Lady Jennie is living the dream — she married a real Frenchman and lives in France where she eats and cooks French food. And she writes the blog A Lady in France, so we can all live vicariously through her. Her food posts are divine torture, for which she was nominated as a BlogHer Voice of Year for 2011 for her post on Laduree Macarons (drool alert). Her blog isn’t overtly Christian, so she was delighted to write more openly about her faith today on mine, while I race around doing laundry and packing and prophylaxing with anti-diarrheals for Bolivia.

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I don’t know about you, but when I write a blog post, I pore over every single word.  I delight in expressing thoughts in an aptly turned phrase.  I delight in sharing who I am and having that personal connection when people read and comment.  And as much as I use pictures in my posts, I am pleased as punch when I succeed in creating colorful imagery simply by using words.  I think about what I wrote, whether or not it moves people, whether or not I am heard, whether or not people leave chewing on what I said or if they forget it the minute they close the browser.

It finally occurred to me after neglecting my Bible reading for some time, that it would not be astonishing if God felt much the same way about what he wrote.  I mean, he put a lot of effort into his work, and every part of it shares so much of who he is.  His words are both brilliantly expressed and achingly vulnerable.

On top of that, in everything he writes, his desire to connect with his readers is palpable.

So it made me wonder … do I follow God’s blog?

Do you?

He is, after all, the most widely read of all blogs, topping both the Pioneer Woman and the Bloggess in followers.  He earns more money from his written word than J.K. Rowling did from hers.

And he is the hands-down Voice of the Year (Lifetime? Century? Eternity?) in several categories.  For those of you who haven’t seen the awards, fear not; I’m including some of the excerpts right here.  If you don’t follow him already, you’ll be moved to add him to your Google Friend Connect in no time at all.

And now, without further ado, let me present …

The Almighty Blog, Winner of:

People’s Choice Award for Humor

So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”

But the people said nothing.
Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only one of the LORD’s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. Get two bulls for us. Let Baal’s prophets choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire—he is God.”

Then all the people said, “What you say is good.”

Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.” So they took the bull given them and prepared it.

Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.

At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.

1 Kings 18:20-29

People’s Choice Award for Poetic Imagery (or Racy Romance)

How beautiful you are, my darling! 
Oh, how beautiful! 
Your eyes behind your veil are doves. 
Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from the hills of Gilead.
Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn, coming up from the washing. 
Each has its twin; not one of them is alone.
Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon; 
your mouth is lovely. 
Your temples behind your veil 
are like the halves of a pomegranate. 
Your neck is like the tower of David, 
built with courses of stone; 
on it hang a thousand shields, 
all of them shields of warriors. 
Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies.
Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, 
I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of incense.
You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you.

Song of Solomon 4:1-7

People’s Choice Award for Wit

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”
Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”
But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided.
Then they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.”

The man replied, “He is a prophet.”

They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”

“We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”
He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”

Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”

He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?”

John 9:13-27

People’s Choice Award for Scathing Retort

On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

Luke 13:10-17

People’s Choice Award for Women’s Rights

At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

John 8:2-8

People’s Choice Award for Positive Affirmation

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long; 
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:31-39

People’s Choice Award for Piercing Drama

Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance. And when some there had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight. She looked closely at him and said, “This man was with him.”

But he denied it. “Woman, I don’t know him,” he said.

A little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.”

“Man, I am not!” Peter replied.

About an hour later another asserted, “Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean.”
Peter replied, “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed.

The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.

Luke 22:54-61

People’s Choice Award for Lifetime Achievement

From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”

Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”

Matthew 27:45-54

Don’t even get me started on the People’s Choice Award for Plot.  The entry is too long to include, but you can find this award winning post in Esther (1-10)and here.

Now come – let’s all go give God some CommentLuv.