THE TRUTH NEVER DIES
Sometimes one wrong click reveals where the work was living all along.
August 9, 2026. This cover image represents the moment I learned that the entire Substack home of Sparks by G~ could not be recovered. I still had the writing, photographs, and source files—but the publication itself, its subscribers, comments, settings, dates, statistics, custom-domain information, and the visible record of nearly 13,000 reads had disappeared.
For forty-seven years, when someone hit the wrong button, I was the call.
Then I hit it myself.
And there was no one to call.
DEDICATION
To the Holy Spirit—who continues to refine me, speak into me, and use even my mistakes and trials to grow me and deepen my relationship and walk with Jesus.
To Marty—who stood near me without joining the alarm and said, “You’ve got this. God is trying to tell you something—or confirm something.” You gave me room to listen.
To a dear friend facing a life-changing diagnosis—whose honest response returned my own words carrying more truth than when I sent them.
To Franko—who saved eighty-five original publication emails, returned to them, shared them with his brothers and sisters in Christ, and called me his Gabe through tears.
To William Dann—who has sharpened the writer in me, believed in these Sparks, and gave this one its title.
And to every reader who called, texted, emailed, prayed, encouraged me, or simply reminded me that these Sparks had traveled farther than I could see—you know who you are. You stayed through the thick, the thin, the trials, and now the rebuilding. Your love did more than steady me; it showed me that the work had taken root, deepened my responsibility to keep writing, and recharged my batteries to full—times ten. You are the reason this work has a home on Substack, and I am deeply grateful for every person who receives a Spark, returns to it, carries it, or shares it with someone else.
SCRIPTURE
“So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” — Isaiah 55:11 (NKJV)
“And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’” — Matthew 25:40 (NKJV)
THE HOOK
At 110 degrees, a sprinkler problem becomes a race.
I had just discovered that my sprinkler controller had apparently failed more than a week earlier. In Bakersfield heat, a week without water is not a small delay. The yard does not send a warning. The ground simply begins showing the evidence.
I spent the day scrambling to get a new controller installed. I called the friend who had installed and programmed the previous one, and he came over to help.
During the process, we found a mystery pair of wires that had never been connected the first time.
Suddenly, we had the explanation for why one section of the yard had never received the water it should have.
The ground had been telling the truth all along.
We simply had not found the disconnection.
My mind was moving in several directions at once—the heat, the dry section, the replacement controller, the settings, the wires, and a Substack account screen I was moving through too quickly.
I cannot blame the heat for what happened next.
The heat did not press the button.
I did.
I moved through more than one confirmation window. Two clicks later, the entire publication was gone.
Forty-seven years in technology did not protect me from one distracted minute.
THE STORY
The timing was almost too precise.
The day before the deletion, Marty had asked me how the publication was growing.
I told her it was approaching 13,000 reads in less than six months.
That was significant to me. Not because it was some enormous internet number, but because every read represented a person choosing to spend part of a life with something I had written.
Then she asked the better question.
“How does that make you feel?”
I told her I enjoyed seeing the growth. I admitted that there were never as many comments as I sometimes wished there were.
But I also told her the numbers were not driving me.
They were not why I was writing.
If one person was inspired, steadied, encouraged, challenged, or pointed toward Jesus, that was my reward.
I meant it.
Less than twenty-four hours later, every visible number disappeared.
The posts were gone.
The comments were gone.
The subscriber list was gone.
The statistics were gone.
The publication history was gone.
The answer I had given Marty did not get to remain safely inside a conversation.
It was placed under pressure.
I immediately began looking for a way back.
I opened a support ticket. I searched for a telephone number. I looked for a human being I could explain the mistake to. The online path led through a support wizard, a chatbot, and then email.
There was nothing more for me to do until someone answered.
So I did something the man I used to be probably could not have done.
I went and took a nap.
I brought my iPad with me so I could watch for the response from Substack. I was not ignoring the problem. I was waiting for the answer.
But I was not pacing.
I was not refreshing the screen every thirty seconds.
I was not treating the uncertainty like a five-alarm fire.
As I settled onto the bed, I came across a news report featuring a bronze figure stretched horizontally across a park bench.
