Searching for the Truth About Drugs: The Life and Calling of Marty Gruber
By Marty Gruber and Jack Donaldson
()
About this ebook
If you have ever wondered what it would be like to travel the road that a drug addict has chosen, sit back and read about the road into living helland back.
Marty Gruber abused drugs for 45 years, and he attempted suicide immediately before he found the door of escape from drug abuse, and the key to a meaningful life. With the aid of Providence Marty found long term meaning, and in the process he has been given the privilege of warning teens about the trap of drug abuse.
Research performed in 2010 shows that 48.2 percent of Americas high school seniors have tried illicit drugs. In 2011 the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) reported that drug abuse cost the United States six hundred and nine billion dollars ($609,000,000,000 is not a typo). Most drug addicts die from their addiction because becoming drug free requires help, and many never find that help. Research shows that for each dollar invested in drug abuse prevention, a savings of up to ten dollars in rehabilitation treatment can be achieved.
A teenager cant see as far down the road as a seventy-five-year-old man who has already been down that road to just short of its logical enddeath. In Martys case, this was attempted suicide. Marty has returned to warn others not to take the road leading to drug abuse.
Marty Gruber
Marty Gruber abused drugs for forty-five years. Drug abuse and successful rehabilitation are his qualifications to warn readers about the horror of using illicit drugs and how to avoid entrapment. Marty has spoken to 150,000 teens in the schools of Las Vegas, Nevada, about drugs. Jack Donaldson retired as the lead welding engineer at the Nevada Test Site in 2003. Now Jack is devoting the final season of his life to writing about true wisdom and finding purpose in life. This search led Jack to collaborate with Marty on this inspirational guide.
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Searching for the Truth About Drugs - Marty Gruber
Copyright © 2012 Fred Martin Gruber and John R. Donaldson Jr.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Inspiring Voices books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:
Inspiring Voices
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.inspiringvoices.com
1-(866) 697-5313
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.
ISBN: 978-1-4624-0106-2 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4624-0105-5 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012936205
Inspiring Voices rev. date: 06/25/2012
Contents
SECTION ONE
TO MY WIFE, CHILDREN, AND GRANDSON
MARTY’S STORY, THE AUTHORS OF HIS STORY, THE PRESENTATION OF HIS STORY,
AND THE USE OF THE MATERIAL IN THIS BOOK
Marty Gruber
Jack Donaldson
About this Book
How To Wage War Against Drug Abuse
Copyright Statement
TABLE OF CONTENTS
How To Search for Information in this Book
MEET MARTY GRUBER
VOLUNTEER DRUG AWARENESS PRESENTER
¶#1: A Progression from Chemical Freak to Drug Awareness Presenter
GETTING TO KNOW MARTY
BIRTH TO FIFTEEN YEARS OF AGE
¶#2: Marty the Boy
¶#3: Life Principle #1
¶#4: Life Principle #2
¶#5: Life Principle #3: Chemical abuse will destroy your life
¶#6: Life Principle #4: There is a path out of abuse and addictions
¶#7: Children Are Arrows Shot from the Bow of Their Parents
¶#8: Orphanage and Foster Care
¶#9: Life with My Mother and Stepdad
¶#10: School and Early Social Development
¶#11: Passions in Life
¶#12: Let the Beatings Begin
¶#13: Chemical Abuse Begins
¶#14: Childhood Stories and a Developing Addiction
¶#15: Kicked Out at Ten
¶#16: A Kid’s Solution
¶#17: Arrested at Sixteen and Put into the Adult Jail
¶#18: Mr. Blue
¶#19: We Do What We Have Learned To Do Through Watching Our Parents
¶#20: Life Had Prepared Me To Be a Candidate for Chemical Abuse
¶#21: Marijuana
GETTING TO KNOW MARTY
FROM AGE FIFTEEN TO FINDING LIFE’S CALLING
¶#22: The Raging River of Life
¶#23: Nearly Electrocuted
¶#24: Mr. Goldstein
¶#25: The Ohio Boys’ Industrial School
¶#26: The Shooting Range
¶#27: The Move to El Sereno, California
¶#28: Another Black Angel
¶#29: Free
