Knowing That He Will: Experiencing God’S Transforming Power

By Janine Hall

To find ourselves, we must think for ourselves. To know ourselves, we must look within. If we have problems from the past, we must confront them. But power for living comes only when we know who we are in Christ. The joy of the Lord is our strength, and it is Him working through us that finally gets us off the ground.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496939715

Janine Hall

After years of dealing with intermittent depression, Janine Hall was uplifted when she placed her faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Faith is not just believing God can transform lives but also knowing that He will in a very personal and intimate way when we surrender to His will for our lives. As she recovered, Janine recorded new insights about life in dozens of essays. This book is a collection of those insights. Janine’s goal in sharing them is twofold. Most importantly, she wants to glorify God and demonstrate His power to transform lives. Secondly, she wants to share with the reader the rungs of the spiritual ladder she used to reach higher ground. Janine has an MA in special education and thirty-six hours of graduate-level work in guidance and counseling. But her best teachers were personal experience, the leading of the Holy Spirit, and extensive readings from psychological and Christian sources. Come along, and see what Jesus Christ can do for you.

Book preview

KNOWING THAT HE WILL

Experiencing God’s Transforming Power

Janine Hall

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©

2014 Janine Hall. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/27/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-3972-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-3971-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014916478

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KJV

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

NIV

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Part One

Character

Effort

Perspective

Self-Reliance

Exercise: The Fountain of Youth

Aloneness

If at First You Don’t Succeed

I’m Somebody; You Are Too

Identity Theft

It Can Happen

Time and Talent

When Losses Loom Large

Which Wolf Will Win?

The Repair Process

Super Firstborn or Only Children

Middle-Born Siblings

Last-Born Siblings

Seeing the Light

Part Two

Problem Solving

The Chair (And Who Should Sit There)

Nothing of Lasting Value

It’s Darkest before Dawn

Childlike Adults

Over the Top

Choosing

Creativity

Seeing Clearly

Depression: Facts and Feelings

You’re Just My Type

On Being a Winner

When Two Become One

Erickson’s Eight Stages of Man

The Butterflies of Love

Regression––A Good Idea?

The Fast Lane

The Nature of Reality

Normalcy

The Dance of Anger

A Place of Her Own

The Quickening

A Prescription for Women’s Self-Esteem Problems

Part Three

Seven-Seven-Seven

Mental Illness: A Growing Concern

An Uphill Battle

A Box of Chocolates

An Anatomy of an Illness

Self-Acceptance

The Phoenix

Support

Coping Strategies

Give a Hand Up, Not a Putdown

Bye-Bye Blues

Knowing That He Will

Give Us a Break

Imprisonment

Postmortem Potential

Who Owns the Problem?

The Lucky One

Sinking Sand

Testing the Waters

Part Four

Building a Case for Christ

Let Go, and Let God

The Big Game

Better than Silver and Gold

The Hiding Place

The Surprise Ending

The Maestro

In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for You, Lord, alone make me dwell in safety and confident trust.

—Psalm 4:8

Acknowledgments

I grew up in an agrarian community of German Lutheran immigrants in southwest Nebraska. I was sequestered on a farm, spending much of my early childhood communing with nature.

My ethnic group’s philosophy is one of God first, family second, and the fellowship of believers third. The community I was raised in was a very industrious, tight-knit group.

I would like to thank my parents for the influence they brought to my life. From my mother, I received a lifelong love of learning and compassion for people in trouble. From my dad, I learned by example that any job worth doing is worth doing well and to think thoroughly before acting.

I’m grateful to my own nuclear family for making my life meaningful. I am especially thankful to my husband, Don, who has given my life both stability and substance.

I had good teachers throughout my formal education. Their influence helped form my ideas and the quality of my thoughts. I would especially like to thank my high school English teacher, Rod Horst, who opened my mind’s eye to the study of human behavior through literature and helped me develop the ability to express my thoughts in writing.

There are four women in my adult life who led me in faith to Jesus Christ. They are Elaine Turnquist, Verna Raye Horton, Jan Thompson, and Beth Augustine. Christian Women’s Club and Stonecroft Bible Studies have been lifelines for me for decades.

Other friends and mentors along the way have changed the direction of my life and given me purpose. Of special importance was my membership in a self-help group called Recovery, Inc.

