From the start in 2014, April the 26th
On 2014 April 26 we started offering a readers digest to you. We wanted to have different writers presenting their selection of most interesting articles found on the net. We regret we did not find enough people interested in co-operating to create a free lifestyle magazine where people could find uplifting stories.
We started talking about the dreams we all have or have to have, because he who beams never walks in the dark, and looked at our position in this world and how positivism should enter this world more. Our invitation to you reader to share those read articles you liked is still counting. We would love to present more interesting articles people can find on the net. For this reason we started the Reblog section in 2014, when we looked if we or you have something to say or not.
At the opening of 2016 we would like to remind you that you too are invited to share with us. You too may be sharing your words with us and many more readers. You don’t have to stay in the shadow.
At this site we want to speak about feelings and started to look at the worst feeling, the one which pulls us down. Depression is when we can’t walk in the light of life any more. Our intention is to show that each of us matter in this world and that we can get fate in our change to positiveness. You and us we all can contribute and help to create a positive attitude. You have to get the right attitude of an unstoppable success, and once more we do bring a call to help to create a positive attitude.
You may consider your own journey in life but we dared to ask which kind of attitude you want to take. In 2014, when we started we asked our readers to begin their day by living their positive attitude and in started also to point out to look at the way to come to the truth. We went in defence of it. For that, we also started looking at Who should be your closest friend.
Though we may be lonely in the crowd we wanted to build up a place where many could find each other and could overcome hurt feelings. we do not ask people to be some one else, but would love to see you smiling and with a positive attitude or positive disposition.
Perhaps what we hope for is what you hope for. In September 2014 we repeated our call to come to write for us and to share what you think interesting. A year after our question what our readers are seeking we did not receive many answers. We expressed our love to find more contributors who could show ways of fulfilling our dreams. We do hope you could find inspiration here and follow your dreams.
In 2015 finishing our first year
On the first of January we, like many others looked back at the previous year and presented our first review: 2014 in review.
Our first year we got visitors from 71 countries in all. 13 countries were added in 2015 bringing the total to 84 countries in all, with most visitors again coming from The United States (2467). Netherlands (351) & United Kingdom (341) were not far behind. Based in Belgium we only could get the attention of 181 viewers in Belgium in 2015, which is not much, but which can be caused by not many writings being in Dutch, French or German. We are pleased we also got 141 viewers from Down Under.
Knowing that we need light on our path in life, near the end of 2015 we also started placing some reflections or meditations texts, which we shall continue to do. Because we did so often got questions why we referred to some ones website article, or got requests to take some listed article out of the list of “Further reading” we shall enter less references or note lesser further readings. Normally you would think people would be pleased when there is placed a link to their site, but at several of our websites we got an other impression, hearing people not being pleased they being mentioned on one of our sites. Not being appreciated we bringing others to their writings or commenting on their writings, plus they not understanding we are helping them to get more readers and to get higher on the Google ranking, whilst we take them away from our own website, we will not any more invest so much time in looking for appropriate articles worth mentioning. Therefore in the future you will find lesser links and we shall be pleased keeping you more to our own websites.
Treats, fear and discussions in 2015
2015 was again a year were many civil rights were tread under foot. The Syrian war continued for its fourth year and brought many war refugees into Europe, a region where many do not seem to know themselves very well because kindness to others seemed to be far off. Though we are born to shine, not to fear, lots of people got over-manned by fear. At a time where there is not much knowledge of the truth, but lots of doubt and/or blindness, we tried to convince that less is still enough.
While viral moments and trends or fads, that took up lots of people their time and their Twitter feeds included viral phenomenon The Dress, pizza rat, dad bods and adult coloring books we looked at the major refugee crisis in Europe as well as numerous instances of terrorism and mass shootings. Whilst July, Caitlyn Jenner made her big debut via a sexy and scantily clad Vanity Fair cover shot…and her new reality was officially underway we also look at how we human beings manage with birth, our being and our behaviour and acceptance or not of certain situations. Bringing articles around abortion and life we were pleased to have as our 5 most active commenter Blackhorn33 who is Comanche – Irish and a half-breed that’s Full Blooded American, who with “Our Circle of Friends” met on Google and was willing to contribute about Child Abuse -The Facts, and show the world the importance of the unborn life.
