This week I received an email from Amazon saying, “We terminated your account due to violations of our Terms and Conditions.” This isn’t the Amazon account that I use for buying things. This is the Amazon account that I’ve used for the past 17 years to self-publish over 40 of my books!
As of Wednesday, all my books disappeared from Amazon in an instant. 17 years… gone overnight!
But I’m not worried. Why? Because God has a way of preparing us for tragic endings—and turning them into new beginnings—even when we may not see it at the time.
That’s what Bo and I talked about on our podcast this week. You can watch at the link below or keep reading and I’ll share some highlights.
As Christians, we know that death isn’t the end. In fact, death often leads to a resurrection.
When Jesus died on Good Friday, that wasn’t the end. That was the lead-up to His resurrection on Sunday.
For Jesus’ disciples, it wasn’t until after His resurrection that they realized He had been preparing them for both days all along.
As John says, Jesus told the religious leaders:
“Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days” (John 2:19).
And when Jesus said it, the religious leaders thought He was talking about the temple in front of them. They said:
“This temple took forty-six years to build, and You are going to raise it up in three days?” (John 2:20).
But John also adds this:
“But Jesus was speaking about the temple of His body. After He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this. Then they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken” (John 2:21-22).
Jesus said it even more clearly, on multiple occasions, in the books of Matthew:
“From that time on Jesus began to explain to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life” (Matthew 16:21).
“When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.’ And the disciples were filled with grief” (Matthew 17:22–23).
“We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!” (Matthew 20:18-19).
Sometimes it’s only after the fact that we realize—and recognize—that God was preparing us all along. And what looked like a death was actually leading to a resurrection.
In my case, over the past 3 months, I have been working diligently on updating all 40 of my books, converting them into audiobooks, and uploading them to my own website to offer them for free to anyone, anywhere, at any time. I have a lifetime of stories about how God has worked in my life, and I’ve loved writing and sharing them in multiple ways over the years.
But toward the end of last year, I felt God was prompting me to put them all in one place, with no hindrances to anyone reading them at all… no paywalls, no specialty apps or accounts, no ads, no frills. Just pour out to others what He has poured into me.
So I’ve been rereading, updating, and in some cases re-covering all of my books. It’s been a monumental task. An emotional task. And a rewarding task.
When I added up all the words I’ve written and published, it came to 810,750. To give that some perspective, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare has 835,997 words. I’m a mere 25,247 words away from catching up to the complete works of William Shakespeare! Wow! (And yes, I’m the first to admit there are many differences between his words and mine!)
But still, in terms of writing down what God has done in my life, I feel like I’ve only just begun to capture all the stories. I feel like I’m just getting started in sharing them with anyone who needs a boost in their faith, an encouraging word, or the confidence that He really is there, and that He really does care.
Rather than keeping my stories on a shelf or behind a paywall or printed on bits of wood and glue—God has made a way to set those stories free online to the world in bits and bytes that know no bounds.
Am I disappointed that Amazon terminated my account so abruptly, after all these years of what I thought was a win-win relationship for both of us? Yes. But had God been preparing me for that possibility these last 3 months? Also, yes!
In fact, just two weeks ago I finished updating and uploading all of my books to my website and ordered 1 copy of each of my books from Amazon as I had just updated them all. On Wednesday of this week, the same day I got the email that my account was terminated, I received the last 2 paperbacks of all those books I had ordered. The same day!
What could have been a death blow has been little more than a brush of wind that dissipated quickly. Perhaps they’ll restore my account. Perhaps not. But either way, I know this: God was preparing me for this moment. Now, I can either dwell on the “death” or look forward to the “new life” that God has in front of me. And in front of you! Because now you can read to your heart’s content. :)
“The old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthian 5:17).
To read, download, or listen to any of my books, visit https://inspiringbooks.com
And to watch my podcast with Bo where we unpack these ideas a little more, visit https://youtu.be/zYgHRRw22w0
I pray you have a blessed Easter! Let Jesus pour out His life on you in a special way, too.
Love,
Eric Elder writes for page, stage & screen to glorify God’s name so Christ may be seen! Use this link to subscribe or unsubscribe.