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Shattered People: Journeys to Joy

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"Shattered People" is a magnificent account of the ability of God's spiritual healing powers in restoring individuals who have suffered a lifetime of abuse. These incredible true stories of individuals suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder, portrays their struggle of finding hope and healing through their search for God. It reveals God's redeeming love and power, and His ability to heal and give hope to people engulfed by their tragedy and grief. The book depicts His desire for people to love one another in this world and His ability to conquer forces of evil that attempt to harm and jinder that love.

Michael E. Chalberg has weighed a variety of psychological perspectives and biases that are a part of the troubled lives of these people. The journeys of these individuals assert the power and capability of God's love over evil practices and spread a message of hope to all those who feel unable to explore what it means to be a Christian. Chalberg, who is a pastor, has laced the book with quotes from the Bible. This book is disturbing, poignant, powerful and a treasury of spiritual experiences.

A review by Dr. Joe Johnson, Huntington Beach, CA

Shattered People, by Michael Chalberg, does a practical study for anyone wanting to understand the painful and disturbing reality of Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is also a love story written from experience in a way that clarifies, but does not oversimplify. Chalberg writes with respect, which is contagious. He offers wisdom and hope, which cuts through confusion and lights up the dark.

For the Christian reader, old truth is stripped of cliche and has the import of new revelation. Reading Shattered People is like eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. One can virtually taste the evil, but also the power of love overcoming that evil. This is a book for the professions, for the compassionate friend and for the broken in need of God's redeeming love.

This book is a must read if you are struggling with brokenness or if you set clergy abuse policy in the church. The book brings hope and encouragement to people who think God has forgotten them and does not love them. It also gives church leaders a real understanding of the devastation that clergy abuse has on an individual.

SHATTERED PEOPLE brings home the spiritual and relational devastation of lives torn by emotional, physical, sexual and spiritual abuse. It is a magnificent exposition of the spiritual dimentions of mental health... This is an amazing story of the healing power of Jesus Christ in mending the unmendable and using the brokenness of one willing servant to bring hope to a multitude. It speaks eloquently of the compassion that Jesus has for the wounded and His ability to bring wholeness, as He defines it, in the midst of tragedy and pain.
It invites one on a roller coaster journey, from gut-wrenching horror to hilarious laughter, but it is primarily throughout, a message of hope and encouragement to all who feel broken. The story is powerful and gripping, painful and delightful; and as a true story will challenge the reader to live up to all that it means to call oneself a Christian.

Chalberg, a pastor and cofounder of Shepherds Care Ministries, had a definite purpose when writing this book. He intends to suggest ways in which we can find the real God for ourselves by exposing the inadequate conceptions of God which prevent us from seeing Him.

He comprehensively accomplishes just that as he writes about a woman with Multiple Personality Disorder. He gives a complete history and profile of more than 66 personalities that make up the system of this individual, and he allows the personalities to tell their own stories, in their owns words, as they come to know God through Jesus. Chalberg does not camouflage or water down the descriptions of evil encountered in these lives or in their responses to that evil.

To live in the outside world required the personalities to understand how they arrived at their present state. Without understanding the abuses preceding their illness, they could not escape the bonds that enslaved them in their world.

This book will deepen your understanding of MPD, as well as the miracles sent by God to heal, renew, and give everlasting love as each part of the body remembers and learns to deal with the truth of their abuse. Chalberg poses fascinating questions such as, does each personality of a multiple have their own soul before God, or is integration of the personalities into one soul the only way they are acceptable to God?

The book is remarkably well written, well-organized, and shows a broad knowledge of the subject. However, Chalberg does not boast. He gives all honor and glory to Jesus. He causes the reader to question the potential of mankind to do good, yet affirms Gods power to cause good to come from the evil that we do to each other. One cant help but appreciate and feel his love for Jesus, and his burning dedication to help shattered people, as it is so perfectly depicted in his words.