A place for a Higher Being and for His Creation

“Stockholmsfyrens” ungefärliga utseende vid Ropsten med vy från hotell Forestas entréplan på Lidingö. Det runda 187 m höga tornet innehållande både bostäder och kontorslokaler är föreslaget att uppföras omkring 2014-2015. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
With less for more we looked at one of the major discussed issues of the year, bringing global warming and climate change at the second place and the refugees at the first place as major topics for 2015. Pointing out that it is important that we do know that we have to find the meaning of life and reach a state of peace, of old and new ideas to sustain power and to feel good by loving to be connected and worship something, we brought to the attention that we have our duties in this world and have to take our responsibility,making the right engagement in an actual two way conversation with your deities or more important to build up a good relationship with the Only One True God, the Divine Creator.
Throughout the year on this and our other sites we wanted to bring to understanding that we do have to come in a good relationship with others and with the Most High, even when we sometimes have to deal with the silence of God.
We asked not to forget that falsehood darkens the pure knowledge of God and that we should always turn to the Book of books, the Bible, to find the truth and Guidance. But to come to know the Creator and His creatures and creation, we do have to look with our eyes and to see with our heart. Some may think “God plays hide’n seek“, but He is always around us and sees everything we do.
The Almighty God above all other gods greater than all gods has given us His infallible Word, the Bible, helmet of salvation, God’s Words put in the mouth of prophets for perfecting, to reprove and correct. Searching or overlooking God’s presence more people do have to find His Word and take up that book that is Written by inspiration of God for our admonition, to whom it shall be imputed if they believe.
2015 once more showed to the world that human beings need a lot of correction. It was good to see that in France many nations also came to conclusion we have urgently to take care of mother earth. In this world were many have to learn that stuff is just stuff, it became time that man takes his position about materialistic desires.
The terrors which came over Europe should make those who call themselves Christian to think and have them remind and hear God’s voice, bringing them into the habit of dealing with God about everything.
Statistics for 2015
In 2015, there were 295 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 525 posts. On the 12th of January in total 534 articles have been published on this site.
The busiest day of the year was October 19th with 175 views. The most popular post that day was Whoopi Goldberg commandments and abortion. But the most commented on post in 2015 was Bible, helmet of salvation, God’s Words put in the mouth of prophets for perfecting, to reprove and correct.
For 2016
We are thankful that you came along on this site and do hope to find you more than once at this and some other of our sites. We wish you all the best for 2016 and do hope you may be like a tree planted by streams of water.
Have faith in your faith…doubt your doubts and don’t throw a curtain across tomorrow… the star of its performance just may be you !
There still has to be done a lot before we shall have sustainable, green habits as a second nature, but at this site we do hope to bring incentives to work at it.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,300 times in 2015. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.
Click here to see the complete report.
