Most of us know, as readers, that the words we read have tremendous power to heal. But can the words we write heal us too? I asked some writer friends if they’ve been healed by the act of writing. Here are some of their responses:
When my son was young, we were in a life-threatening accident in which our elevator landed abruptly in a basement and quickly filled with water. Surviving that event inspired me to begin writing, and At Heaven’s Edge: True Stories of Faith and Rescue was born. Writing provided me with a creative outlet to heal both spiritually and emotionally.
A famous person hired me to cowrite his next novel in a bestselling series. After writing the book with no contributions from him, he fired me and the editors, dispatched the publisher, and demanded his first payment back. I refused and won in subsequent negotiations. I was bewildered and embittered, but a godly friend advised me, “Don’t let this bitterness destroy you. Pick up the pen and do something to make a difference.” I soon accepted a new challenge, wrote the story of my heart, and it was soon my best reviewed book ever.
Last year, my husband and I made the difficult decision to leave our church of almost twenty years and I was grieving, angry, and anxious. So, when I was writing an article on not becoming bitter I was forced to face my own heart issues. The more I focused on what God expected me to do—forgive, overcome evil with good, seek restoration as far as it depends upon me—I knew God was rescuing me from myself and my hardened heart. It’s still a battle on some days, but God has brought healing to my heart and is freeing me from the sin of bitterness and resentment.
Writing about losing my sight completely as a thirty-year-old mom healed my fear as I encouraged my readers to see beyond limitations and focus on the endless possibilities.
When my two-week old grandson passed away, the grief unleashed a surge of emotions and words. I kept a pen and paper with me all the time, never knowing when the next flood of words would come. The words turned into poems and the poems helped me heal.
As someone who took eighteen months to recover from long-haul COVID with several months of being house- or chair-bound, I found that both the creative process and the consistent discipline of being a writer helped me heal. There is a lot of hope built into our craft.
Bitterness strongholds ate at me like a cancer, and I could not see that. Researching and writing God-Faced Forgiveness forced me to look at my “inner demons” in the form of bitterness and grudges held for decades, and ultimately to find deliverance.
I have found healing in projects I’ve written, both fiction and non-fiction, because I’m able to see, relate, and write words that help me in the healing process. There are times when pent-up emotion can’t be verbalized, but the pen can say it. During those times, I was able to clearly see a path on the page that I could not see looking ahead. Some of my best healing has come through the words I can’t say aloud but can write.
Writing my newest book, Uncomplicated: Simple Secrets for a Compelling Life, synthesized most life struggles I’ve had thinking something outside the life I was living was where I would finally feel accepted and at home. Through it, God showed me that the life he gave me was not a less-than-life, but one that had lessons and structures in it that others need in our day and age. It became a homecoming for me.
How about you? Has the act of writing ever healed you? Please tell the story in the comments.
Show *AND* Tell With Angela Hunt
Can writing heal the one who writes?
With that assertion I agree,
but I do not have haunted nights,
and thus my ministry
is to bring both thought and laughter
to those who honour me with time
taken to read my words, and after
reflect, and perhaps see God’s design
in the places unexpected,
in pain and loss, and, too, in joy,
for often these are passed, neglected,
and the words I’ve chosen to employ
are intended as a spotlight shone
on readers’ lives, and not my own.
Yes! I suffered intense guilt from divorce. As I poured my heart into a memoir, the Lord transmuted regret into wisdom for others in “Soul Custody: Prevent Divorce in Two Hours.” The key was helping others stay married.
I wrote my first novel after a long season of caregiving and the loss of my Dad to dementia. The ideas poured out of me and as I immersed myself in the story, my grief subsided.
I look forward to one day sharing my story of hope, transformation and legacy with readers. 💗
Kathy, if I may, this is for you, with respect, and with love.
They look so very weary
when you see them in the store,
eyes red, sunken and weary
and they must go back for more,
to a home become a hospice,
to a life without a gentle rest,
to a fevered-forehead kiss,
to performing at one’s best
in a theater, no audience,
no footlights and no bow.
