Two weeks ago, I sat typing at home when I looked out of the window and noticed gathering clouds and a darkening sky.
It was about 9 in the morning.
I checked on the weather and learned there was a severe thunderstorm headed our way.
I panicked; rushed around the house, shut off electrics, windows and blinds. (It’s two years since I moved to the US and I haven’t adjusted to the east coast weather).
It wasn’t long before I realized I was on full-fear mode. I sat me by the couch.
“God is watching over you, you know” I reminded myself
The thunder was so loud and lightning so fierce I couldn’t concentrate on anything. So I rested.
And slept!
I woke up two hours later to blue skies and beautiful sunshine.
I sent a text to my husband who was at work
“Would you believe, I slept through the storm!”
“Ah yes the biblical principle.” He texted back “When in a storm, go to sleep!” (referencing Jonah’s story in the Bible)
We joked around and I believed I had learned a great lesson.
A few days later, my website got hacked.
At first I was surprised, (who would anyone want to hack my little website!?)
But surprise quickly turned to frustration, then anger, then fear.
Mercifully at some point I began to feel weird about my see-sawing emotions.
The “sit-me-down” moment of the previous week played out again as I began to see the situation for what it truly was.
While I love blogging and helping people and I want to steward everything well, writing and helping people is a gift.
It’s not my life.
Loosing my peace and my mind over a gift, no matter how much effort I’ve put towards it, would mean some values and priorities were out of order.
So last week, I purposed to stay in faith, do my part but go on with my life.
Which meant no obsessing over details and pace of restoration.
Or acting up in my marriage (why are we so unlovely when stretched?)
Some lessons for bloggers on WordPress
I host with a small hosting company, who went out of their way to clean up the site and get everything back to normal, free of charge.
Yeah, true story. That blew my mind too. (If you have a small or medium sized blog, you’ll want to check out New Blog Hosting )
There’s a couple of things we can do as bloggers to protect our sites
1. Have good and strong passwords
2. Keep your theme, WordPress and all plugins up to date.
Questions – If you are a blogger, have you ever gone through a similar experience (hacking)? How do you generally handle the storms of life?
I once got hacked. It was terrifying. It was stressful. But to be honest, I forgot about it until you started mentioning that you got hacked. Once you get through it, it’s not really a big deal 🙂
i remember when you got hacked. I prayed to never get hacked ever 🙁 I think the aftermath hangs around for days before it begins wears off..lol. But once it’s gone, its gone. Thank God!
I remember last year my blog was down for about a week It was a frustrating time though I was able to handle the simple problem (It was simple once I found out the issue). I think it’s time for me to update my password, maybe 123 is not the best:) hehe, just kidding.
I’m glad your back!
haha too funny Dan!
yes am glad to be back, thanks!
Wow, sorry to hear about that. You did handle it well… and I love your husband’s response to the storm. Reminds me of how Jesus slept in the boat during the story while the disciples were freaking out 🙂 I truly enjoy your posts!
Yup, I married up Dave! He is a wise man! 🙂 Thanks for that mention, the sentence is actually linked to that story in Mark 4:38 🙂
Am glad you enjoy the posts..thanks so much.
Wow, hope thinga are allright now. I’ve never been hacked so far. What are some signals that I’ve been hacked?
yup, all’s good now. God is good! it pretty much depends on the kind of hacking i think. but mostly the site will go wonky 🙂 For me my main page was scrambled/defaced and the posts were on/off (sometimes accessible other times completely inaccessible). I couldn’t sign into wp admin either. Readers are awesome, so they almost always alert you when they can’t access site.
Not to say you will be hacked..lol.
Haha, well this is a good sign to know. I’ll listen to Kimanzi’s advice and see if there’s any plug-ins available to prevent any potential hacking. It’s great that you’re back live and forging head on.
I must confess, I dread the Texas thunderstorms…the sound is pretty crazy…really beyond comprehension. So, I definitely understand your position.
I’ve never had my blog hacked but imagine that I’d react much the same way! Thanks for challenging us to think about what’s truly important and our reaction when things don’t go the way we plan.
I think most of us go through abit of the same process – surprise, anger/disbelief, acceptance before we finally begin to work through things! Thanks Holly, glad the thoughts here resonated and challenged 🙂
Great post. I’m coming over from the Christian Mommy Blog Hop. We lived on the east coast for seven years. Those storms can be very scary. Now we are back home in Texas and the storms can still get pretty intense. I always have to remind myself that no matter what God is with me and my family.
That’s what am learning to remind myself, that God is with us! I come from Kenya and we don’t have storms, so this is taking time to adjust to (don’t know if i’ll ever ‘adjust’?..lol) But knowing He’s in our midst makes all the difference. Thanks so much for coming by from CMB!
Not yet 🙁 You handled it well, I would be screaming mad even though I know it wouldn’t accomplish anything. There are some good plugins to help with security and if you have an iPhone, Siri can generate secure passwords. Glad you’re back up and running!
My prayer is you never get hacked Kimanzi 🙂 It’s a pain! 🙂 I suspect you are big on security!
yes there are some good security plugins out there. I didn’t know that about siri…don’t have an iphone but that’s good info to know.
I’ve never been hacked, but your experience motivated me to finally learn how to back up my blog, which I had never done before! I also made sure everything was updated. So sorry you had to go through all that hassle!
Good for you Barb! Many of these experiences ‘motivate’ us to higher levels :). Am now also more vigilant and careful…and deeply appreciative of the community and the people that God sends our way to help.
I’ve gone down once and was completely clueless as to get it going. I have a lady; April, whom I met through blogging that fixed it for me and actually set up two business sites for me as well. This community is rich in talent and heart. Glad you’re back up and running, I feared the worst for you the day I emailed you about not being able to link to your site…
So glad you got someone to help you out Floyd. Those moments can be quite paralyzing! Thank God for such a wonderful community April sounds like a wonderful lady, if you could leave her website here for anyone coming by and needed some reference…
I really appreciated the check-up, it’s great to share the journey together.
Here is April’s website; http://designjunky.org
Thanks 🙂