SHATTERED by Bill Harbeck

The full title is SHATTERED - One Man's Journey from Sexual Abuse.

I just finished reading this book. It's a true story of a man who was abused from the age of 13 to 19 by his uncle. He hid this secret from every single person. He was married for 26 years before he finally told his wife and little bit longer before he told his kids.

Here's some lessons from his book.

1.      Keeping your abuse secret has serious consequences.

a.     It affected his emotional connection to his wife.

b.     It tore him up inside and he felt alone and worthless while pretending to everyone else that life was perfect.

c.      He developed unhealthy coping behaviors to hide his secret

d.     His children learned these behaviors even though they had not been abused

2.      When he finally told his secret to his wife a great burden was lifted and the healing could begin.

3.      Healing takes time and every person’s journey will be different.

4.      According to Bill on pages 114-5, the phrases “forgive and forget” “move on” “demonstrate a little more faith, that’s what Jesus would do” is disrespectful.

He says, “but to simplify the pathway or timeline is to seriously disrespect the level of damage abuse does. Forgiveness can be very complicated….Survivors may take years to just be able to speak about the pain, and then more years to be able to rebuild themselves and their relationships with family, friends, and God.

5.      Find a good counselor!! He tells how the first counselor did more damage and it was another seven years until he saw another one and then only under duress.

 I highly recommend that everyone read this book.

Father's Day '12

For years I dreamed that I had a family. I always wanted kids. I'm so thankful for the three children that God has given to me.

Today I woke up with only two of them here. Aria is in the hospital recovering from her surgery and Tina's been there with her the entire time. It just doesn't seem right not to have them all here.

Even after a shower and getting dressed, I was required to get back in bed so that my daughter could bring me my breakfast in bed, which consisted of cinnamon toast, watermelon, and coffee (that mom showed her how to make before she left). I also received a card made by my oldest but signed by everyone. And then she crawled in and sat next to me while I ate it. It was very sweet.

I've learned more about God and myself through the experience of being a father. I'm so far from being a perfect father but I do try to at least be a good one. I try to examine events, before and after, in the light of "is that what God would have done?" I know I'm at a disadvantage because I'm not all-knowing but I asked for God's wisdom for guidance, God's patience to deal with issues, and God's forgiveness when I mess up.

In the end, my kids love me and I just pray that I don't mess them up too much so they become well-rounded children who love God, their family, the people they meet, and their country. Is that too much to ask for?

Aria's Decompression Surgery

We were up before 4am this morning getting ready to be at the hospital at 5am so that Aria could have her surgery at 7am. The "grandparents" came to take care of Suzanna and Haydn. "Thank you very much, Mike & Roe!!! You were such a blessing."

We showed up and a couple of our friends, Kathy (our children's pastor at church) and Kelly (someone who's seen the hospital too many times with her own children), showed up for support and hung out with us for hours. They were such a blessing.

At 7am, Aria was wheeled into the operating room and we sat in the waiting room for an hour and a half waiting for the surgeon. When he finally came, he told us the surgery went really well and he was pleased with the results.

We had to wait a little longer and then we were escorted with Aria to the NICU where Aria will be for the next 3-4 days recovering. She's on pain meds and mostly sleeping and it will be at least 24-48 hours before she starts to feel anywhere close to normal and then it's another day or two to make sure she's doing well enough to go home.

Thank you, everyone, for all your prayers. God answered them by providing an awesome surgeon, Dr. Elton, and medical staff that assisted him in the O.R. and the nurses helping with Aria's recovery. All your well-wishes, comments, etc. have meant a lot to us, especially knowing that those who could not be here are with us in spirit.

A big thank you to those who have signed up to bring meals to us for the next week. I can't tell you how much of a blessing that will be to our family and just takes one more worry off my wife as she comforts Aria after she comes home.

God has richly blessed us and we give Him thanks!!!

Joining the Marine Corps

A few days before my birthday I was about to head out to a job interview and my friend, Randy, from high school calls me up. He had just gotten back from Marine Corps boot camp and I thought he was just calling to catch up. He starts talking and I’m acknowledging that I hear what he’s saying and all of a sudden he says, “really, let me get the recruiter on the line.” I’m like, “Randy, Randy, wait” but on comes the recruiter and asked me if I had ever thought of joining the military. I told him I’d never really thought about it but I had thought that if I was ever to join it would be the Marine Corps since they were the best.

He invited me down and I said I’d come after my interview. I believe it was a Thursday night and I talked with the recruiter and did a quick physical test and was scheduled to do the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test on Tuesday the next week. 

My grandparents came into town for the weekend to celebrate my birthday. I assume my uncle, who’s a year younger than me, also came. Over the weekend I asked my family and girlfriend what they thought about me joining the Marine Corps. Not one of them had a negative thing to say about it. Also, none of them had any experience with the military either. I was the first one in my family to join.

So, the next week, I took the ASVAB and as we’re leaving he says I’ll pick you up at 5am to go to MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station). I said, “ok.” What I didn’t realize is that after the medical examination I would be sworn into the Marine Corps and there would be no turning back. I did realize it before I pledge but the process of joining the Marine Corps was foreign to me and happened so quickly that I was thrown off-guard. Nobody realized it was birthday until the very end right before the swearing in ceremony. 

