A few weeks back I implemented disqus comments on my blog.  I really like the way they were threaded.  You could reply to a specific comment and the reply would appear directly below the comment you were replying to.

However, I have had lots of problems with it. Lack of notifications of new comments, comments that were not spam were being marked as spam by the disqus system as well as some other problems.

I have decided to remove disqus from all three of my blogs.  I spent hours trying to figure out how to import all my disqus comments back to the blog.  After being thoroughly frustrated trying to track down that information on their site I gave up.

So, if you commented on any of the last few posts they are gone.  Feel free to comment again if you would like.  But you will have to do it on this post and tell me which one you are commenting on because when I removed disqus it closed comments on all the threads that originally had disqus.  If not I understand.

In short, they have a great idea but the service simply doesn't work as advertised, and when you have a problem answers are nearly impossible to find.  I am going to try to slowly copy and paste them all back from the disqus website

Hopefully it will work.

I followed your lead and took the leap.
Scared to death I wouldn't land on my feet.

But I landed on a path obscured from my vision
by the box surrounding me created by religion.

At first I was scared without the restriction.
No church, no pastor to pile on the conviction.

Who was going to tell me what I should do?
Without my leaders superior knowledge of you.

Through a faith smaller than a mustard seed.
I more hoped than believed you for what I need.

With love so undeserving you took my hand.
And showed me mercy I could not understand.

You patiently showed me my rules had no place.
Replacing the voids left behind with your grace.

Because of the sacrifice you made for me
I can cast off the box, and truly live free.

For anyone who ever read my other blog "The Untried" it is back up with an explanation at the end of the most recent post.  I hope you will check it out.

I used to pray others would look at my life and see you in the middle.
But looking back now it seems small, I've been praying for too little.

As I go about each day Lord, and I look into each face
Let me see every one of them through your eyes of grace

Don't let me see simply a family member, friend, or even a boss.
Allow me to see the person for whom you died on that cross.

Don't let me see them as a stereotype, an age, or by a vocation
Allow me to see each one of them as part of your beloved creation

Perhaps the best way for others to look at me and see Jesus inside
Is for my vision of them to come through the lenses of your eyes.

I married a beautiful young woman many years ago when I was bolder.
Over the years she has gotten more beautiful and I've just gotten older.

To this day she laughs at my jokes, and I delight in her laughter.
I'm glad she married for better or worse, not just happily every after.

We've come through tribulations, trials, and a constant lack of money.
But she still stands by my side, she even still calls me honey.

Lord this poem is to thank you for my wife, I find none to be above her.
And to express to my companion in life ,Melissa, just how much I love her.

Sam owned a large apple orchard.  Now Sam knew that you could tell a healthy tree by it's fruit.  With this knowledge Sam developed a system to determine how to examine the fruit of each tree to determine it's level of health.

The system Sam developed involved dividing each tree into a grid of many sections.  Overall, the system was fairly intuitive.  A few sectors of bad fruit were expected and tolerated from any given tree.  Minimal effort was put into fixing the bad areas if they were few.  As a matter of fact it seems the same two or three sectors were bad on all the trees.

Of course, any tree that began to exhibit bad fruit in too many sectors was put on a prescribed treatment designed to bring it back into compliance with the system he had so carefully devised.  If the treatment worked the tree would be given back it's classification as a healthy member of the orchard.  Any tree he could not bring back into line with the system he had devised would be thrown out of the orchard, no longer considered part of the group. 

There were certain sectors on every tree that absolutely must bear fruit that Sam found to be healthy.  If any one of these sectors was ever found to have any the slightest blemish to a single piece of fruit the whole tree was thrown out as completely unacceptable.  It didn't matter if every other piece of fruit on the tree was perfect, these particular imperfections resulted in immediate removal from the orchard.

Most of the time other orchard owners would come by and examine the trees that Sam threw out.  Oddly enough the other owners often found that the fruit Sam considered so unhealthy to be perfectly healthy to them.  These trees were plucked up and planted in the orchards of the new owners.

The only trees that never seemed to get picked up for replanting in another orchard were ones that had even the slightest imperfection in section B2.  Those trees were considered unacceptable by all the other owners.  All of the owners would rather let trees with perceived blemishes in sector B2 die than include them as part of their orchards.

Fortunately for the B2 trees there was someone who looked at them and didn't see them as all the rest of the owners did.  The Great Owner simply loved all the trees.  He viewed even those rejected by the rest of the owners as beautiful.  In his eyes they were worthy of love and caring.  He took these trees scorned by the rest of the owners. 

The Great Owner didn't plant these trees in his own personal orchard confined by boundaries and fences.  Rather, he planted them in places where they had the freedom to grow in all their beauty.  Instead of judging them based on a system.  He judged them based on his love for each of them.  His love resulted in grace that accepted each tree as he lovingly grew them in his way. 

Some of them ended up in beautiful meadows, others by peaceful streams, all of them in places where they had space for their roots to grow.  Their branches were able to spread in a show of thanks and praise to the Great Owner.  In the end those trees grown with the freedom, love and care of the Great Owner ended up being stronger, more beautiful, and more healthy than those raised with the guidelines and systems of the other owners.