Stop Looking At The Warts
I've got a true story to share...
There was a mom and her ten year old son. The son had many ugly warts on his hands; enough to be embarrassing for him. The mom tried every conventional option to make the warts go away with no luck. One day, the mom heard of a healer, a elderly man who prayed warts off, literally. She took her son to the healer.
Upon arrival, the man made a few things very clear to the mom and her son.
"You both must have faith that the warts will go away. If you don't have absolute faith, then you should go."
Both the mom and the boy agreed they had faith.
He continued with his important points, "The warts will not go away immediately, you will have to come back to me until they go away."
Both the mom and the boy agreed they would return to the man until the warts went away.
The prayer session began. The man asked both the mom and the boy to sit down and he then took one of the boy's hands and began to ever-so-gently rub one of his warts...and pray. The mom strained her ears to hear the actual prayer but the man wasn't praying for the boy or the mom's ears to hear. He moved onto another wart and kept praying.
After he prayed over and rubbed every wart on the boy's hands he announced he was done for the day. The boy immediately raised his hands to inspect his warts.
The man said, "Stop looking at the warts. You have to believe they will go away. When you look at those warts you give them the power. I do not want you to look at your warts anymore. Not even a glance. You must have faith that they will go away. Complete faith, remember?"
The boy shook his head in agreement. The mom said she wouldn't look at her son's warts either.
It was very, very hard for the boy and his mom to not check on those warts. Many times the boy would lift his hands to check and then remember the old man's instructions to not look at the warts. Once he even corrected his mom. He caught her spying his hands, trying to see if the warts were still there.
He said, "Mom! He told us to have faith. He said we have to believe the warts will go away."
She said it was so hard not to look.
After a few more healing sessions the man said, "Now you may look at your hands. Go ahead."
The warts were gone. Every single one, gone.
***I heard this story last week at my new job training. One of my colleagues was actually 'the mom' in the story. Straight away I internalized the story and made a personal connection to my life as a writer trying to get an agent...like so many of you out there.
We writers have to, 'stop looking at the warts' (checking our email incessantly for responses to our queries - checking the mailbox for snail mail responses - trolling the Internet for scraps of publishing news...something that will give us that edge). We writers have to switch our energy to believing it is going to happen. Just simply believe it is coming our way...the agent...the deal...the book on the shelf.
Stop looking at the warts and believe. I'm sure gonna try it...
There was a mom and her ten year old son. The son had many ugly warts on his hands; enough to be embarrassing for him. The mom tried every conventional option to make the warts go away with no luck. One day, the mom heard of a healer, a elderly man who prayed warts off, literally. She took her son to the healer.
Upon arrival, the man made a few things very clear to the mom and her son.
"You both must have faith that the warts will go away. If you don't have absolute faith, then you should go."
Both the mom and the boy agreed they had faith.
He continued with his important points, "The warts will not go away immediately, you will have to come back to me until they go away."
Both the mom and the boy agreed they would return to the man until the warts went away.
The prayer session began. The man asked both the mom and the boy to sit down and he then took one of the boy's hands and began to ever-so-gently rub one of his warts...and pray. The mom strained her ears to hear the actual prayer but the man wasn't praying for the boy or the mom's ears to hear. He moved onto another wart and kept praying.
After he prayed over and rubbed every wart on the boy's hands he announced he was done for the day. The boy immediately raised his hands to inspect his warts.
The man said, "Stop looking at the warts. You have to believe they will go away. When you look at those warts you give them the power. I do not want you to look at your warts anymore. Not even a glance. You must have faith that they will go away. Complete faith, remember?"
The boy shook his head in agreement. The mom said she wouldn't look at her son's warts either.
It was very, very hard for the boy and his mom to not check on those warts. Many times the boy would lift his hands to check and then remember the old man's instructions to not look at the warts. Once he even corrected his mom. He caught her spying his hands, trying to see if the warts were still there.
He said, "Mom! He told us to have faith. He said we have to believe the warts will go away."
She said it was so hard not to look.
After a few more healing sessions the man said, "Now you may look at your hands. Go ahead."
The warts were gone. Every single one, gone.
***I heard this story last week at my new job training. One of my colleagues was actually 'the mom' in the story. Straight away I internalized the story and made a personal connection to my life as a writer trying to get an agent...like so many of you out there.
We writers have to, 'stop looking at the warts' (checking our email incessantly for responses to our queries - checking the mailbox for snail mail responses - trolling the Internet for scraps of publishing news...something that will give us that edge). We writers have to switch our energy to believing it is going to happen. Just simply believe it is coming our way...the agent...the deal...the book on the shelf.
Stop looking at the warts and believe. I'm sure gonna try it...
