Rebecca Reilly's Blog - Posts Tagged "ghost"
How Abuse Made Me Strong
Just before my seventeenth birthday, I woke to my mother standing above me with a chef's knife raised and ready to plunge. I screamed. She lowered the knife and walked out of my bedroom without saying a word.
It wasn't the first time she'd raised a weapon, or her fists, against me. No, never when she was sober. But sobriety and my mother didn't often meet.
I moved out the next morning and spent the rest of my senior year of high school sleeping on my best friend's floor.
Abuse warps, twists and changes the inner child into something different, not less, than who that child was created to be. Without love, support, healing, and letting go of the pain and bitterness, the twisting can destroy.
But with love, support, healing, and letting go, the twisting spurs growth and strength. I was blessed. My neighbor cared for me, my friend gave me a place to sleep, my drive got me through college, my husband proved to me I was worthy to be loved, and I found a passage of scripture (Psalm 139) that gave me hope.
There were times I had to force myself to take the next step. I transferred colleges because I started drinking too much and realized I was following my mother's path. I wrote my blessings and my strengths down in a journal when I felt humiliated and worthless. I focused on the future when I was tempted to bury myself in the past.
It took people to build me up from the outside, and discipline and faith to build up my soul.
My latest book, Haunting Megan, begins in my teenage home; the opening chapters are autobiographical. Writing them was therapy for me. Reading them provided therapy for my siblings. Much of my heroine's inner doubts and struggles were mine. As were her victories.
The ghosts and murders are just for fun.
Haunting Megan is available for pre-order at iBooks (http://bit.ly/HauntingMeganiBooks) and at Amazon (http://bit.ly/HauntingMeganAmazon)
It wasn't the first time she'd raised a weapon, or her fists, against me. No, never when she was sober. But sobriety and my mother didn't often meet.
I moved out the next morning and spent the rest of my senior year of high school sleeping on my best friend's floor.
Abuse warps, twists and changes the inner child into something different, not less, than who that child was created to be. Without love, support, healing, and letting go of the pain and bitterness, the twisting can destroy.
But with love, support, healing, and letting go, the twisting spurs growth and strength. I was blessed. My neighbor cared for me, my friend gave me a place to sleep, my drive got me through college, my husband proved to me I was worthy to be loved, and I found a passage of scripture (Psalm 139) that gave me hope.
There were times I had to force myself to take the next step. I transferred colleges because I started drinking too much and realized I was following my mother's path. I wrote my blessings and my strengths down in a journal when I felt humiliated and worthless. I focused on the future when I was tempted to bury myself in the past.
It took people to build me up from the outside, and discipline and faith to build up my soul.
My latest book, Haunting Megan, begins in my teenage home; the opening chapters are autobiographical. Writing them was therapy for me. Reading them provided therapy for my siblings. Much of my heroine's inner doubts and struggles were mine. As were her victories.
The ghosts and murders are just for fun.
Haunting Megan is available for pre-order at iBooks (http://bit.ly/HauntingMeganiBooks) and at Amazon (http://bit.ly/HauntingMeganAmazon)
Time to Pre-order Haunting Megan
Pre-order HAUNTING MEGAN this weekend, email me your receipt, and I'll send you a coupon for a free download of INTO DARK WATERS.
http://bit.ly/HauntingMeganiBooks
After suffering years of abuse at the hands of her alcoholic mother, Megan wakes to screams, cries of murder, and the room splattered with blood. Sent to the mountains to live with the grandfather who’d once abandoned them, Megan must learn to care for her young sisters and manage Wind Hollow Lodge. Megan tries to ignore the haunting memories of her past as she struggles to live a normal life. But she can’t ignore the ghosts who terrorize her, nor can she calm the fear that her sanity is slipping away. When deputies discover the bodies of men murdered on Wind Hollow land, people start to wonder just how crazy Megan Wilson really is.
The investigation at Wind Hollow Lodge is just another case to Deputy Jason Belt—until he sees Megan. Drawn to her beauty and her wounded spirit, his oath to protect and serve takes on new meaning. But why did she lie to him? What does she have to hide?
http://bit.ly/HauntingMeganiBooks
After suffering years of abuse at the hands of her alcoholic mother, Megan wakes to screams, cries of murder, and the room splattered with blood. Sent to the mountains to live with the grandfather who’d once abandoned them, Megan must learn to care for her young sisters and manage Wind Hollow Lodge. Megan tries to ignore the haunting memories of her past as she struggles to live a normal life. But she can’t ignore the ghosts who terrorize her, nor can she calm the fear that her sanity is slipping away. When deputies discover the bodies of men murdered on Wind Hollow land, people start to wonder just how crazy Megan Wilson really is.
The investigation at Wind Hollow Lodge is just another case to Deputy Jason Belt—until he sees Megan. Drawn to her beauty and her wounded spirit, his oath to protect and serve takes on new meaning. But why did she lie to him? What does she have to hide?
