“How many gears can you move with just one turn?” read the sign atop the broad metal bookcase in the children’s room of the Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick where I’d taken my youngest son, Asher, last week.
While Asher busily filled a miniature shopping cart with board books, my eyes were riveted on the bright, plastic disks magnetically attached to the bookcase’s side when along came a young boy and his mother. Out came the little boy’s finger to twirl the lowest gear, the only one he could reach. As his finger went around and around, the fat, green gear turned the spokes of the one above it, and so on until the entire case was a mass of swirling color.
“One, two, three…” his mother counted, all the way to fourteen.
That’s it! I thought watching all those turning disks and thinking of the long and sometimes lonely hours I’ve spent quietly writing books that I hope will one day find an audience and bring hope to a hurting world. Here’s me, with my one finger turning a gear. And there’s all those other gears connected to mine, the end of which I cannot even see.
It’s easy to think my work doesn’t matter when I’m working all alone, but watching that little boy reminded me there’s more than my little finger, more than my gear, more spokes connected to mine than I can possibly see. It also made me think of the Apostle Paul’s words, “And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not grow weary,” Galatians 6:9.
So, I’m going to keep turning my gear—writing the best books I can—whether I’m currently able to see the results or not.
What’s your gear? Have you been working on a project without seeing the hoped for result? What keeps you going? Or what gears have you discovered are connected to yours?
Stay tuned TUESDAY for a review and free give-away of Katie Ganshert’s debut novel “Wildflowers from Winter.” Leave a post on my journal or become a subscriber anytime in May to be entered into drawing! I’ll select a name at random at the end of the month.