The sameness really gets intense
when all you have is now
and a hard unyielding chair
next to the person in your care.
Third line should have been ‘eyes sunken, red, and bleary’.
Emotion got in the way of proofreading, I guess.
Andrew, I’m a long-time reader, first-time responder to your poems. This is a beautiful tribute that brought tears to my eyes.
Kathy, I watched my extended family devotedly care for my mother-in-law as she fought and eventually passed away from cancer. It is a long and grief-filled road, but I don’t think there’s a better gift we can give our loved ones at the end of their lives.
Andrew, as a former caregiver to my MIL, my dad, and my mom … and a continuing caregiver for my Anna, bleary and weary are constantly interchanging. 🙂 Your poem is right on!
This happens in my writing all the time and I see it in others. First, we need to work through pain to find a solution for ourselves. Once we have healed enough, we can share stories of our experiences, non-fiction or fiction, that can help others find the path to healing. The pain can be anything and will definitely not be understood by all. However, if you don’t share it once you come through, that one person waiting for your path to the resolution will never see it. It turns out that one person can multiply into far more than you expect once you share.
I wrote Heartbreak to Hope after the death of our son. Early in the grief process, I could not talk to anyone, but I could write in the middle of the night. My wife was encouraged when I shared what I had written with her the following day. I shared chapters with others who had experienced profound loss, and they encouraged me to publish them. I am grateful that God used writing about my loss to heal my heart and the hearts of many others. One woman who lost her son and whom I had never met wrote, “Your book saved my life.” Writing the book saved mine, too.
When I was twenty-three, six close relatives all passed away in the same year. The emotional battle of handling such loss in that short time gnawed away at me for years. Even when writing, I veered away from anything that might make me think of them. Then, I saw a call out for funny stories about family members and I wrote a few stories that had to do with some of the family members that had passed that year. It was the first time I had thought of them and laughed since they’d passed. Writing about those fun memories helped me to focus on the wonderful times we shared rather than their death.
Oooh, I love this!
Writing my book Surrendering the Secret, healed me from the heartbreak of abortion. It has since reached over 60,000 women and men. Only God.
I looked at the stars when I was 13 years old, and said, “I don’t believe in God.” Dark and dangerous years followed, with depression and thoughts of suicide. One precipitating event was having an addict in the home disrupting our family. Another was atheistic science; I chose to trust “science” rather than the Bible.
The hurt and fear and healing poured out when as a Christian I wrote my sci-fi novel, THE CAVE CHAMBER. It is published by a small traditional publisher, Winged Publications. Now I advocate for showing “God Active in Science” in my books and talks.
Writing was my outlet through a dark childhood and I rediscovered it in adulthood. I wrote a memoir about the abuse for my eyes only and then a fiction novel about it as well. It’s been hugely helpful to get it all out of me, so to speak.
After decades of struggling to find a way to shed the atheism I was brought up with, I finally managed to do it with the help of the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit. There followed an immense sense of healing and joy that was overpowering. I could only deal with this emotional flood by writing about it, hence my first published book “The Works of His Hands: A Scientist’s Journey from Atheism to Faith”. And after that, I couldn’t stop.
I just looked up your book, Sy. It looks amazing … and it’s in my cart right now.
I have yet to be published (I’m still hoping) but I continue to write daily for my own peace of mind. I’s always wanted to write a novel but it wasn’t until my husband was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer that I took up the practice of writing almost daily. It was something I needed to cope with the stress of being his care-giver. I needed an outlet, an escape from reality and writing has given that to me. I am currently working on my 4th manuscript. It’s bee 2 1/2 years and he’s still hanging in there, and thanks to my outlet so am I.
In 2010 I wrote a book which I was told by every publishing professional I pitched to would never sell. After entering several contests in 2011, I received full requests. After many months [8] of not hearing I asked about it. Turns out I had received a revise and resubmit within just a few months of my original submission but there was a typo in the email address.
