I RISE

I
RISE

APOSTLE JANICE DAVIS

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reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or
by any means, including photocopying, recording, or
other electronic or mechanical methods, without the
prior written permission of the publisher, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews
and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by
copyright law.

Scripture Text is from the King James Version of the
Holy Bible.

Editor, Merchant Facilitation Enterprises LLC
Web: www.merchantfacilitationllc.com

Book Cover Design, Merchant Facilitation Enterprises LLC
[email protected]

Copyright © 2017 Apostle Janice Davis
All rights reserved.

ISBN: ISBN: 9781795204330
Imprint: Independently published



CONTENTS

Foreword

Chapter 1: The Beat Down: LOW SELF-ESTEEM

Chapter 2: Too Much Baggage, “ANGER”

CPghapter 3: The Spotlight Is On, “INSECURITY”

Chapter 4: Identity, “YOU”

Epilogue: The Choice

Chapter 6: The Process of Change
Chapter 7: Face It
Chapter 8: Trace It
Chapter 9: Erase It
Chapter 10: Replace It
Chapter 11: The Elements of Change

Foreword

I am truly thankful for all the prophetic words that
God gave to different people who spoke over my life
concerning the writing of books. People that I did not
know were speaking prophetically saying, “God said
to write the books; I see books in you.” I never want to do
anything because someone said do this or do that. Nor
do I want to do something just because someone else
is doing it. It must be a Call and an Assignment from
God. I must hear God for myself. My deepest desire
is to always please God and that He gets all the glory.
So, if God is telling me to do something I will do it,
eventually. God knew it had to come from people I
did not know or those who were not in my circle.
When you have been through a lot in which people are
constantly finding fault in everything you do, lying
on you, falsely accusing you, assuming, and judging
every word that comes out of your mouth, you don’t
feel worthy to write a book or even talk much about
anything. You grow tired of so much criticism,
because all you are trying to do is to obey God. I am

not trying to make a name. I just want to live a
peaceful, quiet, fulfilling, and successful life, that’s
all. I just want to obey God!

But my life came to a standstill. I kept putting off
writing this book. I felt unworthy. But the prophetic
words did not stop coming about writing the book. I
just kept wrestling within myself. Finally, I asked
God to give me one more sign. When I went to Apple
Valley, California, I asked the Holy Spirit to speak one
more time and that if He did, I would obey. I asked
Him in my heart and mind. I did not speak it out
where the enemy could hear me. A prophet who was
there in Apple Valley attending the conference began
to pray for me. Then he began to speak what I asked
God to confirm for me one more time. He said, “I see
books in your loins. God said to write the book.” So here
I am and here is the book!

Thank God for my children encouraging me also.
“Write the book mom! Now finish the book mom!” I
thank God for my Apostle Frederick Huff encouraging
me to write the book. I thank God for everyone who
encouraged me to start writing. I ask of you not to
judge me or hold anything I say against me. I am
speaking from my heart and from experiences and

most of all from what the Holy Spirit has taught me
throughout the years.

I truly thank God for entrusting me with His Wisdom
and His Knowledge. I thank Him for helping me to
help others. I am thankful that He saw in me what I
did not see in myself - the ability to write.

I am thankful for Minister Yolandra Merchant of
Merchant Facilitation Enterprises LLC who helped me
to complete this task as my editor. She has been a
phenomenal blessing.

There are many problems I had in my marriage of
physical abuse that I will not share at this time
because he is my children’s father. I yet respect him.
I have forgiven him and I still pray for him because
he does have a soul in need of a savior. Out of respect
for this man who did love me the best way that he
knew how to love me I will not share some of the most
horrific abuse you could imagine. I grew from it. I
learned to love with that agape love and I sought to
be healed and whole. God is still healing me as of this
day.

I pray this book feeds your every confused,
misunderstood, unanswered, not sure, tired souls…in
Jesus Name!

Psalm 19:14 “May the words of my mouth and the
meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight. O Lord,
My Rock, and my Redeemer.”

WHAT MAKES ME DIFFERENT FROM YOU?
MY ORIGINALITY!!!

Janice Davis

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

THE BEAT DOWN

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Low Self-Esteem

e all have some sort of esteem, whether it is
high or low. Unfortunately, I dealt with more
low self-esteem than high self-esteem. I want to
share with you about low self-esteem because it is
very important to understand how low self-esteem
can propel you into places of insecurity and
inferiority.
A person with low self-esteem feels unworthy,
incapable, and incompetent. You will feel very poorly
about yourself. You want to like yourself but can’t
help yourself. You will have a lack of confidence. You

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feel un-loved and unlovable, rejected, and
inadequate.

My self-esteem was very low. I spent many
years in a relationship in which I was made to believe
that my life was meant to be controlled and
manipulated. I was often called names that were not
respectful. I was labeled with names I did not deserve
to be called. Catch that - names I did not deserve to
be called. It was a classic case of the toxic
relationship. My toxic relationship was my marriage.
I was degraded in many ways that my husband
thought gave him power and control. In fact, it did
give him power and control because I accepted what
he was doing and what he was saying about me and
to me. It caused me to lose my identity. The more he
degraded and disrespected me the more I lost
confidence in myself.

Taken for Granted
I was never given an appreciative word, never

shown gratitude for being his wife. I tried to be the
best mother to my children. I tried to be the best wife
I could be. But sometimes I found myself making a lot
of mistakes and taking wrong turns in life because I
was with and loving someone who did not know how

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to love and appreciate me in return. Honestly, I don’t
think he really knew what type of wife he wanted or
even needed.

So, here we were - two people who did not
know how to resolve their issues. When you have
someone in your life that does not know how to love
and respect you as a person, you will become just
another representation of the absence, abandonment
or abuse they suffered as a child or in a previously
damaging relationship. They do not know how to
love and appreciate you. Being taken for granted
became a part of my life. I began to accept this as
how it was supposed to be.

