Title: Break
the Chains
Genre: Memoir
Author: Jay D Roberts, MD
Website: jdrobertsmd.com
Publisher: Tate Publishing and Enterprises, LLC
If
you were abused over and over again, would you become an abuser? Or would you
learn to forgive? Dr. Jay Roberts had to go to prison to learn the answer.
In
1999 Dr. Roberts was in at-home hospice care preparing for his own death from a
neurological disease. At the point where he finally gave up, he experienced a
spontaneous, overnight healing. It was not the first time he had “cheated”
death. He had survived a fifty-foot fall from a cliff, a plane crash, and
attempts on his life by rebel insurgents in remote areas in the Philippines in
1970s. This near-death escape was different though, because it was the
culmination of a turbulent lifelong dialogue with God which started when he was
a child being bull-whipped by his alcoholic father. Yet even after his complete
recovery from disease, it would take a maximum security prison environment to
reveal to him the mysterious power of forgiveness.
In
the telling of his fascinating story—of extreme abuse, of the compulsion to
become a pain and wound care specialist, of medical school in a third world
country against a dangerous political backdrop, and of his return home to deal
with the demons he’d left behind—Dr. Roberts tackles the big questions
illuminating physical, mental, and spiritual growth. Break the Chains affirms faith in both God and the human spirit. It
is as revealing and inspirational as it is truthful and poignant.
Prologue
Palm
Springs, California
1999
My
eyes water as I stare at the whirling ceiling fan. The blades blur
and transform into bolos (machetes) that slice through the air
and my thoughts. The physician in me dissects my infirmity, orders
treatment for cure, and demands to be in charge. The Christian
in me calls for faith without understanding, to die to self,
to surrender to Christ and his will. My medical and religious beliefs
battle and clash like opposing bolo blades.
I lay wasting in my bed with muscles, once
toned and defined, now
atrophied and weak. I am wounded. I struggle to push the opened
Bible away from my bedside. Beverly has placed the Bible next
to me for weeks. She and I have been married since 1975, after
a three-year courtship. I wonder if she wants to reconsider the
“for better or for worse” part of our vows. How easy those words
flowed from our naive mouths.
The Bible falls to the floor. The fight is
over.
I smile.
My inner voice and friend, Buddy, warns me
I am wrong to
disrespect
the Bible.
I tell him to go away.
He does.
My eyes close. My brain waves surge and
scenes are projected on
the back of my eyelids, reflections of my past. I am in fifth grade.
It is late at night. I walk like a robot to the kitchen. My pajamas
stick to my bottom. The dried blood from the bullwhip lashings
holds the fabric to my skin. My father is passed out,
drunk.
His right hand, with its thick, stubby digits and brownish-yellow
stain between the long and middle fingers, hangs over the edge
of the couch. He snores with the intensity of a train. I select the
sharpest knife and walk over to the bullwhip that hangs on a wall
near the living room. I remove it from the wall, walk back to the
kitchen, and stand at the table. I methodically cut the whip into
small pieces. It takes several hours. I return the knife to its proper
place and put all the pieces of the bullwhip into a paper bag.
I open the back door and hide the bag in the bottom of the
trashcan.
I look up and see a million stars, turn,
and then walk back into the
house. I stop to pee and go back to bed. When I awake later that
morning, I try to sit up but cannot. I stand and cautiously walk
to the living room. My father is not there. A squished pillow partially
hides his body imprint on the sofa cushion. Stale beer odor
hangs in the air. I turn and walk over to the wall. The whip is
not there.
I thought it was a dream.
My eyes scan more images from my life.
Wounds dominate the picture.
I have always tried to heal wounds, others’
and mine.
Some wounds are not easily sutured, some
impossible.
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