At first glance, it looked like a person experiencing homelessness, covered beneath a blanket.
Then I saw the feet.
The wounds revealed who was lying there.
Jesus.
This image reflects the bronze Jesus sculpture I saw featured in a news report while I waited for tech support. At first, I saw a person beneath a blanket. Then I saw the feet.
The report was bringing attention to people living without shelter—people exposed to the same intense heat that had occupied so much of my own day.
Its message was simple:
You never know where you may encounter Him.
I had spent hours worrying about a yard going without water.
Now the screen in my hands was reminding me about people going without shelter.
The news report was not about my website.
That was exactly why it reached me.
It widened the room.
It pulled my attention away from what I had lost and returned me to why I had been writing in the first place.
To see people.
To encourage them.
To place truth where someone might need it.
To remind someone who feels unseen that God has not passed them by.
To keep sharing the love of Jesus.
I took my iPad to bed waiting for tech support.
Instead, I encountered Jesus on a park bench.
Before the email arrived, He reminded me why the site had been built.
THE MOMENT
The first response was brief.
If a publication or account had been deleted, they could not restore it.
Apologies for the inconvenience.
That was essentially it.
I followed up and asked the questions a technology man asks when he still believes there must be another layer somewhere.
What about the subscriber list?
What about the settings and account data?
What about the custom domain?
What about a backend backup?
What about an export or archive still retained somewhere?
The second response removed every remaining possibility.
They could restore none of it.
The message also noted that multiple confirmation windows were provided to prevent accidental deletion.
They were right.
I had moved through them.
There was no telephone call to make.
No hidden restore point.
No person I could persuade.
Gone meant gone.
I read the message and felt the finality of it.
But the fire I expected did not come.
I was disappointed.
I was frustrated.
I was embarrassed that the forty-seven-year technology guy had become his own worst support ticket.
But the event did not take my center with it.
I had the writing.
I had the photographs.
I had the working documents.
I had the revised files.
The content was safe because I had done what I had taught others to do for years.
Back it up.
That is when the sentence came clearly.
I did not lose the work.
I lost the location where the work was being displayed.
The machine told me what had been deleted.
The people began showing me what had been planted.
THE TURN
These are the two answers from Substack support. The first one closed the door. The second one closed every door behind it.
Before the final support answer arrived, I had sent a quick message telling a number of people what had happened.
My phone began lighting up.
Calls.
Texts.
Emails.
Voicemails.
“God has a plan for you, G~.”
“It will all work out.”
“You will figure it out.”
The response did not end with the first wave. The calls, texts, emails, and prayers were still coming the second day. Each one reminded me that the site may have disappeared—but the people had not.
They felt the impact of what had happened, but they did not add to the alarm.
They surrounded me with encouragement, love, and prayer.
Some of them were also quietly waiting to see what I would do with it.
They knew me well enough to suspect that the deletion might become a Spark.
That created a responsibility in me.
Not pressure to perform.
Responsibility to pay attention.
Maybe losing the old publication was also becoming a pathway toward new material.
Around that same time, I had been praying for a close friend who had received a life-changing diagnosis.
I would never compare the loss of a website to what she was facing.
One was an inconvenience and a setback.
The other had rearranged the future she had pictured.
But both experiences made me think about the information life delivers without asking permission.
A phone call.
A blood test.
A diagnosis.
A sentence that changes tomorrow before we have finished living today.
I wrote to her about what had happened and shared the thought that had come to me.
I did not lose the work. I lost where the work was being displayed.
She wrote back.
Her response blessed me to my core.
She spoke honestly about fear, control, denial, and the difficulty of releasing a future she had already pictured.
She had expected the next chapter to unfold on her own terms and then to step into more ministry.
Instead, the path changed.
She wrestled with God.
And through the wrestling, He kept loving her.
Perspective came.
Peace came.
Trust grew deeper.
In the middle of a season she never would have chosen, God continues using her.
She wrote down what He had been teaching her.
Go where God calls.
No busyness.
Do not miss the person He places in your path.
Family before ministry.
Listen closely.
Pray bolder prayers.
Then she wrote a sentence I have not forgotten.
“He wants us to play in His playground.”
I had written to encourage her.