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Preceding: 2014 in review
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Additional reading
- A look at materialism
- Our you taking a step back to think
- US must do more to protect its children
- Summary for the year 2015 #1 Threat and fear
- Summary for the year 2015 # 2 Strewn with corpses and refugees
- 2015 In the Picture
- 2015 Human rights
- 2015 Health and Welfare
- 2015 Ecology
- Vatican against Opponents of immigration
- Greenpeace demands scale up of ecological farming
- Building a low-carbon world: the sixth industrial revolution
- Republican member of Congress from Arizona to boycott pope’s address over climate change
- Vatican meeting of mayors talking about global warming, human trafficking and modern-day slavery
- Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #1
- Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #2
- Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #3
- 2015 Summit of Consciences for the Climate
- A Miracle of Unity at COP21
- Charlie Hebdo
- Belgian Bible Students review of 2015
- Bijbelvorsers Blogging annual report and 2015 in review
- Refugee crisis, terrorist attacks and created fear
- Before you blame All Muslims for the terrorist attack in Paris
- The first on the list of the concerns of the saint
- Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience
- The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands
- Hidden potential for helping others
- Only one person who has the power to cast the deciding vote that will kill your dream
- Have faith in your faith…doubt your doubts
- The inspiring divine spark
- Healthy life can be found in sacred books
- Bible, best Book of books to get to know the truth
- Written to whom it is about to be reckoned
- No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation
- By temptations, by signs, and by wonders we can see the Works of God
- A Bible Falling Apart Belongs to Someone who isn’t
- A heart in the right place and brightly burning faith
- For attractive lips, speak words of kindness
- If you want to go far in life
- Spread love everywhere you go
- Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair
- The truest greatness lies in being kind
- Kindness
- Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness
- Be kinder than necessary
- He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass
- Taking care of mother earth
- No curtain placed over tomorrow
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Further about what happened in 2015
- MSN 2015 in review
- 2015 in review: Memorable Journeys on EP
- 2015 Wrap Up!
- My most difficult travel moments of 2015
- The 2015 Eternal Hunt Awards, pt. 2: The Hobbyists
- Stay within the lines – or not!
- coloring to de-stress; I’ve joined the craze!
- Art and the Holidays
- Whatever Is Lovely
- Intuitive Coaching 101–Zen & The Art of Coloring Books
- Adults Coloring Kaleidoscopic Creatures
- Unique Sugar Gliders Chinchillas Reptile Adult Coloring Books
- Adult Coloring Worldwide & Tangle With Jessica Palmers Hidden Treasures
- What Amazon’s 2015 Bestsellers Say About Us
- Winter 2015: The rest of the field…
- Grandad, I can smell you …
- Kaleidoscope of 2015
- Reflecting on 2015
- My 2015 In Year Review
- 2015 In Review… (adventuretimealpacamybag)
- 2015 In Review (ingridandjimmy)
- 50 Things that made me smile in 2015
- The Year That Was…2015
- Favorite-est things from #2015
- Be Looking at 2015 in review
- 2015 in Review: Paradise River, Dusk
- The Obsessive Viewer Podcast – Ep 148 – 2015 in Review – Best and Worst Movies of the Year and Viewing Stats
- Looking Back at 2015
- Year in Review
- New Zealand’s 2015: the year we hid from a world in need
- End of the Year Survey 2015!
- 2015 in transit
- A New Year: 2015 In Review and Plans for 2016!
- Bye bye 2015 and welcome 2016
- Start 2016 with a Backwards Slide
- Let’s Commence to Coordinate our Sights
- Flee from Idolatry
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Readers, likes and comments
Mostly the articles placed on this and our other platforms are not so much placed to open a debate, or better said are no part of a “forum”.
that does not mean we do not like to receive reactions like “likes” or some comments. You can imagine that it takes time to create a post and when we can notice in the statistics that they are read. That may be a stimulant to continue, but also to see a reaction brought by the reader, either by clicking on the “like” or “share” button, this last one giving us the opportunity to receive more readers for that particular article.
Voxate Writing & Editing which was established in 2008 and since then, has been providing writing, editing and SEO services for South African and international clients writes
On this site you may find a.o. news articles which discusses current events or recent news of either general interest. Bringing such headlines or talking about recent incidents we do want to bring up some thoughts around those affairs. They are used to focus the reader’s attention on a particular (or main) part of the article or that what we think is important for people who want to make something of our society. At the same time looking at what we think may be a major event we also try to give facts and detailed information following answers to general questions like the Five W’s: who, what, when, where, why and how.
Our intention is also to offer some encyclopedia articles or reference works, offering a more in-depth informative article with a primary division of content. For this we are still looking for more contributors, willing to share their knowledge around specific subjects like ‘life’, ‘living’, ‘history’, ‘culture’.
