Phew!  Finally!  I’m back!!!  It’s been almost two weeks since my blog got hacked and went down, but thankfully the long wait is finally over!  Thanks to a lot of hard work from some talented people (@drjohn323, @sbeshara16, and @tizmagik), FrAnthony.com is back and I’m ready to rock ‘n roll!

And in the end – as is the case with so many things in life – it actually turns out that getting hacked was a blessing in disguise.  The Bible says that “all things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8:28) and that was very true in this case.  I had been planning to redesign the site for the longest time and add some new stuff.  I wanted to add a tagline.  I wanted to redesign the commenting system.  I wanted to add some better navigation.

But it wasn’t till the site went down that I actually did any of that.  So there’s your blessing in disguise for the day (here’s a link to a great song about blessings in disguise).  So in the end, all things really do work together for good.

So what’s new on the site? 

• Higher level SECURITY package – to protect the site from hackers and spammers (behind the scenes stuff that you don’t really care about)

• A new COMMENTING system (not 100% ready yet, but almost) – the new security package is going to open the door for a new commenting system called Disqus.  The beauty here is that it will make it easier for you to post comments and hopefully will further our ability to dialogue with one another.

How it will make it easier?  The system will require you to provide some security information the first time you post a comment.  But every time thereafter, you won’t need to do that.  Once you identify yourself as a non-spammer, you’ll able to post comments without having to wait for verification or approval from the system admin.  This should make commenting much more user-friendly.

• TAG CLOUD – I know I know, I should have done this long ago.  There’s now a tag cloud on the right side which will allow you to quickly find topics that you want to read about and also show new visitors what are the most common topics discussed on my blog.

• A snazzy NEW PICTURE at the top.  Special thanks to @viedesoleil for that.

• Most importantly, MY TAGLINE!  Finding God in Everyday Life.

Those of you who follow my blog know that I’ve been struggling to find a tagline for months now.  I knew I needed one but I couldn’t find one that fit perfectly.  But I finally found it last week as we were working on the redesign.

Why do I love this tagline?  Because it is exactly what my blog is all about.  If you remember what I wrote in the very first post I ever did, I said:

I believe that the #1 problem today is that many people are living lives far away from what God envisioned for them. The purpose of this blog is to help you see where God wants you to be… how He wants you to live… what your life should look like and could look like if you allowed God to lead it for you.

In other words, my goal is to help you find God in everyday life.  He’s there.  We know He’s there.  It’s just hard to see Him sometimes.  But hopefully, through my blog, you’ll be able to find Him – and His plan for your life – a little bit easier.

Welcome to my blog (once again).