Believe It

By Keith Fisher

We have great neighbors on our block. Each Christmas we receive wonderful goodies from them and gifts that usually help us remember Jesus and his part in our lives. This past Christmas one of them brought us a sign.

It was made of block letters cut from a piece of pine, sanded and painted. The letters are mounted on a horizontal piece of wood that help them stand vertical. The letters form the word, "Believe".

This word can have many connotations, believe Christ, believe in the Book of Mormon, or believe the sun will come up tomorrow. I want to write about a kind of believing that writers need most. Some feel they have it, others feel it is beyond their grasp and others feel it can only come through osmosis, absorbing it from another. Depending on your prospective, all of these are correct.

Mark Twain, one of my favorite classic writers said, Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

As writers we congregate with those who demonstrate the most support of our efforts. We love to hear how good we are but we tend to doubt the truth of it.

For some, belief is hard. When we put our heart and soul into our work and have it rejected only to see our peers find success, it breaks a heart. The belief is still there, but we dig a hole and bury it deep in the forgotten backyard of our cherished hopes and dreams.

I have noticed that in our Authors Incognito group there are many of them who are truly great. Those who go out of their way to build another, to help another, so that they too can believe. The great ones dig in our yard looking for our cast off hopes and dreams. They work all day and sometimes into the night planting the seeds of belief and then when one seed takes root they care for the seedling until it becomes strong and grows into greatness.

If we are graceful (and wise) we will offer words of encouragement and support for our peers. Thereby working on our quest to become really great.

I once listened to a speaker tell about a bucket of crabs that caught his attention. He watched, as one crab began to climb out of the bucket. It struggled to get the edge and almost freed itself when another crab grabbed onto it and pulled it back down into the bucket. The observer saw this occurrence repeated time and again with different crabs playing the roles. The fisherman need only to leave the bucket alone and his catch would stay in the bucket.

How wonderful it would be (but not for the fisherman) to see a crab get to the edge, turn around and start pulling his fellow crabs out of the bucket and then to see groups of crabs holding onto each other as they all climbed out together. Such is the nature of our writers group.

Thanks to all of my fellow bloggers, and especially those people who leave comments, for helping me believe. I hope I have helped you believe too.

PS If you are one of those writers for whom belief is hard, Please know this, There are millions of people on planet earth. Most of them never have a desire to write. Many cannot understand the need you feel to do so. For whatever reason, God has given you this desire. For some of us it means continual practice to become better, for others it is easier. Please do not offend the giver by shunning the gift.

If you only believe . . .