This Blog as such may have blog articles which are like magazine or newspaper articles whilst others may be written more like entries in a personal journal. More important as lifestyle magazine we do hope we may offer some different opinions about several important life issues, of which the religious and spiritual aspects are not gone out of the way.
Being aware that today not many people have lots of time to read serious articles, we do love to present on this site an overview of articles we think would be interesting to read. Therefore we offer next to our own articles a selection of reblogged posts. We may not bring a Listicle, or a specific article whose primary content is a list, but at the end of the postings presented over here we also do try to offer a listing of other additional readings or related articles we could select from the blogging world. We also do hope to bring here a sort of Readers Digest and are still hoping some more writers would join us to help us to succeed in those efforts.
Concerning the “Related articles” service we offer, we regularly do get some irritated bloggers who ask us to take their writing of the list. This discourages us a lot for doing all that research work, checking all those posts, looking for them of being of interest. Therefore we reduces already the time for searching and reading so many blogs, to look for something to share. We also can use more people to help us looking for interesting writers, photographers, to present their articles or work to our readers.
Normally we would think there must be enough people who read several blogs and would be able to find something worth reblogging, this being an extra place to do so, next to their own blog, and at the same time giving them the opportunity to link to their own articles. As such we can offer additional readers to those who are willing to join this effort of sharing information and promoting a multicultural and multicoloured world.
In our articles we talked already a lot about how we use are time and on what we are willing to spend time in our time limited day and world. Being aware that not enough people do take time to retreat and to take some time to look at things, wondering how everything is going good or bad and why certain things evolve a certain way, we are trying to bring some balance and are willing to give some material for thought. Having only certain moments a day for ourselves or to do something else than our job, being limited in time we sincerely do hope to be able to offering some interesting material. If not so let us know.
The small thoughts or quotes we offer a day, we do hope can give something to think and are a welcome meditation for the day. Perhaps they can bring you to some daydreaming or musing.
In 2014 we started and reached 1847 visitors with 3124 views offering us 263 likes. Last year we got 5018 visitors fetching 6888 views willing to give us 486 likes. We are pleased to find 279 WordPress followers and only 2 e-mail followers, making us not such a popular blog it seems. Or do you find we do not do enough our best as a team? What can we do more?
Comparing with my personal (political) site I generate 256 WordPress followers and 9 e-mail followers. It is also not so much but there I bring very personal views and spend not so much time as on my other (religious and lifestyle magazine) blogs.
Looking at the statistics it may give the impression we are not doing well or it may be very discouraging. So what can we do to make it better?
Steve Hayes also may have a similar feeling like me. He writes
WordPress does a wonderful job diverting spam from the inbox.
For me the talking we do bring here on certain matters and bringing comments on some expressions of others or on certain blogwritings is giving comments on the quoted blog, though most often nothing of our comments is quoted on the discussed page or no link to the article is mentioned. When we get some feed back it is mostly somebody who is angry that he is quoted or that we dared to link to his article. Most often when we get such reply we are asked to delete the link or the mentioning of that person’s name. For that reason it can be that after some time you come to read an article again some related articles may not appear any more in the list. Those negative reactions concerning the links to related articles made us also to decide to reduce this service we thought would be productive for both sides. What surprises us that several blog writers do forget that when they with writing on the net and not making their blog private, have the possibility that from everywhere all sorts of people may come to see and read what they have written and should as such also not be surprised when people react on their site (what we also do, but not have it appreciated all the time – certainly not on the religious front.)
One big problem is also that we daily get in a lot of spam or ridiculous mail nothing to do with the article or articles. Spam luckily enough gets straight in the Spambox to be deleted.
