The Healing

Ever since they were kids, JENNY CHRISTIE knew there was something “different” about her twin brother JIMMY. Where Jenny became popular at school, Jimmy, handsome as he was, always danced to a different drummer -- Jesus. Maybe he was just looking for a father figure, since his old man took off to points unknown when the twins were still toddlers, leaving mom HANNAH to fend for her family alone. Resigned to find him someday and pay him back, Hannah bounced from job to job, finally settling in as a Deputy Sheriff.

Jenny’s “gift” of memory takes us through the kids’ formative years when they were inseparable -- playing together, praying together, Jimmy finding Jenny just by listening in his mind, Jenny fretting over her lack of ability to deal with the opposite sex, Jimmy translating the entire Bible into language that even today’s young people would understand. But no one understood Jimmy the way Jenny did. He’d even been kicked out of Clement Middle School for preaching to his fellow students, a church/state violation. No surprise to Jenny... and more time for Jimmy to work on his translation.

By high school, Jenny has blossomed into a real “hottie”, while Jimmy has maintained his own, special, divine aura, but they’ve begun to separate as siblings, Jenny becoming more and more popular and put off by Jimmy’s evangelizing, and Jimmy growing even more dedicated to his calling. Their separation has only just begun. While sunning on a float in their above ground pool, Jenny is stung by a black wasp and goes into anaphylactic shock. When her system starts “coring”, doctors give her no hope, and Hannah, fresh from finally tracking down her long lost husband, grieves at her child’s bedside. She promises that the twins’ father will show up... but he never does. When all seems lost, Jimmy displays the depth of his faith and power and virtually “raises” his sister from the dead.

After some recuperation, Jenny returns to school, but she’s changed. Not only does she wear a black glove on her right hand, she also no longer seeks the approval of her peers, once so important. And they are only too happy to oblige when they hear her say things like, “The doctors didn’t save me... Jimmy did.” When Jimmy’s translation rises to best seller status, he becomes a fisher of men, without even trying. Some, like CLYDE, a middle school heart throb turned high school geek, are even challenging him to admit that Jimmy believes he is the second coming. Could just be Clyde’s jealous, as Jimmy’s new fame has put him in the eye of the popularity hurricane, and even MARLA, the hottest girl in school, is after him.

Jimmy, true to his calling, spends his time preaching, while Jenny goes off the deep end, becoming nothing more than a plaything for the likes of Clyde and his nasty pals, going all the way in every way. She’s given up on herself, depressed over the loss of her middle finger, while Jimmy’s star continues to rise, and he opens his own church called “God’s Place.” With royalties from his book sales pouring in and his congregation growing, Jimmy becomes a phenom but comes under the fire of another preacher PASTOR KURTZ who provokes Jimmy into a fight, which sends him to jail for a night.

Jimmy’s faith in his church is challenged when he stops there on the way home from jail to find that it’s been trashed. He also realizes that he can’t save even the people he loves most, his family. Jimmy takes a drastic step -- he climbs up the cross atop Kurtz’s church and ties himself up on it by the arms, refusing to come down until the time is right. This draw’s even larger crowds and attention, especially when Hannah and Jenny decide to stay on the roof of the church with Jimmy... until Jimmy finally sends them home.

In a dream, Jenny sees herself on the cross and rushes out to tell Jimmy she finally knows what to do with her life, but when she climbs up in a rainstorm to tell him, she slips and falls off, and nearly dies, which brings Jimmy down from the cross to intervene once again. It is here where we also find out that Jenny’s “playing around” has left her pregnant, and her premie baby is born. The family restored and strengthened, they team up and take their show on the road.