If you’re like many, you’re itching to learn how to make a website because you want to have your very own slice of cyberspace. People may have varying reasons for wanting to learn how to make websites, but that generally doesn’t matter because the internet is welcome to anyone who wants to be part of the online world. What’s even better than this is that learning how to make a website is actually very easy so you don’t have to worry about anything. Here are some considerations to keep in mind:

Get the right domain name. Your domain name will basically identify you over the internet so it’s important to have one. Since it’s got a special purpose, you need to make sure that your domain name is representative of your site. Take note that your domain name has to be connected to the kind of content you are offering (you can’t be HealthyGrocer.com if you’re selling tires, for instance), has to be simple and short enough to be easily remembered (make it catchy!), has to be descriptive (potential customers already know what you’re about just by looking at your domain name), and is using the right kind of extension. Domain names also play a role in how search engines work because those sites with domains that match keywords more closely are the ones that usually pop up in results pages. Hence, find the right domain name as you learn how to make a website and you can have more than just the right identification tag, more of taking advantage of a direct means of influencing potential customers to go to your site for their needs.

Get a trusty host. Your hosting service is responsible for keeping your site available online. Get spotty hosting services and you can’t guarantee that you’ll be online all the time. A little downtime here and there is to be expected, but these have to be kept to a minimum. In fact, if it can be altogether avoided, then that’s better. What if a potential customer decides to check out your site but can’t access it? Learning how to make a website will have been all for naught if you don’t have reliable hosting service because a website is no good if it’s not online.

Brush up on WordPress. A site about New York City Real Estate would be best served by a real estate WordPress theme. WordPress is usually installed if you’re looking to learn how to start a blog. It’s a very easy to manage system for updating your site so you can post content and manage site design without trouble.

“I have a fire going on in my mouth,” I said.

H laughed at me and said, “A fire in your mouth, huh?”

“Yep,” I said, holding my right hand in front of my lips and wiggling my fingers in what I hoped looked fire-like. In my left hand, I held the responsible party – a Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wrap. Leaning over my plate, I took another bite.

At the table next to us, a young couple ordered more salad and I dipped a french fry in ketchup and that’s when it happened. I wonder if you would have noticed it if you’d been sitting at a table near us in the restaurant.

Peace. It came out of nowhere, and all of a sudden it was everywhere.

I don’t know if I ate that french fry, or if I put it back on the plate, or if it slipped out from between my index finger and my thumb and ended up somewhere on the floor in all of its hand-cut, ketchup-dipped glory.

“All of a sudden,” I said to H, “I have this amazing feeling of peace.” I wiped my hands on the cloth napkin in my lap and leaned forward just a bit. The sun was setting just on the other side of the black see-through shade that James, our server, had lowered for us when he’d seated us at this table.

“Really?” H asked, and I could tell he believed me. Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I’m telling you this in case you’re like me and have ever wondered if a prayer offered up by ordinary people on an ordinary day with everyday ordinary words can ever really have an impact. Maybe you wonder if your prayer follows the right formula to ever make it past the ceiling. Maybe you think God can’t possibly do anything with the words you whisper. Maybe you’ve stopped praying because you haven’t ever heard God answer you.

But let me tell you this. That peace that wrapped itself around me like fleece in the shadowed corner of an ordinary restaurant? That peace came to me because ordinary people were praying for me. No fancy words. No special formulas. Just people who love me and knew that what I needed most that day were a few moments of supernatural peace. They’d sent me emails that told me they were praying. Text messages had reassured me that my name was on their lips.

You know those moments when you’re driving along singing loudly to Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber or Mary J. Blige or David Crowder or The Allman Brothers or CeCe Winans and suddenly, out of nowhere, someone you haven’t thought of in ages comes to mind? Or maybe you have to stop at a stoplight and an old man shuffles across the street in front of you with his bedroom slippers on and his pants pulled up to his armpits and your heart goes out to him. Or maybe there’s something in that telemarketer’s voice that catches your attention and you can’t shake it for the rest of the day.

Those moments? Those are invitations. Sent directly from heaven with your name on the envelope. Imagine that! No fancy words required. No special formula. No expensive degree. Just you. Just as you are. God’s invitation to whisper or shout or mumble words of prayer.

I don’t pretend to know exactly how it works.

Here’s what I do know: I know it’s not like Santa Claus or horoscopes or the lottery. And, I know this: I know that sitting in the corner of a restaurant with peace welling up inside you and gently wrapping itself around your shoulders – taking your breath away and making the light all misty – is a miracle.

And it blows me away when I think that God invites us to participate in miracles.

We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen.

We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him.

He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment.

~Colossians 1:15-17, The Message

This is a big weekend, isn’t it? If you’re in the US, you’re probably all excited about The Fourth of July with its promises of food on the grill, splashing in the pool, and an explosion of fireworks at the end of the day. I have to admit, I’m a fan of fireworks. But this weekend, all of that pales in comparison to the fact that our youngest child turns twenty today! When she was born, our family members all gathered in my hospital room to watch the fireworks display over the city.

So, while H and I are hanging out today with our daughter, you might enjoy reading my column in our town’s local newspaper. I’m remembering last year – The Fourth of July, baseball, and two of my favorite men!

I hope you’ll take a minute to read the story over here.

Happy Fourth of July, and Happy Birthday, Alexandra!

Mary came to church on Sunday.

It’s been a little more than two years since she married Robert and moved away to Kansas. She texts me from time to time to let me know what’s going on in her world. Her texts say married life is great, she has a new job at Walmart, she needs prayer because she’s having surgery.

On Sunday, Mary said she’d wanted to hear my husband preach. She’d been missing his sermons. His delivery. His style. So Mary came to church on Sunday and – right in the middle of the sermon – I spotted her across the sanctuary. She was sitting with the folks who aren’t afraid to say “Amen!” out loud, when something in the message speaks to them.

After church, there was the usual flurry of hand shaking and hugging and baby passing and following up on the details of this and that. Mary stood on the fringes and waited. Even after I’d hugged her and been distracted by someone else who needed to ask me a question, Mary stood there.

In the end, the lights had been turned off in the hallway, and the stragglers were making their way towards the door when Mary and her mom and I stood in the doorway of the sanctuary.

“I’ve been going to a church,” Mary said.

“That’s great,” I answered.

“Some of the things she’s learned there are real cool,” her mom said and I heard something in her mom’s voice that drew me in. It was the sound of a mom who knew her kid was going to be alright. “Yep. Really cool. There’s one thing she told me,” now she turned to look up at Mary. “What’s that thing you keep saying?”

“God does everything.” Mary said.

I had to agree. God does do everything. I nodded my head to let her know I’d heard her and she said it again. “God does everything.”

“Yep. He does.” I said.

And she said it again. “God does everything.” And now I was thinking about how Jesus asked Peter three times: “Peter, do you love me?” Kind of pressing the point, you know? And I wondered if Peter was squirming inside himself as he answered three times. “Yes, Lord. I love you.” I wondered if Peter thought Jesus was making him restate the obvious just to test him. To see if it was really true. To see if Peter really did love Jesus like he said he did.

Did I really believe that God does everything? Or was I just agreeing because it was the easiest thing to do when I had one foot in the sanctuary and the other in a darkened hallway?

I looked at Mary, wondering if she was going to say it again. But instead, she looked me in the eye and said, “All we have to do is let Him.”

And on the inside, I was knocked off my feet.