A quick look at the clock on the wall tells me that it’s 6:31 p.m. I’m about twelve hours into what has to be one of the most bizarre but meaningful days of my life.

It is the day of the Great Follower Conspiracy.

It started with a simple glance at my blogger account before work this morning, just to see which of the blogs I follow had new posts. Then my eyes just so happened to wander up and to the right, where my own followers are posted. Or rather, were posted. My heart stopped, my mouth dropped opened, and I had a rather funny sensation in my stomach.

I had lost almost half of my followers.

My mind raced:

How can this be? What have I done to make all these people mad at me? Is it the comment thing? It has to be the comment thing. I KNEW I shouldn’t have done that. And now all these people are gone. GONE. All because of me.

The tiny thought that maybe this was something totally different, that maybe this had much less to do with me and much more to do with Blogger, was ignored. That just couldn’t be.

And then I checked my email, which happened to be pretty full of people who were wondering just the same sort of thing I was:

“Have I done something to offend you?”

“I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done.”

“Please continue to stop by…”

Oh. So that’s it.

I spent the better part of my day talking to members of my blogosphere family, trying to sort things out and figure out how and if it could ever be fixed. As of right now, many of my followers are still missing, although I did manage to get a new one, (nice to meet you, Peg!). Where they have gone is anyone’s guess. I’m sure I’m still MIA to a lot of the blogs I follow as well.

Still, as aggravating as all of this is, I think there’s a pretty big lesson being offered for everyone affected.

We all want to be accepted and loved, for who we are, the words we write, and the lives we offer our readers a peek into. There’s nothing in the world wrong with that, either. It’s part of our testimony to a loving God, and a chronicle of what He’s doing both in and around us.

Maybe it’s just for that reason that everyone I’ve spoken with today confessed to having the same first reaction: They don’t like me anymore! It was definitely my reaction. In fact, worrying about the whole thing ruined the first few hours of my morning. Because I thought I had Finding out that it was all an innocent screw up made me feel better for a little while. Then something else started creeping into my mind.

Should I have really been so upset over all of this? What if I really did lose a lot of my readers? I should have taken it as God’s will. Instead, I took it as a catastrophe of epic proportions.

Jennifer Lee said it much better in an email: “How would I react if I lost every last follower? I say that God is ‘enough,’ but is He? In my life, is He REALLY enough?”

That’s a good question. One that I found myself asking a lot lately and today especially. And one that maybe we should all spend some time pondering.

So I fire up the old computer this morning, log in to my blogger account, and find that I’ve lost almost half of my followers. First reaction: “Oh no, what have I done to make all these people so mad at me?!” Second reaction: maybe there’s something else going on…

That something else was confirmed when I checked my email and found a few messages from people wondering the same thing.

Now, thanks to Sarah and Jesse, I know what happened.

Turns out Blogger had a few problems with the Follower widget and is in the process of trying to fix them. Nothing more than that. Mystery solved.

This whole thing has gotten me thinking, though. About that first reaction. I’m the sort of person who automatically thinks that when something goes wrong, it’s my fault.

Gonna have to work on that one.

There are a lot of reasons why people take up blogging. Some see it as a means of preserving life’s events for family and friends. Others use it as a tool for self-examination or a way of connecting with others. Still others regard it as a potential starting point for bigger and better things. And then there are people like me, who blog for all of the above.

The self-examination part is new to me in a way. Simmering deep down for a while, but only recently bubbling up to the surface. I’ve found the act of posting small essays in the hope that others will read them reveals far more about myself than I expected. The good, yes. But also the potentially bad.

I’ve been writing this blog for about six months now, and I’m continually both amazed and humbled at how far things have come. I remember the first comment online comment I ever received for one of my posts (thank you, Sharilyn!) In December, my post about the Santa Story was the first to get comments in the double digits. A few weeks later, over twenty people commented about our mysterious backyard hole.

Which was, in a word, incredible. I never thought such a thing was possible, much less likely. There is a unique sort of joy that comes by checking one’s email and seeing a dozen or so messages of praise in the inbox. On many days, doing so was what propped me up and kept me from lying motionless in the muck of self-doubt. I love the comments I get.

Maybe too much.

I’ve always made a conscious effort to ask myself this question after finishing anything I’ve written, whether it be a post or a manuscript or a note in one of my children’s lunch boxes:

Does this honor God?

Sometimes, that answer is yes. Other times it’s no. But regardless, the end result is usually something I feel both He and I believe is worth saying. Any benefits that come after the fact, whether it’s a small check from the newspaper or a nice comment from a reader, is extra. Gladly accepted, but not counted upon.

Then a while back, as I was putting the finishing touches on a post, I asked myself this question:

I wonder if this will get thirty comments?

The question tried to be insignificant, small and soft, but it was made large and loud by the simple fact that I had never wondered such a thing before. And that bothered me. It meant that something had changed. The focus of what I write and why had shifted. Somehow my writing had become less about God and more about me.

Sometimes the self-realization side of blogging stinks.

It strips away those pretty masks we wear and leaves us staring at our own nakedness, forcing us to look at who we truly are. Not so we can despair at our own faults, but so we can fix them before they get worse.

And this, I think, needs fixing.

So I’m going to eliminate the comment option from my posts. For a while, anyway. If only so I can make sure I’m writing to further God rather than myself, and to inspire others rather than my own ego.

Of course, if something you see here particularly strikes your fancy or you just want to chat, my inbox is always open. Just click on the little Contact Me button on the sidebar, and I’ll be sure to get back to you.

“Be on your guard,” the Bible says. Because we sometimes take the things God means for good and mangle them. For much of my life, I’ve ignored that little bit of advice. I’ve paid for it every time, too. So this time I’ll heed that advice.

Maybe I can balance the scales a bit.