Have you heard of The Butterfly Effect? I was visiting my mom in Connecticut last summer, when I saw a slim book with this same title on her table. Written by Andy Andrews, the story reveals the 50-year-old scientific theory that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can move molecules of air to start a hurricane.

Similarly, the first movement of any form of matter — including people — can start a similar chain reaction. To make his point, Andrews tells how Maine’s own Joshua Chamberlain, then a 34-year-old professor from Brunswick, led a Civil War charge at Little Round Top that changed the history of the United States and ultimately of the entire world. All from figuratively flapping his wings.

I came across this book again after my mom died in December. I packed it in a box, drove it home, slid the package in my writing shed and promptly forgot about it. Cocooned in snow and grief, the only thing I felt like flapping this past winter was my arms in anger at God for not healing my mom, for disappointments that have weighed down my work as a writer, for the seeming futility of it all.

Why bother writing at all? The vulnerability and risk and effort felt like too much, especially with Mom no longer here to encourage me. I wanted to quit, to turn in my author badge and raise chickens or maybe grow tomatoes — something with a more predictable harvest. Have you ever felt like that? Like nothing you do really matters?

In Galatians 6:9, the apostle

Paul writes, “And let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

Last week, I cleaned out my shed and saw Mom’s book. Re-reading this remarkable story, I wondered, was it really possible? Could my actions today — my little flap of butterfly wings — change the world?

My shed is one of the few spaces where I escape the noise and clutter of life. It is where I produce words that I hope will raise money for orphans and children with disabilities. I hadn’t been inside much since losing my mom. But that day, as I swept and dusted, I found a walnut-sized box in the pocket of a long-forgotten bag. In it was a contract I’d written with myself nine years ago.

“I promise not to quit,” it said. “I promise not to give up. I promise to invest in myself. I promise to write, and I promise to keep writing no matter how hard it gets, no matter how many rejections I get, no matter how tired, or frustrated, or broke or broken I get. I promise to use my passion and my skill to tell the story no matter what.”

On the bottom I’d signed my name. After reading it, I folded the note and tucked it back inside the box. Then I saw the carving on front. It was a big, beautiful butterfly with outstretched wings.

MEADOW RUE MERRILL is a Mid-coast Maine writer who shares about God in her everyday life through “Faith Notes.” For more, go to www.meadowrue.com where you can follow her on Twitter or Facebook.