I’ve been compromised?

Doesn’t everyone play the Google game? You know, you Google yourself to see how noteworthy you are in this World Wide Web. Well, I did it tonight curious to see just how far I’ve come.

Well, to my surprise, I’ve made it up to 5-7 pages (it seemed to fluctuate as I searched). I was quite impressed and pleased with myself, until I got to the final pages of nonsense. Squeezed between some Facebook friend lists were random sites that led to nothing when you clicked on them and a couple of sites in foreign languages I’ve never spoken. So, how did my name get associated with these? Then as I got to the end of my search, I came across a few listings of random words all meld together with variations of my name and other words that simply made me blush and fear what I’d encounter if I were to click on the link.

Yet, I was curious. How did I become associated with such sites I’d never been on before? Have I slipped through the cracks of other searches and sites and stuck to the unseemly and strange? Am I like the tags I attach to my very own blogs, guiding and sometimes misguiding people through what they seek and what they didn’t need to see?

Or have I been hacked? My name is even associated with some site labeled as “hacked” something or other. I know my Myspace and Hotmail accounts have been compromised several times and I’ve had to frequently change my passwords and such. Could this all be a result of that? I wonder.

And then I wonder what others would think. I know I’d wonder what someone had been up to if I found his or her name on such sketchy sites. 

The only thing that seems to be missing is attaching my name to some terrorist group’s site. Or maybe it already is and I’m just unaware of it. Seriously, I joke, but think how scary that would be. As if I wasn’t a bit scared and unsettled about the whole ordeal right now.

Seriously, one of the sites, as freaky as the description of it seemed (it lists all kinds of things from the state of Virginia to cardiology to the unmentionable), seems a bit legitimate with an .org url, but when I click on it, the intro looks like something from a cult or something and I was just too afraid to enter the site.

Does anyone have any answers?

What’s a girl to do?

This past week away from work has truly been amazing for me.

It started out smoothly on the way to Atlanta. I admit, I was extremely apprehensive driving out about 45 minutes to Newport News to catch my flight. Planes these days seem to make me nervous, and my sleepy dash to the airport didn’t seem to ease that at all.

But I was able to meander through traffic effortlessly, until I missed my exit. 

What was I to do? Suddenly, it started raining and cars began to pile up in front of me and time continued to march on. And just getting off at the next exit turned into a long, time consuming task. (Who knew the next exit wasn’t going to be for a couple of miles down the road?) Once I got off, however, I was surprised at how easy it was to backtrack my way to the airport.

And as I found my way to a cheap parking lot, things just seemed to come into place. The minute I pulled my bag out of the truck and questioned how wet I’d get sloshing my way to checkin, a free shuttle pulled up right next to me. And as I boarded the plan, my anxiety about not paying the extra $6 to pick out my own seat each way disappeared as I found myself seated in an aisle seat (my favorite choice), not too far back in the plane. And the ride to Atlanta was surprisingly smooth—my first turbulence-free flight in years.

Once I got off of the plane and made my way toward baggage claim, all of my worries melted away as I encountered two big chunks of my heart materialize in human form in front of me: Taryn, one of my oldest and dearest friends in the world, and her daughter, my new god-daughter, Sydney Ali, the new apple of my eye.

My time in Atlanta celebrating Taryn’s marriage, meeting her husband, meeting all of her girlfriends, seeing her mom and sister, getting to see how big her niece has gotten, taking care of Syndey and catching up on lost time was exhausting, yet energizing. It was exactly what I’d needed.

While I’ve embraced Virginia Beach as an adventure for me, it has been an extremely lonely one. But it has been one that has made me so much more appreciate all of the people in my life that truly love me and provide those touchstones and sounding boards in my life.

And after I returned back to Virginia and had a day of much needed sleep, I began to miss my Syndey and Taryn so much!! But then it was time for the Wave Church Conference…

These past few days spent at church have been amazing! And to think, I actually thought about not showing up. Seriously, I’d paid for it all, but I thought about just sitting at home throughout the session and kind of just thinking about the money spent toward my registration as just a donation to the church.

But each day, I have been so inspired by such speakers as Judah Smith, Mark Crow, Joel Houston, Bayless Conley, Carl Lentz, and Chris Hill. If you want to know all about it and all about how the whole week has been such a blessing, I’ll tell you in detail, as I have told my mom and friend Arturo. But I can’t begin to write all about it here.

What I can say is that it was exactly what I needed at this point in my life and all of the messages pointed to one word that felt like it was just for me. God had a purpose for me being here this week.

But no sooner than hearing about how much God has in store for us and how much He wants to do in our lives and how the enemy tries to regularly attack our thoughts, my mind was almost immediately under attack.

Just as I finished telling my mom about how amazing the week had been and how excited I was about going home to celebrate my 30th birthday and be surrounded my friends and people that truly love me, I searched to travel Web sites to find that I can no longer afford to come home. 

For a little more than a month, I have been waiting for my editor to decide who gets off for Thanksgiving and who has to stay and work. But after she still has yet to get back to us all, I decided that I would just chose to fly out of Virginia the day after Thanksgiving instead. Only now, I can no longer find plane tickets that I can afford. 

While I know that this is not the end of the world, it this moment, it feels like it. Yet, I recognize that this is an enemy attack on my thoughts. How can I put into action the lessons I learned this week? How will I not shrivel in defeat at the first sign of adversity? What’s a girl to do?