Thank y’all so much.

(Bit-o-bloggy-business: Heather said to remind you that if you voted in the “final round” today between 10AM and 3PM, you need to vote again.)

Anyway, I won’t get all mushy on you – YET – but you have encouraged me more than you know.

And also: y’all rock.

You bless my socks off every single day.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had called Emma Kate with what I felt was some terribly thrilling news, and based on the excitement in my voice she thought I must be pregnant, only I’m not pregnant, so it took a few minutes for her to realign her conversational expectations and then she agreed that yes, oh my word, what I had called to tell her was terribly exciting indeed.

So here’s what I called to tell her.

Earlier that day I had been clicking around the Lifeway site, trying to find out if Beth Moore had any new Bible studies that were available for download (backstory: last spring I did an online version of her Living Beyond Yourself study with about 25 other bloggers, and through that study I met some phenomenal bloggy friends). I was having a hard time finding what I was looking for on the Lifeway website, so I thought I would click over to the Living Proof website and see if there was any info that I could get straight from the horse’s mouth.

Not that Beth is a horse, of course. Anything but. She’s adorable. Cute as a bug, actually. Not that she’s a bug, either. Purely figurative comparisons, you understand.

And over to the right-hand side of the LPM homepage, I saw a little link that caught my eye, and I blinked about fifteen times when I saw it:

LPM Blog

My immediate reaction:

OKAY I’M SORRY BETH MOORE HAS A BLOG AND NO ONE TOLD ME?

So I clicked on the link, looked around, and sure enough:

BETH MOORE HAS A BLOG AND NO ONE TOLD ME.

It’s called, fittingly, The Living Proof Ministries blog. Beth’s daughter Amanda writes there, as well.

I was surprised to see that there were just a few comments on each post. I thought there had to be a mistake because Beth Moore should have, like, eleventy hundred comments a post, so many comments that she’d have to turn off the comments, in fact, and yet I found myself commenting with ease, tickled to death to be able to do so, feeling like she and Amanda were old friends I’d known for years but never had the privilege to meet. But after I looked in the archives, I realized that their blog was only about six weeks old, and I immediately created a new post so that I could put up a link here.

But something gave me pause. I don’t know what it was…but there are, um, kind of a lot of y’all (all right. I confess. more than “tens”), and I kept thinking that maybe Beth and Amanda didn’t want a surge of blog traffic, that maybe they were trying to do a slow and steady launch. And while I’m pretty bold, I certainly didn’t want to mess up their bloggy routine or add more work for them. I didn’t know what to do.

So I talked it through with D. and then Emma Kate (my personal expert on All Things Beth since she has completed every Beth Moore Bible study ever written), and they both agreed that I should hold off on linking – mainly because the LPM blog seemed to be a quiet corner, and it might be rude for me to disrupt that. I even talked to a couple of other bloggers, and they agreed that I shouldn’t mention it. I didn’t like not mentioning it, but I really do think it was the right thing to do.

I did tell three or four of my real-life friends about The LPM Blog – and I think all of them headed over there at one time or another and commented. I commented several times, too – just grateful for the opportunity to let Beth and Amanda know what a difference the Living Proof ministry has made in my life. I figured that word about their blog was bound to spread eventually – but OH, how I longed to link.

The problem, though, was that every single time I would start a post to tell y’all ALL about it, I would think about the wise counsel of my husband and my friends. And I would also envision receiving a post-link letter from the Living Proof legal team:

“Dear Mrs. BooMama:

It has come to our attention that you recently linked to Beth and Amanda’s LPM blog. At this time the blog is in the developmental stages only. Unless you cease and desist with your linking, lurking, and occasional commenting, we will be forced to contact the authorities.

We do, however, believe that God has a special plan for your life. And Beth wants you to continue to work to get your hair just as big and blonde as you like it as you pursue Jesus with complete abandon.

Juststayawayfromtheblog.

Because He Lives,
The LPM Lawyer People.”

But then, last Wednesday night, the craziest thing happened. And I wasn’t going to mention this EVER because my mama would say that it’s tacky of me to do so, but some of y’all have commented about it and sent me emails where the subject line looks like !!!! and OH MY GOODNESS and HAVE YOU SEEN THIS, and I need to address it, I reckon.

Last Wednesday night there was a link to my blog in one of Amanda’s posts on The LPM Blog, and I would love to tell you that once I got the news and saw the post that I was cool, calm and collected. That I took it all in stride. That I maintained my composure.

But as D. will attest, I LOST MY EVER-LIVIN’ MIND. And if you look at my comment on Amanda’s post, you’ll see plenty of evidence to that effect.

Also: I waved my hands in front of my face a lot.

And I took screen shots of my computer screen and can you even stand what a total nerd I am? Have you ever seen a bigger, more gaping VOID OF COOL in your life?

Don’t believe me? Look:

 

 

YEP. A SCREEN SHOT.

TOTAL. GOOB.

I also looked at the referrals on my Site Meter for the first time in, I don’t know, EVER – and I took a screen shot of that, too, but I won’t show you the picture because I think you’re probably worried enough about my sanity as it is.

COOL AS A CUCUMBER, I was.

And please don’t misunderstand: I am flattered to pieces whenever anyone puts a link to me on their blog. I’m still a little amazed that anyone outside my circle of family and real-life friends would want to read this little bastion-o-mediocrity.

But there was something about seeing a link to my blog on the Living Proof blog that made the world seem oh-so-very small. And it was yet another example of God taking parts of my life that seem completely unrelated and then connecting them in a completely unexpected way.

I love it when He does that.

But here’s the very best part.

As a result of this whole linking thing, I was able to contact Amanda about whether or not it would be okay to link to The LPM Blog. I explained why I didn’t feel comfortable linking without their permission, and as is my custom I took approximately 1,000 words to say what most people could communicate in 100 (another example of my wordy tendencies: this post you’re reading right now).

And yesterday afternoon Amanda wrote me back and gave me the go-ahead to link away. Which is what I’ve wanted to do for the last, you know, THREE WEEKS – only God worked it out in a way that I would have never, ever expected.

So go see Beth and Amanda’s LPM Blog. And love on ’em real good with a sweet comment. You’re going to absolutely love what they’re doing with this new area of the Living Proof ministry.

Go! Now! They know that y’all are headed their way.

And they can’t wait to meet you.

p.s. – Many, many thanks to Heather – once again – for creating a blog template that’s way better than I deserve. If there’s anything “lovely” to look at here, it’s because she and the great people at Swank made it happen.

Because that’s exactly what I just did.

And you can, too.

Polls close February 7th.

Also, the Hidden Treasure Blog Awards are now open for nominations – and you can find all the information here. It’s a great opportunity to encourage people who might not have many readers but whose blogs are just chock-full-o-bloggy-goodness.

Have a great day, everybody!