Back when I was enrolled in a college creative writing class, lo, those many years ago, I penned a short story about a young boy who idolized his father with a reverence that only a child can muster.
In the boy’s eyes, his dad was larger than life. He tried to mimic him in every way – even in the garden. When his father walked through the tilled rows, the boy would trail behind, stretching his little legs as far as he could, trying to fit his small feet into the wide tracks pressed into the dark, fertile soil.
Then came a moment that shook his small world: He found a bird, lifeless and still. The discovery filled him with grief.
The father, seeking to soothe his son’s sorrow, helped him bury the bird in a quiet corner of the garden with assurances that it would go to heaven. The child clung to that hope – but misunderstood the meaning. He believed the bird’s body would vanish, rising invisibly to paradise the moment it was covered with dirt.
Naturally, he shared this heavenly insight with his best friend. But the friend, a bit less naive, didn’t believe it. He told the boy there was no way the bird had gone to heaven and that the box in the ground was still very much occupied.
Still, the boy held firm. “Daddy told me it would go to heaven,” he insisted to his friend. “And he knows everything.”
So the duo decided to unearth the cardboard box in which the father had placed the bird before the burial.
Now, as adults reading this story that I’ve paraphrased and only partially recounted, you know what they found. They dug up not only the box, but also the dead bird. As the story continued, our brave lad made his way home, through the garden where his father had again walked and where his father’s footprints remained.
But, somehow, when the child saw those footprints, they didn’t look so big anymore ….
This story always puzzles me. I didn’t write it from personal experience. It doesn’t reflect my beliefs. It is sad and rather disheartening. But oddly enough, I often think of it during the days and weeks leading up to Easter.
And this year, I thought of it again and wanted to retell it to you because now, I find myself dwelling on a different story – one grounded not in imagination, but in history.
It’s about another death. Another burial. Another grave. But in this case, when the grave was visited, it truly was empty. This time, there was a resurrection. This time, the promise of heaven wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was fulfilled. And this time, the story overflows with as much hope as is humanly or supernaturally possible.
To believe this is not naive. Such believing isn’t wishful thinking. There’s a wealth of evidence – testimonies, historical records and changed lives. Many who set out to debunk the story of Jesus instead found themselves transformed by it.
If you’re curious, I recommend Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ,” where an investigative journalist examines the facts surrounding Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Another great resource is his book “The Case for a Creator,” which explores the fingerprints of God in the natural world.
I don’t mention these books just because I appreciate good journalism. I mention them because I’ve seen their impact. People I know personally have read them and walked away with a brand-new sense of faith and direction.
As for the story from my college days …. Regardless of what happened to our little tragic hero, in our own lives we do have trustworthy footsteps that we can follow. In fact, they’re the biggest footprints the world has ever known.
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