift that God has given me. I still write for myself because, well...that is simply how I am wired. However, my writing now has more purpose than being just for me. Now when I write I trust that as my fingers tap, tap, tap on the keys what comes out of my heart is intended to bless others. After all the blessing is intended to be for that very purpose. You see my gifts are not for me, they are for you. They are for the rest of the world. They are given to me so that God can bless others through them. This is the soul purpose of my blog, it is intended to be a blessing.

Why I read:
I love reading through your blogs! Being able to share life with others is such an incredible blessing to me. I love to see the mighty hand of God at work in your lives, it encourages me. I love sharing in the joy that you are experiencing through your journey with the Lord. I learn so much from you all! Their are times when reading through blogs I feel sad, I feel the pain that you are sharing with the rest of the world. I can sense the heaviness in your heart and the empty loneliness that you are feeling. I wish I could be there with you in that moment to remind you of God's unspeakable power and goodness. I wish I was there to give you a hug and remind you that you are loved by the One who is love. Reading blogs makes me feel as if I get to share in the loves of so many people in so many places. I may not be close enough to hug you, and if I were you may not let me, but I am hopeful that if I leave a comment and remind you of the One who is close enough, you will be encouraged through my words.

I have in some way been touched by every blog I read. Those ways are all not the same, but just the fact that I get to participate in your life is pretty awesome. there are a couple, however, that have been special to me. I hope that you will take the time to stop by and visit them.

My wonderful blessing of a friend Shanda@ A Teachable Heart. WOW! God has brought you so far! When we met last year at "She Speaks" your writing was good. I enjoyed it a year ago, but it has been incredible to watch you grow in the last 12 months. Your blog has become a living encouragement to all who visit. (also, shanda had her writing published in the Proverbs 31 magazine, YOU GO GIRL WootWoot!) Thank you so much for sharing your heart with the rest of us and thank you for the time and the commitment that you have given into turning your blog into what it has become today. I will be watching and sharing in the great things that God is going to continue to do with you, in you and through you!

My teacher friend Christy @ The secret Life of an American Wife and Mom. You are such an encouragement to me! I am so very blessed to have you as my friend. Thank you for believing in me, it means more than you know! I love to read your blog and see what God is doing in your life. I also love to listen to your Bible Study teachings. I am encouraged by the fact that you are so very real. You do not pretend to have it all together or to have all the answers. You are simply you and that alone is an awesome blessing to me. Thank you for being you! Thank you for teaching truth and helping the rest of us find out who we truly are because of Grace, because of what Jesus has done for us all! I am looking forward to what He has placed in your heart for the conference (Christy will be teaching at the Because of Jesus conference in Tulsa Oklahoma June 12-13, it will be great! If you would like to know more, ask about it when you leave a comment). I love you Christy and I look forward to watching you grow and having opportunity to share the truth with you again sometime!

My friend Cheri@ Seven Branches, I love to read your writing! For all of you that love poetry you MUST visit Cheri's blog. WOW! Reading what you write inspires me to be a better writer. Your writing is poetry in story form or more recently, beautiful, inspiring poetry in poetry form! Don't ever stop writing Cheri! You have a gift that God uses to touch the hearts of others. Such truth and encouragement flows from your keys into my heart! Thank you!

I hope that you will read through the some of my previous postings and I hope that they touch your life in some way, shape or form. You can find my testimony in those postings, it is titled Giving Thanks on Thanksgiving-To Good To Be True (2008). A lot of my other favorites are found in the blog archives to the right of this post under 2008 as well.

God's heart is for His children to walk in love and unity. It is our hope that through Blogger Appreciation Week we will all be encouraged and drawn closer to the heart of God as we take time to share in the lives of others. "Father we ask in Jesus name that no person would leave this event not feeling loved and blessed by you. We pray that every heart would be softened and touched by your beautiful love and grace as we read through each others lives." If you would like to participate in this special blogger event anytime from May 25th -June 1st, put up a post titled Blogger Appreciation Week on your blog with the first and last paragraph of this post copied and pasted in. Then, add the URL from that post to Mister Linky @ Grace Talk With Daveda, invite your friends, surf the blogging world and be a blessing to others. Make sure you leave COMMENTS of ENCOURAGMENT to all whom you visit (leave them all under comments for this post, even if it is about another post to be sure that they see it)! Don't forget to check back often through out the week to visit and encourage those who join later.