¶#30: Butch
¶#31: The Navy
¶#32: Learning About Work
¶#33: From Marijuana to Cocaine to Pain to Telling Others What Not To Do
¶#34: My Mother
¶#35: Seek Wisdom Where It May Be Found
GETTING TO KNOW MARTY
THE RECOVERING DRUG ADDICT
¶#36: From Marijuana to Cocaine, to Crash and Burn, to the Discernment of Wisdom and Recovery
¶#37: Cocaine
¶#38: The Unwonderful World of Drugs
¶#39: Janice
¶#40: Company-Sponsored Rehabilitation
¶#41: Crash and Burn
¶#42: My Cry for Help
¶#43: The Healing Process Begins
¶#44: The Road to Freedom
¶#45: An Invitation To Change My Life
¶#46: The Path To Teaching Drug Awareness
¶#47: The Program Takes Shape
¶#48: My First Bump in the Road
¶#49: Why I Teach Drug Awareness Training
¶#50: Final Comments
SECTION TWO
DRUG AWARENESS PRESENTATION: DAY #1
Drug Awareness Presentation: Day #2
LETTERS FROM ORR MIDDLE SCHOOL
DAVID AND ME
¶#51: Allostasis
¶#52: My Adopted Grandson
¶#53: David: Drugs, Recovery, and Length of Life
SECTION THREE
NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DRUG ABUSE
INFORMATION AND FACTS
¶#54: Understanding Drug Abuse and Addiction
¶#55: What Is Drug Addiction?
¶#56: What Happens to Your Brain When You Take Drugs?
¶#57: Why Do Some People Become Addicted While Others Do Not?
¶#58: Prevention Is the Key
¶#59: Other Information Sources
¶#60: Additional Statistics Addressing Drug Abuse:
SECTION THREE
Teen Challenge Success in Drug Abuse
Treatment as Verified by the National
Institute on Drug Abuse;
¶#61: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Report
¶#62: Research Results Were Categorized into Three Groups:
SECTION FOUR
QUESTIONS ABOUT
¶#63: Questions for the Twenty-First-Century Teen
¶#64: The Drug Trap
¶#65: The Controversy Over Meaning
¶#66: The Limitations of Public-Funded Education
¶#67: The Foundation of Truth and Values
¶#68: Social Drift
¶#69: What Works in Life Is Built Upon Foundational Truth
¶#70: I Think, Therefore I Am
¶#71: Questions Lead to Answers and Answers Lead to Eternal Fulfillment
¶#72: Why
¶#73: Fire
¶#74: The Present Connects Our Future with Our Past
¶#75: Those Who Have Not Learned from History Are Doomed To Repeat It
¶#76: A Wise Choice in Youth Serves for a Lifetime
¶#77: Too Soon Old … Too Late Smart
THE ROLE OF PARENTING
IN CONTROLLING DRUG ABUSE
¶#78: One Suggestion To Reduce Drug Abuse
¶#79: Perhaps Drug Abuse Is Only a Symptom of a Bigger Problem
¶#80: Values Are Not Taught, They Are Caught
¶#81: Building the Community Corral
¶#82: Parenting Is the Key
¶#83: The First Obvious Problem
¶#84: The Second Obvious Problem
¶#85: The Third Obvious Problem
¶#86: The First Obvious Solution
¶#87: The Second Obvious Solution
¶#88: Political Correctness; A Side Note to Obvious Solution #2
¶#89: The Third Obvious Solution
¶#90: Drug Abuse and Enforcement Authority
LETTERS TO MARTY
¶#91: Letters to Marty Are One of the Great Rewards for Presenting This Program
SECTION FIVE
A Message From Marty
Prescription Drugs
Cough Medication, And Steroids
Step Up
You have the Power to Help a Friend or Family Member Who has a Drug or Alcohol Problem
Secondhand Smoke
The Practice Of Cutting Or Snapping
The Hookah Myth
The Choking Game
The Marijuana Myth
Teen Help Telephone List
My Name Is Meth
How To Help Someone Stop Smoking
Cigarettes
I Went To A Party, Mom
THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DRUG ABUSE
Alcohol
Club Drugs
Cocaine
Heroin
HIV/AIDS and Drug Abuse
Inhalants
LSD (Acid)
Marijuana
Methamphetamine
MDMA (Ecstasy)
PCP/Phencyclidine
Prescription Medications
Steroids (Anabolic)
Tobacco/Nicotine
SECTION ONE
TO MY WIFE, CHILDREN, AND GRANDSON
This book is dedicated to my wife Golda, who for over fifty years stayed with me through my years of drug abuse and all that drug abuse brought into our lives. To our oldest son Gary: Your father and mother love you very much. We want to be a family again. Can you forgive me for all the pain and suffering I caused you? The door is always open. To our middle son Michael: Keep your life on track; we are very proud of you. To our youngest son Christopher: May you rest in peace. To our grandson Brandon: Thank you for breaking the chain of drug abuse in this family; we love you very much.