I do agree this blog and my ‘personal’ blog are not really blogs about me or an other person his personality. when I look at some very popular blogs I notice that most often they are about the person himself or herself or really commercial blogs without the followers noticing it or being aware of it that it is a blog full of advertisements or promotional articles. Dominic Sceski (Aul) a sixteen year-old home-schooled student formulates it this way
Are we according to you then not blogging about matters that can help you or others? We do agree we talk more than once about God and the way of life according His rules, and not so many people are interested in that. Is that a reason why we have so few followers? Is that what we try to offer our readers not something some people want?
Voxate comments
I take the liberty to reproduce the result of Voxate his inquiries posed in his article Why Reader Comments Are The Cat’s Pajamas concerning
Gaynor from Tulips and Phoenixes said:
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Steve, who blogs at Khanya, said:
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Luchae, from My Spreadsheet Brain, added:
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Lizna, from With Elizabeth H, shared a candid post about her weight struggles.
She really appreciated Ilona Fourie’s comment, which read, “What a awesome post. Whilst I was reading it so much rang true to me. I have been on a roller coaster with my weight. I have lost 26kg but have not been able to move any more in the last year. I have tried and tried and are failing miserably. It has made me so negative and I keep asking myself whats wrong with me. This is a war that few people understand and I am so grateful to have read your post!” Lizna said:
JustEllaBella also shares some really personal stuff. Ella says:
In Africa and Beyond is one of my favourite travel blogs. Sara shares some of the reader comments that touched her the most:
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Jonelle, from Tyranny of Pink, had an understandably tough time:
Shante Hutton of Rose For Thorns shared a very personal post, and valued this comment:
Beautiful Shante, your story touched me so deeply that I found it difficult not only to find words, but to actually find my voice. You told your story in such a delicate yet profound way and I’m in awe of you right now. Reading your story, your pain and then how the birth of your daughter opened your heart to this incredible love again is wonderful. And isn’t it amazing how the opening of your womb caused an opening of the heart! Like a flower you have opened and become even more beautiful than you already were.
I also lost my brother 34 years ago. I was 23 and he was 26 and because we were the last two of 8 kids, we were very close. So one sunny morning 34 years ago, I kissed him goodbye as I dropped him at work, not knowing that as I watched him walk away I would never see him again. For many years I would search for him on a crowded street or shop or anywhere thinking, it was just a mistake and that he was alive somewhere and I suppose that was how I coped.
So thank you for your story, we all need to be reminded of how God, in His infinite wisdom can bring us out of darkness and into His beautiful light.
Never forget how strong, courageous and breathtaking beautiful you are.
love n blessings
Connie
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For the Bloggers
To encourage your readers to comment more on your posts, you could:
To Wrap It Up
Don’t underestimate the power and reach of your comments on the blogs and posts of others. By using this powerful tool, you play a big part in SEO and engagement – both for the post on which you’re commenting and on your own site.
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Now we come to the end of this article, we dare to ask you some questions and perhaps you would not mind to answer some of them or to give us some advice.
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Questions you are welcome to answer
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Preceding articles
From Guestwriters 2015 in review
From Guestwriters 2016 in review
Be realistic, do not pretend
The Culture of Excesses- Losing Humanity
Thoughts and reflections taking only a few minutes
The Scensual World – Mission & Vision
Awards, prizes, Peace and Working together
Again nominated for the same award
Do you have a writer or presenter in you?
1000 articles placed on From Guestwriters
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Additional reading
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Related articles
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Tagged as 2014, 2017, 5 W's, Articles, Blog, Blogging, Commenting, Content, Encyclopedia article, Gaynor, In Africa and Beyond (blog), Information sharing, JustEllaBella (blog), Khanya (blog), Lifestyle magazine, Liking, Listicle, My Spreadsheet Brain (blog), News article, Personal journal, Reader comments, Reader reactions, Readers Digest, Reference work, Rose For Thorns (blog), Search engine optimisation (SEO), Sharing, Statistics, Steve Hayes, Travel blogs, Tulips and Phoenixes (blog), Tyranny of Pink (blog), Weight strugles, With Elizabeth H (blog)