NOTE: Mister Linky seems to be having a rough week. If the Mister Linky sign-up box has disappeared PLEASE stop back later to sign-up with Mr. Linky for Blogger Appreciation Week. In the meantime, leave a comment and let us know you are participating with a link to your blog, and visit the blogs of others that have left comments. You may have to look through their blog for their post entitled Blogger Appreciation week. I know this makes things a little more difficult, but we will make the best of it!


32 comments:

Beth in NC said...

Thank you so much for the follow! I look forward to knowing you better!

Love!
Beth

GodsOwn/Bernice said...

Hi
I link again to my appreciation blogpost....
Thanks for hosting,and look forward to hop over to different blogs this week
Bernice/Godsown

Shanda said...

All linked back up! And I updated the links within the body of my post so people are directed straight here too.

You're doing great girl!! Thank you for taking the initiative to host this!

christy rose said...

Daveda,

You are so sweet to mention me as being a special influence to you. You just don't know that you have been the same for me. I am so excited about you doint this. I think it is really a God-thing.
I am attempting to set up my post now, hopefully before the end of the night.

Christy

Heaven said...

I re-linked my finished post. Hopefully it works:) Thanks for doing this. It will be fun to "meet" new bloggers!

BLessings, Heaven

Cheri Bunch said...

Thank you, Daveda! I pray that you will be so blessed for stepping out in this. I think it is an awesome idea. I don't think I did it quite right. I apologize. It has been a very busy weekend, and I am having some unexpected interruptions this week so I just hurried and put it together.

My son's best friend, Brock has a brain tumor. It is the worst possible one that you can have. He is not doing well at all so I called my son today and he is flying in from NYC tomorrow morning. I will have to get up very early to drive three hours to pick him up from the airport. We will be visiting him and his family.
This is heartbreaking! Brock is only 22! Many are praying and believing, but if we only look with our eyes we could only be devastated. This cancer seems to be ravaging Brock's body. Anyway, I have had a hard time focusing on writing today.

Please pray for my son Caleb and I tomorrow as we will be praying and ministering to the family. They are a Christian family, but they have been hit hard!!!

Thank you for including me in Blogger Appreciation Week. I must head to bed for now. Forgive me for not inviting others to join us. I realized that part after I published it. Please forgive me!

You are some kind of amazing! The Kingdom of God is a better place because you are in it! Love to you, friend!

Blessings,
Cheri
ps. I so appreciate your encouraging and kind words!

Angela said...

Bernise encouraged me to join in and well the Lord made a way for me to get a post up this morning. Blessings precious one for following God's lead to do this...

RCUBEs said...

Good morning. Just want to thank you for passing by my site earlier [thank God He brought you to my site :)] so nice to meet you too. I will come back again because I'm dropping off my son at school and I don't want to rush reading your posts. God bless and have a wonderful day!

Tracy said...

Daveda,
Thank you for hosting Mr. Linky. This is sooo cool to connect with other bloggers. Your posts have ministered to me. Your writings are beautiful. It shows how beautiful your heart is.
Blessings,
Tracy

Paulette said...

I'm not able to get the Mr. Linky to work. I wanted to let you know that I am participating in your Blogger Appreciation. Thanks for hosting this. I'm excited to find new blogs to read and even maybe make a few new "bloggie" friends.

Bright Blessings,
Paulette

Warren Baldwin said...

Thanks for your nice comments on Family Fountain about parenting! I haven't found the "Mr. Linky" (is that right?). I'll check in later.

God Rocks said...

Daveda - Thanks for the kind comment. I look forward to exploring your blog.

Dave

Cheri Bunch said...

Dear Daveda,
I just returned home. It has been a very emotional day. I came over to thank you for the prayer on my post. That was amazing to find that first thing this morning! You can pray for me any time! I was very overwhelmed by your plea for others to join us in praying for Brock. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

It was very hard to see him today. I will probably be talking about our day sometime soon. It was very hard to see my son in tears. We really need a miracle. Nothing is impossible for the Lord. Absolutely nothing!

Please pray that Brock will have the will to live. He is trying to pull his feeding tube out. He has given up. We will probably be seeing him again on Thursday on our way back to the airport.

Thank you for whole-heartedly joining us in this fight!

Believing in the resurrection breath of God!
Cheri

Marilyn in Mississippi said...

Davada, it was so nice....and encouraging.....to see a new name (yours!) in my comments this morning! Thank you for visiting my blog.

You have a nice blog here. I will try to come often and visit.

Marilyn

HappyascanB said...