Marty Gruber
MARTY’S STORY, THE AUTHORS OF HIS STORY, THE PRESENTATION OF HIS STORY,
AND THE USE OF THE MATERIAL IN THIS BOOK
Marty Gruber
Marty Gruber had about as rough a childhood as one can imagine. He went from being an abused child brought up in part by foster parents, to reform school, to abusing drugs for more than forty-five years, to attempted suicide, to finding meaning in life through his calling to tell teens about the horrors of chemical addictions. It was while attempting suicide that Marty discovered what he believes to be the source of truth and wisdom, and it was through this newfound wisdom that Marty discovered his calling in life. It was through finding his calling that Marty’s life has taken on purpose and meaning.
Through this book, Marty openly shares what he learned about the living hell called chemical addiction, which he lived with for more than half a lifetime. The purpose of this book is to help the reader avoid the living hell of chemical abuse—or to assist a drug abuser in finding the help needed to escape the living hell of chemical abuse—and in the process find peace in living life with purpose in the belief that this world that extends beyond the here and now.
Chemical abuse is an unexpected living hell that traps a drug freak because of his or her bad choices in life. Marty’s story demonstrates that there is hope for people who got a bad start in life and then compounded their problems through their own bad choices. Marty’s story is fast moving and highly motivational, and it demonstrates that it is never too late to change. Good things happen to those who are willing to yield to wisdom greater than their own. The details of Marty’s life are presented in the narrative of this book.
Jack Donaldson
In 2003, Jack Donaldson retired as the lead welding engineer at the Nevada Test Site. For the past forty years, Jack has been on a mission searching for truth, for wisdom, and for meaning in life; and he has expressed his thoughts in numerous manuscripts he hopes to publish in the future. As a retired person, Jack is devoting the final season of his life to writing about true wisdom and how he has learned to evaluate truth and wisdom in order to recognize purpose in life. This search has prepared Jack to help Marty get his story in print, to provide insights into Marty’s early life, and to prepare commentary for portions of this book addressing Marty’s search for meaning. Marty’s search in many ways is similar to the quest to find meaning conducted by all people who seek to find meaning and purpose through illicit drugs. Illicit drug abuse is a dead end street.
About this Book
Marty’s story provides a powerful demonstration that how the individual answers the basic questions about life helps him discern his personal mission in life. This story reveals that as we begin to understand this world and the people in it, from the perspective that there is more to life than we can see with our eyes and can touch with our hands, our idea of what is important changes, and how we make personal choices also changes. Our choices ultimately determine our path through life.
When we come to understand that there are more important things than personal peace and comfort, we may begin to experience the joy of looking beyond ourselves to find meaning in our personal life. The choices we make affect other people, and the choices other people make affect us. Everything in this world is interconnected by design; for this reason, we cannot escape the idea that we must support one another throughout life. The story of Marty Gruber is about how Marty, at fifty-three years of age, learned that his purpose in life was to serve the Designer of life, and Marty’s purpose was to help teens avoid the destructive influence of drugs so that they could find their purpose. This changed Marty’s understanding of what is important. This in turn changed his decision making process from being focused on himself to becoming focused on the well-being of other people.
Jack has been Marty’s friend for more than ten years. Marty and Jack share a passion for finding truth, meaning, and purpose, and for making the decisions of life based on wisdom that is greater than their own. Jack has attended the presentations made by Marty in the schools of the Clark County School District of Las Vegas, Nevada, approximately twenty times, and he desires for Marty’s story to be told after he is no longer able to go into the classroom and tell it himself. Marty’s story is uplifting and generates hope for a better life for anyone who is willing to make the decisions of life under the influence of wisdom that comes from beyond the human mind.
