Bigger Than Google

I have tried to make myself write this blog for two days now. I really don't know where it will go or how it will end, but here goes... For the past ten days I have toiled with an extreme makeover of one of my websites and, having finished it this morning, would much rather be sitting out on the back porch watching the moon rise, or maybe just watching Netflix. Honestly, I am tired of having this laptop in my lap. but I made a promise to myself when I ventured into the world of blog writing that I would be faithful in it. What was I thinking?
The little website that I've worked so hard on desperately needed some updating. Even with its obvious flaws, it still reigns a firm #1 in its niche on Google. And it has made me a dollar or two in its nine years of existence. In fact, it was this little website that pulled me through a very tough time in my life. I'll tell you the story...
(2008)
My eyes darted from the TV screen where Dr. House was indulging himself in belittling everyone in the hospital to the couch, where my wife at the time sat. Her eyes gave up their fight to stay open and the beer can in her hand tilted ominously at an angle, threatening to empty its contents onto the leather sofa. I glanced at the clock on the wall...right on schedule. She was out like a light. With a heavy sigh, I turned the TV off and reached for my laptop. It had become the only companion I had past eight every night and it was becoming a bore. I propped my head up with an arm and pursed my lips. Back in those ancient times, there was no Facebook, no Twitter...wasn't much internet at all, come to think of it. I peered over the screen at the woman passed out on the sofa, deflated like a blow-up doll, that beer can still clutched firmly in her hand.
'Think I'll just build a website,' I told myself.
For the next three months, I found myself actually looking forward to 8 pm. And right on schedule, she'd lose consciousness and I'd start writing fervently, page after page after page. As the weeks wore on, my relationship began to unravel. The woman was downing ninety beers on the weekend and probably as much during the week. I became so very aware that there is no loneliness as lonely as the loneliness of being lonely with someone right there with you. I eventually came to the realization that I'd rather be lonely all alone.
A divorce would financially devastate me. I began crunching numbers...if I gave up smoking...and eating. Nope, I still came up two hundred dollars short every month. Maybe if I sat in the dark and gave up bathing...I was becoming desperate. My only hope was taking a chance on that little website I had spent so much time putting together. Maybe, just maybe, if I put a few Google ads on it I could generate some income. I seriously doubted it would produce the two hundred bucks I needed.
Being a man of little faith in those days, I put what little I had in a website. And being a man who rarely talked with his Maker in those days, I took a moment to ask Him to see me through. Then one night I told her, "You have to go."
A month later, I opened the mailbox and saw my first check from Google. It was for the amount of $256.30. Every single month over the next two years I received a check for over two hundred dollars...sometimes even three hundred. I made my last pickup payment in May of 2010. When that Google check came in the following month, it was for a measly hundred and thirty bucks. I stared at it as I stood at my mailbox beside the road and tears came to me eyes. I shot a glance toward the sky and with trembling lips quietly spoke,
"Thank You for seeing me through!"
Through this ordeal, I had found myself drawn closer to God. I had come to realize that I hadn't put my faith in a piddly little website or Google...I had put my faith in God. Now granted, it so happens that Google had realigned its algorithm which caused my website traffic to temporarily fall off. But...they had waited until I had my pickup paid off to do it.
I want to just briefly make a point to point out that the next time you find yourself annoyed over advertising on one website or another, there's probably some guy like me on the other end just praying that you'll click an ad so he can make a dollar or two. Just briefly I want to make a point to point out that while you readily pay for internet service every month, while you gleefully pay for all that data you burn on your cell phone...you never have to pay to visit a website. We just ask that every now and then you support that site by clicking on one of those annoying ads.
The real point I wish to get across on in this blog that I didn't want to write is this; sometimes you have nothing left to work with but faith. I have another little woman sitting on my sofa now. Even though she's still in high school, she's diligently preparing for one of two college classes she's taking this summer. Yes, we have the expense of college looming before us and absolutely no plan on how we're going to pay for it. But I lose no sleep worrying about such matters. I have a little faith in that website I overhauled, a little faith in Google...and a whole lot of faith that God will see us through! After all, God is bigger than Google!
Oh, the website? Next to my daughter, she's my favorite child! You can see her here:

 Texas Pecan~ Ranked by Google as the #1 pecan website on the planet!