Healing Waters by Stephen Arterburn, Nancy Rue Read Free Book Online Page A

“is how hard we have to pray and how large a work the Lord is going to do here.”
    The two new women sprang to action, as if Egan had just given them their cue. Their nods and amens brought the room back to nodding and Lord-praising and blessing people’s hearts.
    â€œI’d like to see her first,” Egan said. “I want her to hear that from me.”
    â€œFine,” I said. “Excuse me.” I didn’t wait for them to step back, farther than they needed to, to let me through.
    The silence behind me, I knew, was calculated to last until I was out of earshot, but someone didn’t do the math. I heard Francesca— or was it Georgia?—say, “You know those medical people always think the worst.”
    â€œIs she a believer?” Egan said.
    At that point—or at some other time in the blur of hours that ran one into the other—I asked the ubiquitous Nurse Kim if I needed to tell them other people might want to use the lounge.
    She angled her head at me. “I take care of those things,” she said. “You just take care of you.”
    That was the last responsibility I wanted.

CHAPTER SIX
    D r. Sullivan Crisp didn’t know what he was doing. But then, that was his basic MO these days.
    He gave the video camera his Serious Therapist Look, the one where his eyebrows twisted together and his mouth formed an in-half smile. In his best we’re-in-this-together voice, he said, “As a result of my most recent study of dealing with your messed-up past and your burned-out present and your black-hole future, my best advice for making the Healing Choice I’ve become famous for is: fake it till you make it.” He pulled his hands in a circle. “Fake it till you make it— uh-huh—uh-huh—forsake it, don’t take it—uh-huh—uh-huh—fake it, make it—uh—forsake it.”
    That was enough to set Christian counseling back a hundred years.
    Sully reached out to the tripod and turned off the camera.
    An hour, and all he’d gotten on film was fifteen seconds of himself making faces and waxing sarcastic. He lifted his face to the squirrel that had been chittering from the top of a Georgia pine for the last hour.
    â€œDo you have any suggestions, or are you just critiquing?”
    A pinecone fell from the tree and popped off Sully’s left foot. He was almost convinced the animal had pelted it at him.
    â€œCut me some slack,” he said. “I’m a little off my game.”
    Actually, he wasn’t sure he even had any game anymore.
    â€œDr. Crisp, have you taken to talking to your sweet self?”
    Sully twisted to look at the tall, ebony figure emerging into the clearing. The sun dappled her face, but not enough to hide the all-knowing eyes.
    â€œTalking to oneself is a common way to reduce anxiety, Dr. Ghent,” Sully said.
    â€œIt’s when you talk back that it becomes a problem.”
    â€œIt’s come to that.”
    â€œDo I need to call a mobile unit?”
    â€œI’m not sure.” Sully nodded up the tree. “I need a consult: if I think that squirrel is out to get me, does that qualify as paranoia?”
    Porphyria shook her close-cropped head, frosted white like a cupcake. “No, I think it probably is out to get you. You’re sitting under her nest talking to yourself. She doesn’t want her young’uns exposed to that.”
    Sully grinned and stood up to give Porphyria the stump. She took it with the grace of a queen, letting the caftan puddle around her feet, mixing its brilliant shades of Africa with the woody greens of the forest. Porphyria was eighty, and he still thought she rivaled Halle Berry for beauty. The sight of her made him want to weep. But then, what didn’t these days?
    As he parked his lankiness on a nearby log, Porphyria nodded at the camera. “Any progress?”
    â€œYou don’t want to know.”
    â€œOh, but I