She returned the message carrying more truth than it had when I sent it.
Before this Spark had a new website to live on, it had already entered another life.
Then Franko called.
He left voicemail after voicemail telling me he had saved the Sparks and was sending them to me.
He did not know I had solid backups.
As far as Franko knew, the writing itself might have disappeared.
He was trying to give it back.
Then he told me something I had never fully understood.
“Greg, I save them. I go back and randomly read them. I send them to my brothers and sisters in Christ.”
He had saved eighty-five original publication emails.
He had not merely let them sit in an inbox.
He returned to them.
He read them again.
He shared them.
He carried them into other people’s lives.
Then he told me I had been his Gabe.
In the Journey material, a Gabe is the man who walks beside another man as a mentor and brother—encouraging him, helping him see, and pointing him toward Jesus.
I could hear the tears in Franko’s voice.
He was proud that he had preserved the Sparks.
But what struck me was not only what he had saved.
It was what the Sparks had meant to him.
I thought he was returning an archive.
He was revealing a ministry.
I thought I had been sending emails.
He showed me that I had been walking beside a man.
The dashboard had been approaching 13,000 reads.
Franko’s tears gave those numbers a face.
I already had the writing, but he had something I did not fully have anymore—the original emails and much of the history showing when those Sparks first entered the world.
I had preserved the content.
Franko had preserved its footprints.
He had covered something he did not even know would one day need covering.
My batteries did not merely recharge.
They went to full—times ten.
Then William Dann reached out from Alaska.
William is eighty-three years old, a published writer, a trusted set of eyes, and one of the people who has repeatedly helped sharpen my work.
His first response contained exactly the humor I deserved.
“Hard to imagine my tech guru having this happen.”
No kidding.
I told him I was working on it and said, “Maybe it is a Spark. THE POWER OF DELETE.”
William answered, “Or maybe, THE TRUTH NEVER DIES.”
There it was.
The title.
Not because the publication had survived.
It had not.
Not because every comment, subscriber, number, or historical record had been restored.
They had not.
But because truth does not depend upon the survival of the place where it was displayed.
When I told William I had been pondering and taking notes, he answered, “Ponder away, my friend. Adversity has been the crucible for your creativity.”
William did not fix the site.
He named the lesson.
One friend showed me what the work had done.
Franko showed me where the work had gone.
William named what the experience meant.
The readers showed me that the loss mattered to more people than I realized.
Marty recognized that God might be confirming something already being built inside me.
The archive was not only sitting in my files.
It was living in people.
THE DRIFT
Get the number back.
Recover every subscriber.
Rebuild it exactly as it was.
Erase the evidence that anything happened.
Do not let anyone see that the technology guy made the technology mistake.
Do not rest until control looks like restoration.
That would have been the old fire.
This time I took the iPad to bed, watched for the answer, and slept while the outcome was still unresolved.
THE REFLECTION
I know what it feels like to lose writing without a backup.
Years ago, more than twenty years of my journals were accidentally thrown away during a move.
Childhood journals.
Life notes.
Personal development work.
Questions.
Memories.
Pages I believed I would return to someday.
They went out with the trash.
There was no support ticket.
No digital copy.
No reader who could send them back.
They were simply gone.
That loss devastated me.
For a long time, I felt as though part of my life had been erased.
But even those journals had done something before the pages disappeared.
The writing had helped form me.
The questions had changed me.
The pages were gone, but not everything that had happened within me while writing them.
I could lose the record without losing every result.
This deletion allowed me to see that truth again from a different place inside myself.
Building the first site required me to learn an entirely new platform—pages, settings, headers, footers, email templates, subscription controls, domain connections, typography, images, and all the pieces that make a publication feel like a home.
The first structure was gone.
The learning was not.
The site had been deleted.
The builder had not.
The first site took more than 150 hours to build.
The second took eight.
But becoming the man who could respond this way took seventeen years.
There was a time when a loss like this would have controlled the whole house.
I would have paced.
Blamed.
Replayed every click.
Tried to force an answer out of a system that had already given one.
This time, I worked.
I grieved what was lost.
I accepted what could not be recovered.
And I kept my center.
How we respond does not always change the event.
