The DELETE Button

I think it’s safe to say I’m shaking in my tennis shoes. This ‘feels’ like my first day of kindergarten. I’ve just read articles on blogging, social media plug-ins, gravatars, SEO optimization… honestly, it might be easier to pull out my eyelashes.

When my brain was a little sponge, well over 50 years ago, the world was a different and simpler place—3-4 television stations; clunky phones tethered to the wall; cameras with film cartridges; chalkboards in school rooms; merry-go-rounds on the playground; JC Penney, Sears and Montgomery Wards; big, gas-guzzling cars without seat belts. But still, we all needed the same things back then that we need today—love, hope, compassion, security, kindness, just to name a few.

I began writing on plain ole white paper with a yellow #2 Dixon Ticonderoga pencil. I showed no mercy to the eraser at the end. During junior high (that’s what we called middle school back then), I taught myself to type on an electric typewriter. Oh the pain and agony of typing the wrong letter! When correction tape and erasable paper came into existence, we were dancing in our wallpapered houses. Finally, a means to ‘right our wrongs’ easily, and trust me, I was the queen of  ‘wrongs.’ So you can perhaps imagine our euphoria when computers entered the scene with a DELETE button. What?! You mean, I can just hit that little button and make it all go away?! Forever?!

Why do I write? I write because I ‘can’t not write’ (I know, terrible sentence, but it’s the truth.) I love words. I love putting them together. I love that they can bond human beings together. I love what they can communicate. And what do I want to communicate? Just what I mentioned before, things we all need—love, hope, compassion, security, kindness, just to name a few.

Today is Tuesday, April 14, 2020. We are in the middle of a global pandemic, caused by the coronavirus, known as COVID-19. People are terrified, dying, desperate for hope, and here’s the best news ever: there IS hope! I ‘can’t not write’ about this. Life is  short. We never know how long we have. Please read on.

April 12 was Easter, the celebration of God’s incredible plan to draw every human being to Himself. How? Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Listen to Jesus’ words in John 3:16-17. (He’s talking about Himself when He says ‘Son.’)

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

Put simply, Jesus’ death on the cross was the final payment for all the wrongs of all humanity for all time. Interesting plan, sacrificing your own innocent Son for everybody else, the ‘righting of all wrongs,’ the blameless dying for the guilty. What kind of Father would do that? A loving One.

So Jesus can just make all our sins go away?! Forever?! Like a DELETE button? Yep, Jesus IS our DELETE button. And His resurrection means God’s plan was a complete success. Paid in Full. Time to dance in our quarantined shelters!

But going a bit further. We all know we’re going to die someday, but our souls will live on in one of two places for eternity:

1. with God in heaven: far better than your wildest dream.
2. apart from God in hell: far worse than your worst nightmare.

Have you picked your address for eternity yet? Boy, today would be a great day to choose the Divine Delete button. Here are straightforward instructions:

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified (declared ‘not guilty’), and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. Romans 10:9-10

Just as I need to ‘right the wrongs’ of my writing with the delete button, I need to ‘right the wrongs’ of my life with Jesus, the DELETE button, and to that end, I’ve officially named this blog: The Righting Life.

Okay, that’s it. I’m finished with ‘my maiden blog.’ Hope I didn’t break too many rules. And thanks for reading. Until next time…

P.S. Yes, I loved using the ‘delete’ button on this blog!