Yikes and Yowsers

I had a wake up call a few weeks ago.  It's something that has been at the back of my mind for a long time now, but came into full scary mode for me this week.

I was on my blogger home page and I noticed a bizarre site that was bringing in lots of traffic to my site.  So naturally, I click on it to see where these unknown referrals were coming from.  It was in fact a really raunchy site.  I have now seen things on accident that cannot be unseen.

I panicked.  I am not judging people for looking at sites like this one, but I in no way want my blog with my babies on it to be in a line of traffic revenue with the unnamed site's content attached to it.

I am not comfortable with someone coming to a site to see pictures of myself, but mostly my children with the frame of mind that accompanies the content that they just witnessed prior on unsaid referring site.  To me, it's kind of like watching a murder movie only to turn around a pet kittens or something.

Also, I was too scared to dig deeper into this site to find out if there were some doctored pictures with my face attached to someone else's naked body parts or something.  Yikes.  In hindsight, I don't feel like this is what happened.

 After having my initial Kelly panic attack, I decided to take action.  I emailed a selection of people who I know are internet savvy.  All of them reminded me that this was not my fault and even that it was a fluke incident.  Some tag or keyword in my blog somewhere must have set them off.  Either way, 38 people went from that site to mine in less than a day.  I realize that in internet numbers, that's minuscule.  But when it comes to my family, it's huge.

So what am I going to do about it?  I don't totally know.  I enjoy sharing my children with you all.  I feel that they offer many, many contributions to my singing heart, but I am really questioning my level of protection toward them when it comes to incidents like this one.

I am learning that I have no control over who looks at the blog and that is fine.  But I can control what they are looking at by what I post.  Everyone needs encouragement, no matter where they are coming from, but that encouragement does not necessarily have to include my children.

What have I done about it so far?  Prayed.  This is what I've come up with from there:

What is the point Kelly?  What got me started on this journey to begin with?

Let me answer that:  After going back to the "about this blog" page I remembered that I wanted this blog to be an encouragement to people.  I want to show the world that it's in the little things, Joy can be found everywhere.  It should be a state of matter it's that abundant.  It's not about me.  I believe fully that Joy comes from the Lord and I want to share that with the world.  I believe that I am here to make an impact for Jesus and this is has been an avenue for me to do that.  I wanted to put myself out there and do things that challenged me.  I wanted you all to grow along with me in this process.

Maybe Satan saw that as an invitation.  He knew my buttons and pushed them.  But I don't think that he needs to get the victory here. (448)  Encouragement, joy, and love often come to me through the time with my guys easily.  Blogs run better with good pictures.  I enjoy taking and sharing these moments and those pictures with you all, I feel like they are blessings.  But can encouragement, joy, and love be represented beyond that?  Absolutely. (449)

This was a definite wake up call for me.  But now, I see it as an amendment to the original challenge.  A challenge to focus and a challenge to make an impact in the world for Jesus despite circumstances.  I hope that no matter what, you'll continue to join me. (450)

Like I said, I don't know what this is going to look like.  I haven't decided if I'll be shunning pictures of my children from the internet or what.

I wrote about this topic on the Tampa Bay Moms Blog 2 weeks ago.  If you're interested in that, the link is here.

I am genuinely seeking your advice and input here, so please feel free to comment below or to email me or send me a message on Facebook or whatever.  I really want to know what you all think.