For the next couple months I kept going to school at IBC, working at my new job, and going down to the recruiting station once a week to do PT (physical training) that was to get us prepared for boot camp. Around the beginning of May I stopped going to IBC, changed my date for boot camp to be for July instead of June, and moved into an apartment with a friend for a few weeks. 

It was a start to a whole new life for which I was not prepared but it’s been an interesting journey.

IBC – the college years, not the root beer

The Fall of 1985 saw me enrolled at International Baptist College (IBC). I was going for a bachelor’s degree in Bible/Pastoral Studies. I had always grown up being a “preacher boy” and I always wanted to be an evangelist like Ron Comfort and others like him that came through our church. My whole life seemed to be focused in that direction and that’s always what I thought I was going to be. I still feel kind of guilty that I’m not in a pastoral ministry of some sort.

I continued my job at Piccadilly Restaurant across the street at night. I started dating a college freshman and we were a couple for the next 2 ½ years. The first year at IBC went by without much fanfare. When my freshman year was over I headed to Ironwood Camp for the summer to work in the kitchen. I came back to IBC for my Sophomore year. The Winter of ’87 is when my life got real interesting.

The first thing was that I joined the Marine Corps and I was sworn in on my 20^th birthday. I made arrangements to go to boot camp at the end of the school year. The second thing was I helped open up a new restaurant called The Top of the Rock, which is at the resort on the Broadway curve of the I-10 in Phoenix. They were still building it when I started. The third thing is that I never finished my Sophomore year and although originally I had planned on coming back for my Junior year after boot camp, plans changed and I didn’t come back to IBC for almost ten years. 

The year 1987 changed the whole direction and dynamics of my life. I dropped out of college, joined the Marine Corps, and although it was not my intention, started walking away God, and just kind of did my own thing for the next few years.

The Summer of '85

I had just graduated from high school and looking forward to attending IBC in the Fall. I was working my job at the Piccadilly Restaurant at the corner of Price and Southern. I was a dishwasher and had been working there for about a year. I was at the front of the machine loading the dirty dishes into racks to be run through the machine. We’d have dishes come back chipped or stress fractured and we’d break them and throw them away but not always in that order. Some coffee mugs were so weak that we could pull them apart with our hands with ease. What happened next was one of stupidity. I was expecting to get cut. I always had cuts on my hand but I never expected to injure myself as much as I did.

While at the front of the machine, a coffee cup came through that looked weak but when I tried to pull it apart before I threw it away it stayed together. Normally, we’d throw it in the garbage and use the back end of a table knife to break it. I started to do that but then thought, “no, I can do it.” So, I pulled with all my might and the coffee cup came apart. What I didn’t realize right away was that the coffee cup took a part of two of my fingers with it. When I looked at my hands, I expected to see a cut or two but not a lot of blood. 

I asked my friend a few feet away to grab a cloth napkin for me and I clenched my fist and had another friend drive me to the hospital about a mile down the road. I found out that I had removed the fingerprints from the middle two fingers on my left hand down to the bone but I miraculously missed all muscle and tendons.  A couple days later I was in the hospital having out-patient skin-graft surgery where they took a 2 inch by 3 inch patch out of my left thigh to replace what I was missing in my fingers.

The surgery forced me to be laid up at home inside for about four to six weeks because they didn’t want my skin graft to dry out. You can only watch so many hours of TV a day before getting bored. I gave my mom some money and asked her to buy me an electronic chessboard. I still have it to this day. I played 100+ games on that thing and won only 6 but it really improved my chess game.

By the end of my “house arrest,” I was coloring, doing puzzles, and becoming stir-crazy. I was finally able to get out, go back to work, and show up for TCA’s soccer practice in August even though I had graduated. 

As a side note: as the summer was ending and I was getting ready for college to start, my wife was turning 4 years old. Sounds kind of creepy when you put it that way but our age difference has been a benefit to both of us. She’s mature for her age and I’m not. It’s a good balance.

Lesson - Don't Assume the Question

This morning, as usual, two of the kids were up before 6am. Haydn was extra sweet to Aria and came up and asked her how she was feeling about Friday and gave her a sweet hug. He asked her what smell she wanted for Friday when they gave her the special air to sleep. They were talking about root beer and other flavors.

About 10 minutes later, Haydn and Aria are on the couch talking and I'm trying to put my lunch together to leave and Haydn goes, "Can I tell Aria what she can have?" I'm thinking their still talking about smells for the special air and I said, "If she wants you to." He said, "Really?" I said, "Yes, if it's ok with Aria." Then I walk by and Aria goes, "I'm getting a DSI?" I said, "Haydn, what did you tell her?"

I pulled him aside and gave him the riot act about not spilling secrets. I tried to play it off to Aria that Haydn was going to let her use his DSI while she's in the hospital.

In reality, if I had listened to the question, I could have stopped the leakage of a secret. So, I am partly to blame although my son should have known not to share this secret. I also did not know he knew the secret because we didn't tell him about the DSI for Aria. We're replacing the one that got lost a couple of months ago because we got a real good deal on it and we thought with her being in the hospital it would be a nice treat for her.

There is actually another lesson to be learned. If you don't want one of the kids to know something, don't tell any of the kids because it will eventually make it to all the kids.