Love this idea! I'm playing along, too!

jerriann said...

Just a note to let you know that I am playing along, too.
This is fun and inspiring, thank you for linking us up together.
I love the body of Christ, even when we can't meet face to face, we can meet heart to heart.

Belinda said...

Thanks for stopping by my blog and becoming a follower. Where did you find my blog from? Chat with you soon.

Amanda said...

Hello: I'm over at http://onesacrifice.blogspot.com/2009/05/much-deserved-appreciation.html

Thanks for hosting.

Amanda said...

Just went back and read your post...it is great. I have written for the same reasons my whole life...in fact, I would have done it for a living, but feared not making it (wasn't walking in tune with the Spirit back then). I now know, like you, that my tapping away on the keyboard and all forms of using words in my life is God's divine creation of me. Some people paint, some people play an instrument, I use words. I use them to encourage, to worship, to sing, to teach, to edify, to glorify the One who made me. So I am hopelessly hooked on blogger and facebook as they provide such rich soilin which to plant THE WORD that is within me. Thanks again.

Tracy said...

Since Mr. Linky is out of commission I will post my link here as you suggested.
http://tracywagman.blogspot.com/
Thanks again for hosting this Daveda. It's so encouraging!!!

Debbie said...

Hi,
I saw this on my friend Heaven's blog (God's Girl). Cool idea-thanks for doing it. You can visit me at www.debgiese.blogspot.com. My blog is called Live...In Ninevah. You'll have to read a post to find out why! Take care and have a great week. I know the Lord will use this to connect and bless all these blogging sisters in cyberspace.

Debbie Giese said...

Ok, so I wasn't properly connected when I left my comment. Visit me, if you like, at www.debgiese.blogspot.com.
Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Blessings on your ministry through this blog! I like how you wrote 'Writing has always helped in the process of cleansing my heart.' I have found that to be true for me as well.

KEE said...

This is an awesome idea and I'm so glad I found your blog. I am working on my post and will come back and let you know when it's finished.
Looking forward to visiting your blog more in the future.
Kiesha

Warren Baldwin said...

Daveda -
I'm glad to see you getting such a great response! wb

Karen Hossink said...

Hi Daveda,
Thanks so much for stopping by and encouraging me with your words.
I do trust that when Joshua is older, he will understand that I had his best interest at heart when I was raising him. I trust that when he is an adult he will know my heart.
But I am a bit frightened about the years between now and then. He is only 11 and some days I think, If this is what it's like now, how will I survive the teen years???
But I know I do not want to wish my children's lives away. Everyone says "it goes so fast" and I know I need to cherish the days. And by the grace of God, I will do it. By the grace of God, alone!

Thanks again for the encouragement.

Loving Jesus,
Karen

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the sweet comment!! I see you've befriended "Beth in NC" and I feel it is my duty to warn you to RUN!!

No no, just kidding. I love Beth :) you'll love reading her blog, it's very inspiring!

I am a proud new follower of your fabulous blog and I am looking forward to getting to know ya better :D thank you for the sweet comment on my blog, you're a darling!

<3 Martha

Billy Coffey said...

This is my first time here, Daveda, but surely not my last. And thanks for passing along these links. I know Christy, but the others will be new to me.

So great to meet you!

Debbie Giese said...

Hi Daveda,
I just read your post on the Work of His Hand vs. the Work of our hands. I am by nature a doer. Waiting doesn't come easy for me because it gives me too much time for the what-if's. Thanks for the illustration here of trying to force God's Hand. Shame on me for even trying.
debbie

GodsOwn/Bernice said...

Hi Daveda and all "bloggers Appreciaton week " joiners....
I enjoy this speial week and try to ome over several time to see who joined....
Maybe as a tip Daveda to make it easy is to put under your apreciation post all the the joiners in this week....instead of the Mr linky.......

I try to find them all in the comments but still it takes more time to sroll true....

But i love and apreciate this week!

Thanks and blessed weekend
Bernice

GodsOwn/Bernice said...

Hi Daveda
I saw the slution for this "linky problem" overhere http://greylikesnuffie.blogspot.com/2009/05/abcs-of-wordp.html

Afterwards she put the participants in her blogpost...!
Because i know for myself i will come back to your blogpost to read the others...for me this week was to short...LOL...

Greetings
Bernice

Cheri Bunch said...

Hey Daveda,
I put an update about Brock on my blog today. Thank you so much for praying! Blessings! Cheri