Even though Marty celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday in May of 2011, younger people somehow realize that they need to learn what Marty has learned through the hard knocks of being born into a dysfunctional family and then building upon a bad start in life through bad choices. Marty tells his story so that those who listen to him may avoid the specific bad choices he made and that they may realize that a rocky beginning in life does not condemn one to a lifetime of heartache and failure. There is a wonderful world waiting for those who have eyes to see it.
Jack believes that Marty has been given a gift to communicate a specific message to teens. Clearly Marty has learned some things through life that teens may benefit from learning. To help this happen, Jack has volunteered his time and writing talent to get Marty’s story in print so that others can learn: (1) How being raised in dysfunctional environments contributed to the bad choices Marty made in his youth. (2) How Marty built his life upon his shaky beginning and continued making bad choices for over forth-five years. (3) How Marty changed his understanding of life in ways that significantly have improved his decision making abilities. (4) Finally, it is our goal to present hope that will encourage the reader (young or old) to pursue a high quality of life based upon the expectation that life has meaning and that the despair and tumult many young people feel may yield to a beautiful pursuit of meaning and purpose by looking beyond self. Learning to pursue meaning beyond self works for older people as well. The key is to seek wisdom greater than man’s wisdom by looking to eternity as a source of meaning rather than extracting meaning only from the here and now.
Day One and Day Two of Marty’s drug awareness presentations were transcribed from DVD recordings of his classroom discussions. The details of Marty’s personal life were transcribed from CD recordings made for this book. The events of Marty’s young life were recalled from memory and exact dates cannot be established. Some commentary addressing the events of Marty’s life were researched and prepared by Jack and edited by Marty. Details of specific events are accurate but their place in time is less accurate. Interpretation of some events has been made based on adult perceptions that have helped both Jack and Marty deal with the pain of living in the less-than-perfect world we all share. Section four was written by Jack with significant input from Marty. These paragraphs present the philosophical views that both men have come to adopt through the pain of living in a severely broken world.
This book is divided into five sections:
Section One presents Marty’s personal story and the path that led him to become a drug awareness presenter.
Section Two consists of transcripts from two drug awareness presentations made by Marty in the classroom. These are followed by student written responses to Marty’s presentations and the story of Marty’s adopted grandson’s struggle with drugs.
Section Three discusses how drug usage alters the body and brain of the addict, which explains why it is so difficult for an addict to turn away from drugs. This is followed by a report on the remarkable success of Teen Challenge, a program that uses a faith-based approach to dealing with the problem of addiction.
Section Four addresses several basic questions of life that we are all faced with and emphasizes the importance of personally answering these questions. How we answer, or fail to answer, the basic questions in life significantly affects our understanding of who we are and what is important in life. It is unavoidable that our lives become a living demonstration of what we believe truth to be. Thus, what we accept as truth affects our decisions. This section includes letters from students who have heard Marty’s presentation over the years.
Section Five presents a letter to educators that explains Marty’s approach to drug awareness training, which targets six groups of teenagers through two forty-five minute presentations. This is followed by the seven handouts Marty gives to students. Finally this is followed by fourteen attachments presenting the massive amounts of information on drug abuse published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). These attachments are freely available on the Internet (see Website http://www.nida.nih.gov/nidahome.html). Information on how to access this information is also included in the attachments. Marty also provides Tips for Teens
(see http://store.samhsa.gov/pages/searchResult/Tips+for+teens). These eleven tips are not included in this book but are available from the above website.
How To Wage War Against Drug Abuse
Do you wish to participate in the battle against drug abuse? If your answer to this question is yes, this book was written to help you. By the end of school year 2010–2011, Marty’s presentations entitled Searching for the Truth About Drugs
will have been presented to over 150,000 teens in the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, Nevada. This presentation is now available as a ninety-minute-long DVD presentation as an aid to those who want to present a message against illicit drug usage to individuals or to a group. This DVD includes the testimony of David, Marty’s adopted grandson, who at 15 years of age was a recovering drug abuser. David’s story is addressed in detail in Marty’s presentation. This is followed by Marty’s personal presentations made in class. This DVD is designed to help you prepare and present authoritative discussions about the horrors associated with drug abuse and will be an eye opener for someone experimenting with, or thinking of experimenting with, illicit drugs. To obtain this information, do the following:
1. Send for the DVD, which is available at a cost of $13 (this includes shipping and handling). Send payment to
Searching for the Truth About Drugs
P. O. Box 370610
Las Vegas, Nevada 89137
2. Number of DVDs ordered:_____________________________
$13.00 payment for each DVD ordered = $____________________
Name:______________________________________________
Mailing Address:______________________________________
State:_____________ Zip Code__________________
Country:____________________________________________
3. Judging from the approximately 80,000 letters I have received over the twelve years that I have done this program, it has helped many teens and their friends and families with drug-related problems. All proceeds from the sale of this book and the DVDs will go toward the operating costs of developing, presenting, and maintaining this program.
