On Thursday, April 26th at around 5:30pm our blog reached the 100,000 views marker. At the time of writing this post it stands at around 101,500 views.

In previous posts I have asserted that this blog has no ulterior motives other than sharing with you, this part of our life’s journey with Jesus. We have no visions of grandeur or any slight change to our original intention now that we have reached this viewing milestone. It’s never been about the numbers. And certainly, reaching this number is not exactly something to celebrate. This blog only exists because my dear wife is struggling with cancer.

However, we are pleased that our small voice can be added to the millions of testimonies of God’s grace, mercy and power in the thick of our suffering with and for Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Not all of those voices will be in the blogsphere. Not all of them will be heard or noticed by many. But the Lord notices. He hears and cares.

As the blog views grow I am informed by WordPress (the blogging host) that viewers may see the occasional advertisement appear on posts from time to time. I caught a Sky TV advert at the foot of one of our posts recently. However, this is out of our control and certainly we receive nothing for it. This blog is hosted for free by WordPress and those things are outside of our influence.

As far as we have control, we want to keep this blog pure and innocent of any marketing or advertising. What I am about to write does not undo that!

People sometimes ask:

“Will Annie ever write something on the blog?”

I assure you that Annie is always aware that she is free to contribute a post at any time! Annie is nonetheless a writer and nonetheless writing! However, her preference for writing is reserved for paper and ink!

Before we were married Annie would often send me handwritten letters, adorned with stickers, sketches, hand crafted pockets and pull-outs and a variety of fiddly embellishments; to this day she continues to write cards and letters to many.

Annie is also a published songwriter.

Recently she has written the words to a song that now features on the debut EP of a sweet Christian indie-gospel-folk band (there’s a better term for the genre but this will suffice for now!) named Asaph. Asaph include two of our dearest friends, brother and sister, Tim and Patience (Nub) Wells. The blood of Jesus and the love of singing His praises in music and song glues us together.

Annie’s Song (as it is also entitled) was written while Annie was going through a very difficult period during her first bout of cancer. It is testimonial. Open, sincere, honest and hopeful; if there’s a genre for that, then gospel and soul would be a fitting place to file it.

Asaph’s EP was recorded and produced with Risen Records in late summer 2011 and Tim has a limited stack of around 140 original EPs available. I spoke to T&P about the possibility of making those available to purchase via our blog seeing that it featured ‘Annie’s Song’. They were most humble about the offer! They don’t wish to make any profit. But they are happy to make the album available at the basic price to cover the costs of production which they themselves funded and the post and packaging.

Very shortly, I will create a post with a form where you can send your request for purchase. The limited edition thing is not a tactic! There really are only that many left. If it should receive great demand, then we can figure out what we should do via their friends at the record label.

If you’re keen to get a hold of the EP, watch this space!

R&A