The week I received the revise and resubmit my then teenage son had been arrested and I spent a few days questioning God. But that book I wrote in 2010 ministered to me. I was frustrated and bemoaning. And I came across this, “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite. The Lord lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.” And then this, “If You hear me, O Lord,” his voice a mere whisper to his own ears, “grant me Thy guidance. Thy wisdom. Courage. I am Your servant, Most High, humbled before You.”
And, geeze I know this is long, but in 2016 I lost my then husband to cancer. In 2022 I wrote a book. I was able to write the process of grief in that book and how my hero, even though his family died of an illness, he felt as if he failed in his role as a husband in not protecting his wife and child.
Writing is an amazing way to heal.
Absolutely. Writing books about the need for men to be more intentional about their role as husband, dad, and grandfather has made me, well, more intentional about my role as husband, dad, and grandfather. No surprise.
From 2000-2002, during my first term as a missionary in West Africa, my husband and I suffered trauma after trauma. Just one thing heaped on another, and so much brokenness that it has taken me 20 years to adapt and overcome. I started writing about it all in 2016. When I got to the scene in which my children and I were robbed at gunpoint, an assault rifle pointed at my three-year old daughter’s head, and my friend kidnapped, I had to write the scene one. sentence. at. a time. I would write, panic, shake, walk away, and then come back the next day and write another.
But there was so much healing in walking through the scene again in my mind, to describe it to a reader, but to reframe it. Tragedy did not happen. God did not cause this. He never ever left me. He weeps with me. My daughter is a healthy adult. And God can use this story to help someone else. It was incredibly healing, and also very freeing, to process in this way.
Fast forward to 2022, when my son came out as trans-gender and my husband died from cancer. I began therapy and we began working on past traumas. Therapist had me list out every trauma I had endured since childhood, and we slowly began working through them. But when we got to the ones I had written about, very little work was needed. Writing had done the hard work of processing for me.
I took that scene to a blue pencil session with a well-known novelist at a writer’s conference. She cried when she read that little bit of my story.
The book is still in development and I hope it will be done soon. I hope it can help others find meaning and comfort in places of suffering. But I know that writing it helped me find both.
“But when we got to the ones I had written about, very little work was needed. Writing had done the hard work of processing for me.”
I love this so much, Robin!
I learned to do homiletics as a BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) group leader. This rich method requires me to write a distilled outline, containing the facts and overall meaning of the passage being studied.
The last step is pulling from the passage application questions. As I write these questions, trying to capture on paper what God is asking of me and His church, I am deeply convicted and surrounded by His presence.
Handling the Word so intimately through this writing process indeed brings healing. I think another term is transformation. 🙂
Yes, Bob, writing is healing for me — mostly in the pages of my journal. Seeds of insight planted there grow into balm for my soul. Like the ivy covering the ground on the north side of my house, tendrils creep beyond their private boundaries and take root in my Bible studies, devotionals and books. I’m astonished how often a kernel of private healing bears fruit on public ground.
I love that! . . .
“a kernel of private healing bears fruit on public ground.”
Hi Bob,
Yes, writing is definitely therapeutic and cathartic. As a fiction writer, my characters often surprise me with stories that relate to myself. For instance, in a historical romance novella I recently wrote, my protagonist had to deal with forgiveness, making me realize that I did, too. And I thought the story was about a romance!
So much pain.
So much healing.
So thankful God called us all to write!
I lost a son going into the 17th week of pregnancy, and someone encouraged me to write as a way to process grief. I wrote a couple of cheesy poems (which DID help with healing) and while writing them, I remembered in high school I wanted to be a mom and a writer. But I didn’t tell anyone.
I wrote some children’s stories. Long story short, two of them got picked up by Concordia.
The other grief writing that’s helped me heal is blogging about being the parent of a special needs daughter. SO many people told me (and continue to tell me) what a blessing Anna is. And every single time, I think, “Shut up! It’s not a blessing!”
