What’s New at The Ranch

The Newsletter of Eric Elder Ministries… with helpful ways to stay strong in your faith!

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  • 17 years… gone overnight (and why I’m not worried)
    by Eric Elder

    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! Learn more at https://ericelder.com

    Eric Elder writes for page, stage & screen to glorify God’s name so Christ may be seen! Use this link to subscribe or unsubscribe.

Previous Posts

  • 17 years… gone overnight (and why I’m not worried)

    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,…

    Read more: 17 years… gone overnight (and why I’m not worried)

  • What’s your vision?

    I have a list of things I want to do this year: I listed these as the year began, but then life happened. I had to do my taxes, write a will, rebuild my website, battle a cold… you know how it goes. That’s when I saw my friend Ann McKitrick post a note on…

    Read more: What’s your vision?

  • Highs and Lows and God in the Middle

    I was looking through my pictures from 2025 and noticed a theme: there were highs and lows and God in the middle. Sometimes I only see the highs. Sometimes only the lows. But when I look carefully, I can see God in the middle of them all. And THAT makes all the difference. For instance……

    Read more: Highs and Lows and God in the Middle

  • Still Sharing My Faith—30 Years Later

    Last week I had an email from a subscriber that touched my heart in a special way. She wrote: I have always enjoyed reading your newsletter. You have a way of explaining your faith journey by your simplicity. Your way of explaining the message is not heavy, not over anyone’s head. Just there. Where we…

    Read more: Still Sharing My Faith—30 Years Later

  • Unscripted

    Last week, I wrote about three “God-incidences” that happened to me on recent flights. This week, I want to write about one more. It happened the week before Christmas. I was flying to New York to see a Broadway show. I had pulled out a script to read on the flight of a new show…

    Read more: Unscripted

  • Christmas “Coincidences”

    I was reading further in the Christmas story this week in the Bible and was struck by the frustration Mary and Joseph may have had while traveling to Bethlehem for the census. To them, I imagine it was especially aggravating, having to report to the city of their heritage being so close to the time…

    Read more: Christmas “Coincidences”

  • Cookies and Cocoa with Eric!

    Join me this Thursday night for cookies and cocoa! It’s Christmastime, and I’d love to host you as my guest for an online party! I’ll be live online from 7-8:30 PM CST, this Thursday, December 18th on Zoom. Just send me a note if you’d like to join and I’ll send you the link. Since…

    Read more: Cookies and Cocoa with Eric!

  • Maybe the ending isn’t the most important part

    I was reading the Christmas story this week in the Bible, and I was surprised at my reaction to the opening words. In Luke, chapter 1, an angel appears to Zechariah, telling him that he and his wife Elizabeth are going to give birth to a son named John. This was good news, as they…

    Read more: Maybe the ending isn’t the most important part

  • Dealing with Secrets

    My brother Craig is a rocket scientist—a real rocket scientist! He’s worked on missions you may have heard about in the news: the James Webb Space Telescope, the LCROSS lunar mission to look for water on the moon, or the launch of the Milstar military communication satellites. Cool stuff! But what’s NOT COOL is that…

    Read more: Dealing with Secrets

  • Navigating Saturdays

    Do you ever have days where you don’t know what’s next? Where something big in your life has come to an end, and you can’t see what’s around the corner? Those are the “Saturdays” that I want to talk about today… like the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. For the disciples, that had…

    Read more: Navigating Saturdays

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