How Can a Christian Pastor Write a Ghost Story?
I have to say, that question broadsided me. Not the question itself, but the tone in which my friend delivered it. I got the sense that by delving into fiction, by touching on a topic that may imply a spiritual realm surrounds us and influences us, she thought I’d cast my theology and my salvation out the window.
As a pastor, I had to stop, take a step back, and look at what I had written and why I had written it. This story, more than any other I’ve published, is close to my heart. Haunting Megan begins in my teenage home; the opening chapters are autobiographical. Writing them was therapy for me. Reading them provided therapy for my siblings. Much of my heroine's inner doubts and struggles were mine—as were her victories.
Haunting Megan did not begin as a ghost story. At the core, Haunting Megan is about a young girl broken by horrific tragedy, who fights for healing, and whose decisions and character are rooted in the events of her early childhood. Does she see ghosts? Yes. Are the ghosts real, or are they, as her counselor claims, a manifestation of the guilt she feels? That is something the reader has to decide.
Do I believe in ghosts? I believe in a spiritual world that surrounds us and encompasses both good and evil. I believe our spirit lives when our body fails. I believe there is so much more to God than we know, and more to being in His presence after death than we can understand.
Though Haunting Megan is not Christian fiction (it neither mentions nor promotes Christian theology), several themes run through the novel that I believe are consistent with my faith. We are all broken in different ways and need healing. Relationships need to be restored. Our past forms us but does not define us. And most importantly, love has power to heal.
So why should you read Haunting Megan? It’s a fun, entertaining, and yes—spooky read. At the heart, that’s what good fiction should be.
Haunting Megan is available for pre-order at
http://bit.ly/HauntingMeganiBooks
http://bit.ly/HauntingMeganAmazon
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MQA5YSU
Rebecca Reilly is a pastor and has worked in ministry for over thirty years. A passionate reader and writer, Rebecca took on four wildly different genres for her first five books – a murder mystery at sea (Into Dark Waters), a humorous look at sex and marriage (Diary of a Christian Woman: How I Used 50 Shades of Grey to Spice Up My Marriage), a children’s chapter book on bullying (The Geek Club under the pen name Becky Reilly), and two picture books (Jammers and His Flying Bed Adventure and Heart of a Kitty). She returned to the mystery/suspense genre for her sixth book (Haunting Megan).
You can follow Rebecca on Facebook (facebook.com/RebeccaLynnReilly), Twitter (twitter.com/RebeccaReillyL), Goodreads, and at www.rebeccareilly.net.
As a pastor, I had to stop, take a step back, and look at what I had written and why I had written it. This story, more than any other I’ve published, is close to my heart. Haunting Megan begins in my teenage home; the opening chapters are autobiographical. Writing them was therapy for me. Reading them provided therapy for my siblings. Much of my heroine's inner doubts and struggles were mine—as were her victories.
Haunting Megan did not begin as a ghost story. At the core, Haunting Megan is about a young girl broken by horrific tragedy, who fights for healing, and whose decisions and character are rooted in the events of her early childhood. Does she see ghosts? Yes. Are the ghosts real, or are they, as her counselor claims, a manifestation of the guilt she feels? That is something the reader has to decide.
Do I believe in ghosts? I believe in a spiritual world that surrounds us and encompasses both good and evil. I believe our spirit lives when our body fails. I believe there is so much more to God than we know, and more to being in His presence after death than we can understand.
Though Haunting Megan is not Christian fiction (it neither mentions nor promotes Christian theology), several themes run through the novel that I believe are consistent with my faith. We are all broken in different ways and need healing. Relationships need to be restored. Our past forms us but does not define us. And most importantly, love has power to heal.
So why should you read Haunting Megan? It’s a fun, entertaining, and yes—spooky read. At the heart, that’s what good fiction should be.
Haunting Megan is available for pre-order at
http://bit.ly/HauntingMeganiBooks
http://bit.ly/HauntingMeganAmazon
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MQA5YSU
Rebecca Reilly is a pastor and has worked in ministry for over thirty years. A passionate reader and writer, Rebecca took on four wildly different genres for her first five books – a murder mystery at sea (Into Dark Waters), a humorous look at sex and marriage (Diary of a Christian Woman: How I Used 50 Shades of Grey to Spice Up My Marriage), a children’s chapter book on bullying (The Geek Club under the pen name Becky Reilly), and two picture books (Jammers and His Flying Bed Adventure and Heart of a Kitty). She returned to the mystery/suspense genre for her sixth book (Haunting Megan).
You can follow Rebecca on Facebook (facebook.com/RebeccaLynnReilly), Twitter (twitter.com/RebeccaReillyL), Goodreads, and at www.rebeccareilly.net.
