The one on updating one's blogroll

I have spent a significant chunk of my past few days running through the Superblessed.net blogroll, updating links and getting in touch with my online brothers and sisters. It hasn't been any easy task: there are literally dozens of sites to whom I've linked, and I don't want to un-blogroll anybody, for fear of hurting that person's feelings, or possibly getting myself hate mail, which I have managed to avoid in general for the past ten years I've been online.

In the process of cleaning up my blogroll, I have walked into blogs silenced eerily in my absence - fellow God-bloggers who have decided to end their god-blogs permanently - and wondered if people felt the same way about the four-month silence on Superblessed.net. I have visited blogs that have removed me from their blogrolls, assuming, in fairness, that I would not return.

On the other hand, I have visited blogs that encouraged me immensely. Among them, Christopher Wright or What In Tarnation, Bene Diction of Bene Diction Blogs On, and Sue Prince of Sisters' Weblog, who visited this new Superblessed site without my prompting them, and blogged of my return. Others who have swung by to say hello: Phisch of In That Number (who logs the very first comment of my new blog - congratulations, dearheart!; Maan of My Silverchair; Pressed of Avoiding Evil and Michael of Time to Believe (you gotta love the GoneApeWeb family); Rachel of Cre8d; Mark of Check Mark; and new friend Deb Sawyer of Constantly Abiding.

This "welcome back" of sorts is great encouragement to me, a rush of giddy pleasure that transcends web traffic and URLs. It's the rush of knowing that you're appreciated and loved, missed and prayed for. That's something one doesn't easily receive offline, much less online. When you're in the family of God, you're grateful for any chance to connect with your brothers and sisters, and it warms my heart to know I was missed.

It's so incredibly good to be back. I've been superblessed, and now it's my turn to give it back. The world needs Jesus, and by gum, we're gonna win the world for Him, one blogroll at a time.