4. The seven handouts included in Section V, entitled Marty’s Handouts,
may be copied and used at your discretion.
5. The fourteen attachments published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) are in the public domain; these publications may be freely used by the public. These attachments lead to volumes of information on drug abuse.
Copyright Statement
This book is copyrighted and is the specific property of Marty Gruber and John R. Donaldson Jr.. All photographs in this book are the property of Marty Gruber and John R. Donaldson Jr. Permission is herby granted to copy and distribute this information for those waging war against chemical addiction. This grant does not include permission to duplicate and sell for profit the copyrighted information owned by Marty Gruber and John R. Donaldson Jr.. In addition, this grant does not include information that is quoted and referenced in any section of this book that is not the copyrighted property of Marty Gruber and John R. Donaldson Jr..
Cover Photos: Cover photos are copyright Thinkstock.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
How To Search for Information in this Book
A section heading is at the top of each page. This section heading presents the primary topic in the section. Under the section headings are paragraph headings. The paragraph headings also carry a paragraph number (e.g., ¶#1). Thus, the most efficient way for a reader to search for information in this book is to (1) read the section heading; (2) read the paragraph headings and note the paragraph number; and (3) search for that paragraph by number through the text pages of the book by moving forward and backward through the text until the page where the paragraph searched for is found.
MEET MARTY GRUBER
VOLUNTEER DRUG AWARENESS PRESENTER
¶#1: A Progression from Chemical Freak to Drug Awareness Presenter
The world is filled with people who care about other people, but in general, they are not the one’s who are most visible to someone seeking to answer the questions that come when the world begins to press them into its mold of uncaring hardness. A caring person may be defined as one who sees the reality of those around him and chooses to give his time and resources to make the experiences of those around him better out of concern for the person he wants to help (i.e., the person who is offering help is not selfishly motivated).
We all have caring people in our lives, such as Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, or special teachers, coaches, or friends who went out of their way to help us learn something important or to do something important. Sometimes we encounter people who care about us who do not even know us, but they are still willing to share their lives with us because they realize we need help in dealing with life, especially in making the decisions of life.
Perhaps the most caring people are those who help shape our lives by showing us answers to the pressing questions of life. It is ironic that those who care for others the most are not usually the ones teens will choose as the character model they seek to emulate as they grow into adulthood. However, caring people are the very people who enable young people to become who they are going to become as they travel through life. I do not mean to imply that young people are not caring. However, the caring people I have in mind have developed into who they are over several seasons of their personal lives. It takes time for a caring person to develop the characteristics that motivate and enable him to communicate what he desires to show others about life.
The caring people I have in mind are usually sensitive and have learned something that helps them function and relate to others in a very positive way. People we describe as caring want to enable others to grow the way they have grown or perhaps to avoid something that will damage their lives. The result is that caring people quietly go about doing what they can to enable others to learn what they have learned or to avoid some pitfall in life they have experienced and know to be very dangerous. Their goal is to enable other people to make personal choices that will serve them well in the path they are progressively choosing through life.
It has been my observation that some people I believe are caring no longer realize how much they influence others, because whatever assistance they offer has become such a part of who they are that it is interwoven into their personalities. How they care has become who they are rather than simply what they do. I believe it is this way with Marty Gruber. His disdain for the abuse of mind-altering chemicals is so developed that what he teaches in his drug awareness presentations is simply part of who he has become and how he desires to use his time. Marty has made his life an open book for developing teenagers to read so they can understand the consequences of some choices open to them and choose a different path around a choice of life that can be majorly destructive.