If God and I have removed me from the ranks of those with persistent mental illnes and turned my tears into joy that does not depend upon external events, I can only imagine what you and He can accomplish together.

Foreword

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things or more money to do more of what they want so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to, in order to have what you want.

—Margaret Young

During my life, I have had the opportunity to get to know a broad spectrum of special populations––the Rainbow Coalition of mental characteristics, if you will. This includes the elderly, the poor, the retarded, the very young, those with mental and physical handicaps, those with learning disabilities, the gifted, and those who are mentally ill. God has made many different kinds of people, and He loves us all. I see myself as an advocate for these special groups and want to help make them more understood to the general populace.

For many years, I suffered from depression. A number of years ago, I had an awakening and realized that if I were to become well, I would have to undergo considerable change and growth. I became a partner of God, began counseling, began graduate school studies in psychology and counseling, and formed a support group. I learned more about God through consistent church participation and perpetual Bible study.

As I recovered, I had many realizations about successful living, and I felt compelled to write a book about them. It was my way of integrating my life experience into a meaningful whole and a way of underscoring my personal identity.

I’m sure that you have heard many of the ideas in the book before, but I hope they are presented with a fresh perspective. I want people to take a second look at their perceptions of themselves and those who are qualitatively different from them.

A portion of the book is dedicated to demystifying mental illness. If so-called normal people understood the illness, their fear and paranoia concerning the victims would subside, and they would become more compassionate. Women’s issues are also addressed.

All of us have worried about our own wellness at times as we have traveled down life’s pathways. If we learned to share our problems and help each other learn and grow, a lot of healing would begin to happen. We are our brothers’ keepers.

We all want the being without the becoming. We are resentful that life’s ladder begins at the bottom rung. We don’t like to struggle. And we would like to have ironclad guarantees when it comes to risk taking. But these are daydreams that will not come true. In actuality, the outcome of your life is contingent upon a partnership between you and God and will require being open to new ideas and a lot of hard work.

But it is in risk taking and solving problems that we discover who we are. Dealing with our problems successfully increases our confidence and strengthens our psyche. Using our intellect develops our mental muscles, just as physical exercise enhances our physical well-being. As a result, we grow intellectually and spiritually until we find the courage to face the ultimate risk of dying.

It is said that if you would like to minimize stress, you should will what God wills for your life. If you do what you can do, He will do the rest!

If we have little pieces of heaven in our hearts, the cruelty of our circumstances cannot crush us and reduce us to rubble on the rocky shoals of life.

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Part One

Things Your Mom and Dad Tried to Tell You When You Thought They Didn’t Know Anything

Character

Most of us want to play the piano but not learn the piano, speak a foreign language but not study it, and enjoy success but not earn it. We want our dreams to come true quickly and without too much effort. We don’t want to accept the becoming that comes before the being. We are angry that ladders always begin with the bottom rung.

But character is built, not wished into being. Character is the prerequisite of self-esteem and the wind in the sails of success. And in spite of our daydreams, character is always earned the hard way—by getting up after failure and trying again and again.

So what if we promised ourselves to quit smoking by now? We can set ourselves a new deadline and try again. Have we failed a second time to make a dreaded phone call? Try a third. Has the ladder of success slipped out from under us again? Maybe it will take another three or four times. Once we arrive, no one will care how long it took for us to get there.

Character is formed by doing things the right way. It means returning the shopping cart back to its rightful place when no one is looking. It means keeping your word, returning someone’s billfold with the money intact, and treating others with respect. Then we can claim to have integrity, and self-respect will be ours.

Building character is a lifelong enterprise.

I wonder what becomes of lost opportunities. Perhaps our guardian angel gathers them up as we drop them and will give them back to us in the beautiful sometime when we have grown wiser and learned how to use them correctly.

—Helen Keller

Effort

Effort is one thing all of us can control in our lives. Health, strength, talent, and ability can all be improved or polished to some extent, but at some point, they are limited for everyone, decided at birth. But effort is the one thing we can control all the time.

If we try harder, people will notice. We can be like the duck––appearing to sail smoothly along on the surface, all the while paddling like mad underneath.

Ask yourself what it would take to win your own approval, and then set out to do it. This self-respect will make you more able to capitalize on opportunities when they come along. Put effort into small endeavors, because they may grow into major accomplishments.

Put yourself into relationships. Give friends the same enthusiasm you