Healing | Morgan L. Busse

Come April 1^st I will have been working on Daughter of Light a little shy of eight years. As I draw near to my release date, I thought I would share with you how I came up with this story…

Rowen (my main character) did not start out with the ability to see inside the soul. I actually created her to be a healer. I was annoyed by the “healing” I saw constantly in fantasy: just place your hands on someone and heal them. Tada!

I asked myself what would it be like if healing cost you something? What if, instead of healing someone, you absorbed the person’s pain, sickness, or wound? Would you do it? Really?

I wanted to explore the psychology behind this answer: What would it feel like? Who would you choose to heal? How much fear would you feel? Would you ever do it again? I wanted real answers, not “this is what the hero would do” answers.

But as I began to write Rowen’s story, I realized she needed something more than this. But what? Then I read a story about a woman who microwaved her baby. I read the headline, horrified. Why would anyone do that? What this woman thinking? What inside of her made her do this?

That made me think. We never see most of the evil in this world. Why? Because most of it is never acted out. But it’s still there, inside of us. What would it be like to see inside of people? What if you were burdened with that ability…and never knew it. Until the moment you touched someone?

What would you see inside the human heart?

This is Rowen’s gift and burden. To see what only God sees, and to reflect it back. To reveal the truth.

Her story begins April 1^st.

Have you ever been shot by friendly fire? Many of us have. It comes from behind, hits you in the back and the next thing you know, you’re down on the ground bleeding out. Obviously these are not real bullets, but the damage is real. They are relational shots, the kind that comes from a person we trusted. Be it family members, friends, those we worship with or a coworker. You believed you were both on the same side and now you are deeply wounded.

So what do you do? You feel like everyone is walking by. No one sees you there; no one knows you’re in pain. And you have a bullet stuck inside you.

A) Hide the bullet wound. Cover it up. You don’t want anyone to see that you were hurt. So you pick yourself up and quickly pull your shirt over your wound. Then you go on as if nothing happened. The problem is, you were shot. And you still have that bullet inside you.

I see a lot of people do this. They hide the pain. They are embarrassed that this happened or think the right thing to do is to forgive and forget. The problem is, the bullet is never dealt with. It’s just covered up. And someday that bullet will come back in a painful way.

Just like real bullet wounds, this is no way to treat a relational bullet wound.

B) Get up and shout that you’ve been shot. Let the world know. Lift up your shirt and show them your bullet hole. You have a reason to be angry and hurt.

I think we’ve all seen people like this. They can’t wait to show you their bullet wound and tell you every gritty detail of how they were shot and left to die. And if you look closely, you’ll see the bullet wedged inside. The the bullet is never taken out and dealt with. It becomes a painful festering wound for the whole world to see.

If a doctor ever saw a bullet wound like this, they would immediately take you to the operating room and pump you full of antibiotics. Real bullet wounds are a serious threat to your health and need to be dealt with. So are relational bullet holes.

C) Let God, the Great Physician, take the bullet out. Is it going to hurt? Yes! Probably more than you can endure-which is why so few choose to really deal with the bullet. Is it going to leave a scar? Yes. Will you bleed? Probably. But afterwards the bullet will be gone. You will have life again.

I’ve felt His hands as God has operated on my own bullet wounds. Some of those bullets were deep. I cried out as God began to remove them. I struggled to love those who shot me. But as God removed the bullets and tenderly bandaged me up, I found healing. I found forgiveness. And with God’s help, the festering infection of bitterness did not have a chance to set in and grow.

Do I have scars from those bullet holes? Yes. But I use them not to show that I was shot but to show how God healed me.

My friends, this is the only healthy way to live again from wounds received by intentional (or unintentional) emotional shootings. Don’t let the bullet stay inside. Don’t let an infection set in. Take your pain to God and let Him perform surgery on you. It may take weeks, even months to recover from such a surgery. But the resulting health is worth it.

Author-Speaker-Writing Coach