Healing POV

Healing Stones and Healing Waters by Nancy Rue and Steve Arterburn. I just finished reading these two books and there is a lot of I could say.
I could say these were great books that kept me up at night because I couldn’t put them down.
I could say these books touched my heart and taught me about faith.
I could say Healing Waters, really touched my heart and soul as I deal with my own weight-related image issues.
I could say these books hold great spiritual truths and how they apply to life.
I could write long articles about all of the above because they are true. But today, I want to write from my author’s heart. These two books reminded me of all the classes I have taken, books I have read, and things I have been told about the best point of view from which to write.
Nancy Rue and Steve Arterburn followed an interesting pattern in these books. In these novels, there are two main characters. The first is Sullivan Crisp, a Christian psychologist, who appears in both books. The female protagonists are Demitria Costanas in Healing Stones and Lucia Coffey in Healing Waters. The POV changes back and forth between Crisp and the women. The women’s stories are told in first person and Crisp’s story is in third person.
By using first person I was drawn deeply into Demitria’s and Lucia’s stories. This was especially true of Healing Waters. One of the issues in this story is how self-image is related to a woman’s obesity, a problem with which I struggle. As I read, “This is what I feel….” or “This is what I think…” I could actually hear myself saying the words as I have many times. I felt as though I was actually inside the minds of these women.
In Crisp’s use of third person, I heard someone leading me through a path of exploring wisdom and finding answers for my life. Crisp has his own flaws and struggles; just as people we turn to are imperfect. This gives a very clinical feeling to the story.
Overall, the use of two different POVs from first and third persons was effective in making me feel like I was part of the story in a real life setting.