It changes the relationship we have with what comes next.
My response could not make Substack restore the old publication.
But it could determine whether the new publication was rebuilt out of panic or purpose.
The experience also gave me a very practical lesson.
Slow down.
Read what is in front of you.
Give an important decision the attention it deserves.
Experience can make a person fast.
Wisdom knows when to become slow again.
And back up the work.
Thank God I did.
Without those backups, much of the material might have been left sitting inside my brain, inside the copies readers had kept, and inside whatever God had already done with it.
The nearly 13,000 reads mattered.
But not as a trophy.
They mattered because people were behind them.
The calls and texts reminded me how many were reading.
Franko reminded me they were returning and sharing.
My close friend reminded me that one sentence can help another person name what they are carrying.
William reminded me that adversity can still become creativity.
Marty reminded me that sometimes God is not introducing a new lesson.
Sometimes He is confirming that an old one has finally taken root.
A dashboard can count a click.
It cannot count what clicks inside a soul.
It can tell me how many times a Spark was opened.
It cannot tell me how many times someone returned to it after the screen went dark.
It cannot tell me who sent it to a brother or sister in Christ.
It cannot tell me who sat with a line, prayed, wept, released control, or found enough courage for the next day.
That made me think about legacy.
We leave photographs.
Letters.
Books.
Emails.
Websites.
Accomplishments.
Those things are evidence of a life.
But they are not the life.
The deeper legacy is what happened in another person because we were here.
Who did we love?
Who did we encourage?
Who did we help stand back up?
Who did we point toward Jesus?
What did we place inside another person that remained after we left the room?
Does what we are leaving have value?
Does it represent Jesus?
Those questions matter more to me now than they did before the deletion.
Readers are not numbers I am entitled to recover.
They are people I have been allowed to serve.
As I write this, the new site is standing again.
Its rooms are still empty.
The older Sparks will return gradually.
New ones will come too.
This Spark will be the first entry placed inside the rebuilt publication—Spark #1. Not because it was the first Spark I ever wrote, but because it tells the truth about where this new beginning came from.
I want it there as a marker.
A reminder that the publication once disappeared.
A reminder that the work did not.
A reminder that one failed controller exposed wires that had never been connected, while one deleted site exposed connections that had been there all along.
A reminder that restoration does not always mean making something look exactly as it did before.
Sometimes restoration means rebuilding with a clearer understanding of what the structure was for.
Sparks by G~ was never meant to become a monument to numbers.
It was meant to become a place where one person might find one thing they needed.
A truth.
A challenge.
A reason to keep going.
A clearer view of Jesus.
The platform was never the purpose.
The people were.
The house is standing again.
I’m back—and by God’s grace, stronger than ever.
I cannot wait to see what God is going to do with me now.
This is the first light being turned on.
WALKAWAY LINE
You can delete the site. You can burn the book. But you cannot erase what the Author has written into a soul.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
If every number disappeared tomorrow, would the one life touched still be enough?
MY PRAYER
Heavenly Father,
Thank You for showing me the difference between the place where work is displayed and the place where it takes root.
Thank You for Marty, who stood beside me with peace and recognized that You might be telling me something—or confirming something already being formed.
Thank You for the close friend whose honesty and faith returned my own words with greater depth. Surround her with Your peace. Preserve the strength You placed within her. Bring healing and restoration in every way You choose, and give her grace for each day as it comes.
Thank You for Franko, who valued the Sparks enough to preserve them, return to them, share them, and return part of their history when I needed it.
Thank You for William, whose friendship and sharpened eye helped me recognize that truth had survived what the platform could not.
Thank You for every reader who called, wrote, prayed, encouraged, shared, or quietly remained.
Never let me reduce them to a number.
Keep me from confusing visibility with value, activity with fruit, or the container with the calling.
Teach me to slow my hands before an important decision. When I make a mistake, keep it from becoming my identity. When something disappears, help me look carefully at what remains. When something fails, show me what the failure is revealing.
Open my eyes to the person who feels unseen. Remind me that every life bears Your image and deserves dignity, compassion, and love.
And when something I have said I believe is placed under pressure, help me live the answer instead of merely writing it.
