You Can't Delete the Resurrection

Anyone who has ever written with a computer knows how scary it is. Where are your words? I know they're on that disk—but where? Back in the typewriter days, a writer could at least fondle his precious manuscript. Now he trusts the fondling to cold, heartless memory chips deep inside his word box.

About a month ago, I thought I had lost nearly half of a book I was writing. Where were my words? I couldn't find them. I put my thumb in my mouth. I stomped. I cried for my mommy. Nothing worked. Because unless you have spent forty-five minutes debating whether to use the word "babbling" or "gurgling" to describe a river, then you cannot imagine the horror of losing the labor of twenty or thirty thousand similar decisions.

In my agony, I went downstairs and complained to my wife. She was sympathetic, telling me we were having chili for supper and—would I care for crackers?

In my dark hour, God gave me a thought: Words. That's all I was caring about. My family was healthy, my home was waterproof, my health was good—what were mere words compared to those blessings? But even that was nothing.

What is the most important thing of all? I asked myself. Wasn’t it that God's Son assumed flesh and died on the cross to save the likes of me, and that nothing could ever separate me from His love?

Now there was something that no man or computer could erase. This comforted me. It comforted me a lot.

Then it hit me, five simple words: You can't delete the resurrection.

"Delete" is one of the most heart-thumping words a writer storing electronic words can hear. One zip, and his words are poised on the edge of oblivion. One zap, and they're gone.

But not the resurrection.

"You can't delete the resurrection!" I came stomping into the kitchen, slapping my knee, slapping the counter, slapping everything. "You can't delete the resurrection!" I ran up to my three year-old son and put a finger in his startled face: "You can't delete the resurrection!" Then the poor baby got a face full of my trembling digit: "You can't delete the resurrection!" Then my wife Melody, who was trying to crumble crackers into her chili, suddenly saw my fingernail inches from her eye: "You can't delete the resurrection!"

It was good news to everybody, whether they liked it or not.

An hour later, I'm not sure how, I found my words. God put me through that just so I could think of that wonderful saying to share: "You can't delete the resurrection!"

I wish He'd quit doing things like that.