People I would describe as caring have become living examples of what they want to communicate to someone else about life. Caring artists demonstrate something about their art with a strong feeling that is somehow transmitted to others through their art. This feeling is somehow communicated to another person who appreciates that art. Caring dancers imbue their dance with part of their personalities that communicates something others may feel as they watch them perform the intricate movements of their dance. Caring parents bring everything they are and have learned about life that will aid their children into their task of parenting. Their lives are ongoing demonstrations of the values they hope to communicate to their children through parenting. In a similar way, a caring drug awareness presenter demonstrates the pitfalls of drug abuse and what drug abuse will do for those who choose to become chemical freaks. Effective presentations on drug abuse communicate the destructive force of drug abuse in a way that teenagers can identify with. The result is that kids willingly listen to what is said and make their choice accordingly.
Marty Gruber is a caring drug awareness counselor. Marty explains his experiences as a forty-five-plus-year chemical freak, knowing that the life he lived as a junkie is similar to what other chemical freaks experience in the unwonderful world of drug addiction. Marty has concluded that the experiences of a chemical addict are far different from what most people actually desire as they begin their journey into drug usage. Marty has put much effort into developing a format for communicating what one will certainly encounter when traveling the road known as chemical addiction.
Marty has a passion developed out of the pain of life that has led him to dedicate the latter seasons of his life to teenagers as he tells them what lies down this very dark and foreboding road we call drug addiction. It is by knowing that some choices in life will produce great pain that we are enabled to make better choices. We are able to learn from other people’s mistakes and from our own mistakes. Marty’s personal life as a chemical freak and the lives of those he influenced to do drugs, and the lives of other chemical freaks he encountered traveling the same path, are his examples of what lies in the path of a drug addict.
The emphasis of Marty’s presentations about the path of drug abuse he chose are (1) Don’t do it, and let me tell you why
; (2) If you are hooked on drugs, you need help in becoming drug free
; (3) Help is available to assist you in becoming drug free and choosing to remain drug free, but you personally must make the choice to remain drug free
; and (4) understanding that truth has great power to set you free from mistakes you have already made and then to keep you free from making additional mistakes that will destroy your life.
A teenager simply can’t see as far down the road as a seventy-five-year-old man who has already been down that road to just short of its logical end—which is death. In Marty’s case, this was attempted suicide. He has returned to warn others not to take that path.
If you have ever wondered what it would be like to travel the road that a drug addict has chosen to travel, sit back and read about the road into living hell—and back.
Image1MartyGruber.jpgMeet Marty Gruber.
GETTING TO KNOW MARTY
BIRTH TO FIFTEEN YEARS OF AGE
¶#2: Marty the Boy
My name is Fred Martin Gruber, and I was born on May 20, 1936, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
I didn’t find out what my real name was until I went into the navy when I was nineteen years old. Until then, I thought my name was Martin Frederick Gruber.
My father’s name was Frank Joseph Gruber, and my mother’s maiden name was Olive Julius Riggs. Mom was of Irish descent and was a very attractive young woman. Mary Elizabeth Gruber is my sister and is three years older than I, and Frank Joseph Gruber, my brother, is two years older than I am.
As I tell my story, there are many things I wish were different. However, let me be clear: I am not looking for sympathy for things that happened to me more than three-quarters of a lifetime ago. In fact, over the years I have learned that the childhood abuse I experienced actually has become a source of strength that is now enabling me to understand the crippling influence the dysfunctional adults who raised me had on me. This understanding also enables me to perform the work I was called to do in this season of my life. As I began to think about the larger questions on life, such as, Where did I come from?
What is life all about?
and Does life have purpose?
the fact that I experienced an unhappy, painful childhood and survived it seemed less important than when I was young. I will discuss how my thinking about this has progressed as I tell my story.
What I do want to emphasize is that what dads, moms, and the guardians of children do and demonstrate to the children under their care has consequences. Through my journey in life, I have learned that parents owe it to their children to determine the best way to nurture their children and then provide that nurturing to them while they instill the values and skills their children will need in their personal lives. There is nothing more important to a mom or dad than the nurturing of their children in the home environment, and there is more to nurturing a child than providing them with food, shelter, and clothing. Nurturing begins with these things, but it requires much more—such as