Establish the work of my hands according to Your purpose. Keep every Spark centered on Jesus. Place each one exactly where You want it to go.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
ABOUT G~
G~ writes from lived experience — exploring identity, authority, and time through the lens of faith, trial, leadership, and surrender. His reflections are not meant to condemn or hype, but to steady. Rooted in covenant, forged through adversity, and anchored under the authority of Jesus Christ, his work invites readers to examine who governs their lives — and to live intentionally under truth.
If what you’ve read resonates with your journey, feel free to reach out.
G~
Thu Le, what a beautiful expression of your love for God’s work and for us. We receive this prayer with grateful hearts. Thank you for pouring into us with such faith, encouragement, and love, and for taking the time to pray so intentionally over our lives, our family, our marriage, and the work God has placed before us. Your words are deeply encouraging and healing. Please know that we love you, we care about you, and we are equally grateful for the work you are doing for His Kingdom. May the Lord continue to bless, strengthen, and use you mightily as you faithfully follow Him. Thank you, dear sister. Received with love. — G~ & ~M
A Prayer of Blessing, Calling & Commissioning Over Greg
Thank You, Jesus, for transforming Greg through his own writings. Thank You for refining him, teaching him, entrusting him with more, disciplining him, challenging him, and activating him as a warrior clothed in the full armor of God, warring in the heavenly realms.
By Your grace, Lord, Greg is chosen and anointed. You have placed a mantle upon him to minister the healing of Jesus through Holy Spirit inspired writings. Thank You for Your divine calling upon Greg’s life.
May the Holy Spirit continue to breathe through his writings bringing healing to wounded hearts, hope to the broken, freedom to those who are bound, and salvation, rebirth, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit to Your people.
Lord, anoint Greg with heavenly blueprints and fresh revelations to publish a book You have entrusted to him. Give him strategies for breakthroughs, divine wisdom to minister to Your people and to unbelievers, and revelation to communicate Your heart clearly.
I pray that Marty will also release the writings You have placed within her, and that Sparks by G will make room for Sparks by M. May their voices together become a testimony of Your goodness and faithfulness.
Father, heal Greg’s back and his physical body from the inside out. Bring restoration and strength to every part of him. As he writes in obedience to the Holy Spirit, may Your healing power work simultaneously within him.
May obedience, faithfulness, humility, honor, perseverance, holiness, righteousness, and the joy of the Lord increase within him. Rekindle his love for You and deepen his worship in spirit and truth.
God, open the heavens over the Marchand family!
May Greg’s children love the Lord, serve Him, and walk in His ways. Let Your presence rest upon their household. Bring physical healing to Greg’s body, and anoint his hands to become instruments of Your healing power toward Your children.
Lord, establish a table of fellowship in Greg’s home where men can gather, encounter Your presence, hear Your voice, and sit at the feet of Jesus. May his home become a place of prayer, worship, restoration, discipleship, and divine encounters.
May Greg and his wife understand the ministry You have called them to together. Align their hearts with Your heart for Your people. Teach them how to walk together in unity, love, wisdom, and obedience.
Lord, You have called them to walk in a Joseph and Mary kind of surrender to carry what You entrust to them, even when they do not yet understand the fullness of the assignment. May You reward their obedience with a scepter the authority You have ordained for them!
May Greg and Marty partner with You and with the divine brothers and sisters You bring into their lives. Surround them with people who will sharpen, encourage, strengthen, and run alongside them for the advancement of Your Kingdom.
Greg, I believe God has called you not only to write, but also to preach to the nations. May the Lord personally reveal His calling and His blueprints to you, and may your response always be “Yes and Amen.”
Thank You, Greg, for your surrender. Thank you for choosing to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen.
May the goodness of God overtake you. May you dwell in the House of Glory. May the promises and miracles of God be released over your life, your marriage, your children, and your home.
May you become a catalyst for revival in families, cities, states, and nations. May you be a channel through which God releases healing, miracles, blessing, favor, hope, freedom, and salvation.
May the Lord anoint your hands, your writings, your voice, your home, your marriage, and your ministry.
May everything you do point people back to Jesus.
In the mighty name of Jesus,
Amen
(In His Love Thu Le)