Home at last
Mark Stibbe
Sent away to boarding school at eight years old, Mark Stibbe watched his adoptive parents drive away, leaving him standing with his trunk and his teddy in front of a huge country house. He was confused and frightened, and that night he received the first of four beatings in his first two weeks at boarding school. The trauma of this abandonment and abuse scarred his life until his fifties, when divorce forced him to deal with what he calls his ‘boarded heart’. Mark argues that there are many thousands of others, wounded like him, and suffering throughout their lives with homesick souls. This often leads to them being driven to succeed in their work while failing to engage emotionally at home.
Home at last tells a poignant tale, and offers a unique model of healing. It does provide psychological insights, but it also delivers the blueprint for a spiritual homecoming. Mark argues that boarding schools are really orphanages for the privileged. Then he shows how we can only truly find healing in the perfect Father’s love. Home At Last is in two parts. The first looks at the cycle of pain created by the boarding school wound. This involves four deep impacts to the soul: desertion, deprivation, disengagement and dependency. The second part, the cycle of healing, embraces the four stages of the healing journey: revelation, restoration, reconnection and recovery. These exactly correspond to the four deep impacts to the soul. They are four steps towards the Father’s house. They must be experienced if former boarders are to enjoy the long-awaited end to their spiritual winter.
While written from the point of view of Mark's own time at boarding school, this book has much wider relevance to all who have felt abandonment by parents in any way.
'When a brilliant mind, a great storytelling ability, a life experience of brokenness and pin, and a man with the knowledge of a loving heavenly Father ... meet, you have Mark Stibbe
Although written about boarding school pain, as I read it my mind went to other groups who will be greatly helped by the truths contained within it ... others may read it as a man's story, but they will be surprisingly moved, educated, inspired and probably healed in ways they never knew they needed.'
Paul Manwaring, Bethel Church, Redding, USA
'Many of you, like me, may have experienced and caused some pain as a result of the boarded heart. Whilst I believe we cannot change the way our story has progressed thus far, we can dictate the way it goes from here.'
Mark Stibbe
Dr Mark Stibbe has written five academic titles and over thirty popular books. His academic books are required reading in universities and seminaries world-wide. Recently Mark started writing fiction and he is currently developing a series of novels about an English spy vicar in the time of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. He has founded KWS [Kingdom Writing Solutions], a service for Christian writers. He is also a popular contributor at writers' conferences and workshops. He has pioneered Stibbe Webinars, a web-based interactive teaching and training initiative.
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