I felt God nudging me to write, so I started a book. I hated every minute of it! When I showed the first chapter to my writing mentor, she asked me if I wanted to write this book. I said no. She asked why I was writing, and I told her I felt God wanted me to write about Anna.
She told me to try blogging.
Now THAT was the ticket. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I didn’t just spew about how hard it is, but I also wanted to encourage other parents, whether they have special needs kids or not.
I worked through TONS of my own issues. And while it’s still hard, and gets harder as I age, I’ve found peace in it most of the time.
Only a few months after the release of my first book, Breathing on Her Own, my husband was killed in a bicycle accident. I had crafted a second book but my publisher had told me to hold off until my first book “grew legs.”.I was starting my third novel the day Tom died. I couldn’t write for a while. I felt as though the “ink ran out of my pen.” I busied myself with volunteer work, a mission trip to India, moving to a new house, moving to Kosovo to teach fourth grade at an American school and any good work I could find. Through it all, I continued my weekly blog post. Those weekly posts pulled me through. I returned from oversees and found a publisher for my second book, Libby’s Cuppa Joe. For a time, set aside my writing dreams. But God spoke to my heart. It was His gift to me and not mine to waste. So I am writing again.
Writing about my experience as a healthcare whistleblower has been both excruciating and healing. I’ve relived the hospital’s retaliation against me—and the subsequent wrongful termination lawsuit—hundreds of times in the writing process. But over time, their abuse has lost some of its sting, and the amazing ways God showed up for me, in the midst of my suffering, was intimate and encouraging—motivating me to keep going. Last night, I was going through some scenes where I was pummeled by so many obstacles at once that I wondered, “How did I get through that?” God sustained me.
After I won my legal battle, I saw a meme with a quote similar to one hanging in my foyer, “This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.” ― Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place
Two years ago, I had a crippling accident. The orthopedist told me he didn’t think even surgery could restore the full use of my arm. I knew what this would mean. So, I appealed to The Great Physician, and He healed my arm. One moment, I was crippled. Seconds later, I tried my arm again, and it was fully functional. When the orthopedist took follow-up x-rays, four days later, he was stunned. The impaction was gone, and the bones were back in their proper position and completely healed. He documented the miraculous healing in my patient chart and wrote, “This is amazing.”
Because God is still a God of miracles, I can finish what He has given me to do. And this is “the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.”
My father passed away when I was young. The only way I could process my grief was through writing my experiences in thinly veiled fantasy form. Yes, writing heals the writer. Sometimes my character is going through something and then, after I write it, I realize I need to deal with the same issue.
Thanks for this. It showed me I’m not alone.
Can writing heal the writer
When our long hospital day ended, my husband faced the diagnosis of esophageal cancer with his characteristic courage. I followed him out the exit doors, headed for an emotional freefall, I unsuccessfully tried to hide. He stopped and turned to me, blocking my way. People skirted around us. He placed his hands on my shoulders, locked me eye to eye, and said, “You must be brave,” He dropped his hands and walked away.
During the drive home, I repeated one question, who can show me how to be brave. God answered. Turn your eyes on Me like Peter did, when he walked to meet Me on the water. When we arrived home, my eyes were fixed on Jesus, ready to honor my husband’s request, “You must be brave.”
My journal became my sanctuary, where I wrote letters to God, my Dear Friend. I pursued God on pages filled with prayers for my husband and guidance for our journey. Words of God poured balm on my rocky days, restored my courage when I had none. God dressed me in armor against spiritual attacks, held me close upon learning the cancer battle had turned against us, and healing took a higher course.
Because God walked me on the waters of my fears, and one request made was met, writing healed this writer and continues writing to encourage others in their fight against cancer.
Thanks Bob! Speaking from experience , writing can heal the writer. I use poetry from my writing or as the act itself to get healing when I am bereaved, needing to feel self worth, etc
Blessings.