There are people in your life who will see your
worth but not see you. You will be the first to criticize
yourself because you will always feel less than, or
never good enough. Why is this? Because when you
allow someone or something to take your life’s worth,
your value, you no longer know your true identity.
You no longer know the real “YOU”. The real you is
important to your life and livelihood.

I lived this life for 24 years. I preached over it,
prophesied over it, praised God over it, danced until I

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fell out over it, I sang glory down in the service. I
have preached until God’s glory fell in the sanctuary,
yet I felt that I was beneath everyone. I despised
everything about myself, and people speaking
negative words about me or to me did not help my
situation. Nothing I did was ever good enough. I
received constant criticism. Someone was always
telling me how I could have said this or I could have
done that better. I was my own worst critic. And my
self-criticism kept the doors open for others to
criticize me.

Face It
You will never know how to let your self be who

you can be until you allow God to show you and help
you to become the person He created. We are basket
cases. We have some issues, many of which we are
not aware. Some of us know there are some problems
but fail to seek for help because we feel people will
judge us and make fun of us. And some will but not
all.

When you have low self-esteem you will often
judge others. It breeds in you a perfectionist spirit.
You demand perfection - not excellence, but

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perfection. “No Flaws.” You demand what even you
cannot deliver.

What can we do after realizing that we have
low self-esteem? We can be honest with ourselves.
We can acknowledge that we need help, and seek
God. He is the One to help you, to deliver you and to
guide you on your journey to wholeness. Be open
with Him. Express yourself freely to the Lord Who
knows your heart and wants to heal. Pray and ask
God to show you the root and the remedy. Because
somewhere in the course of your life, a seed was
planted that brought forth a root. Until the seed and
root is dealt with, you will stay in that place of low
self-esteem. I asked the Lord to show me the origin
of the low self-esteem I suffered. He then took me
in a vision and showed me when it entered my body
and mind.

I was back home in Alabama. My mother was
ill at that time and I had returned home for three
weeks to be with her before she went home to be with
the Lord. One night, I went outside and sat on the
front porch. It was such a beautiful night, very quiet,
and the weather was just perfect. God began to speak

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to me. He revealed to me that I had a strong spirit of
rejection on me. I said to the Lord, “No, I don’t.”

When I said that to the Lord He took me in a
vision and showed me where that spirit came from
and how it entered my soulish realm (mind, will, and
emotion). It came through my grandmother. My
grandmother always treated me very coldly and was
sometimes unloving toward me. She talked about me
to my face and many times it was not nice things.
That’s as far as I will go with that. So that night I
learned that it was a spirit of rejection that was
oppressing me, where it came from and how it
entered my soulish realm. I did not know that how
my grandmother had treated me really affected me
that intensely. Hear me - it wasn’t anything sexual
so get that out of your mind. My grandmother was
simply blind and set in her own ways.

It is so important that you find out where these
issues start from or how they come about so you will
be sensitive to those issues when you see them in
someone else’s life. That night I realized that I had
the spirit of rejection. I began to pray and ask God to
deliver me. I was fine until I returned to Texas where
I currently live. Now this husband of mine just re-

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opened that spirit because of what he was doing and
how he was acting. The way he treated me – the
cheating, the lying, the name-calling all contributed
to re-surfacing that spirit of rejection.

Spirit of Rejection
People suffering from low self-esteem will

always show signs of rejection. Rejection is one of the
root causes of low self-esteem. Pray, Ask, Seek and be
open to hear God. He will make it plain for you to
understand. It is God’s Will that we get free.

When you have been rejected it steals so much
of your personality - the real you. When you feel
rejected you feel lost, you feel unworthy, you feel so
unloved, you feel less-than. Have you ever been
there? Rejection kills your self-esteem. You will
accomplish great things in your life and never realize
the value or importance of those accomplishments.
Your life’s value becomes value-less to you. You then
find yourself going through the motions but never
coming to the realization of the true “YOU.” You will
be easily frustrated, easily irritated. You are
intimidated by anyone who’s really “got it going on”.

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Rejection will also cause you to be very
judgmental. You will always feel the need to control
and be in power. You will also heavily criticize
yourself and all these things will often cause you to
fall short of reaching your goals. If that sounds like
you, it’s time to get before God. If you don’t have a
relationship with God, then you need to seek the help
of a pastor, spiritual counselor, therapist or other
mental health professional.

When the signs are there it’s just what it is. The word
Love doesn’t mean to you what it means to someone
else. Lavish gifts and great sex does not constitute love
when the person’s motive is to manipulate and control
you. Don’t be fooled by a person who tells you they love
you when they habitually demean you with name-
calling and other negative words. If the person’s
behavior makes you cry and aches your heart it is not
love. Real love builds. Real love cares about the feelings
of others.

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Take this to heart:
Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not
boast, it is not proud.” - 1 Corinthians 13:4
Ask and it shall be given you, seek, and ye shall find; knock,
and it shall be opened unto you,
For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh
findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”

- Matthew 7:7, 8

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________________________________________________________________________________________________

TOO MUCH BAGGAGE

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Anger
Anger/Meanness - having strong feeling of or showing
annoyance, displeasure, or hostility, full of anger; mad,
vexed, irritated, indignant, strong resentment.

Mean face. Miserable place.
I walked around looking mad all the time.

People were afraid of me. I had many excuses for my
stern countenance. It didn’t take much to upset me.
I was constantly irritated. Please understand. I was
and am a Christian. I had a lot of love to give, yet I
could love you and turn right around and hurt your

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precious feelings just because I was hurt and
miserable. No one dared tell me that I needed
deliverance because many people feared me.

Why was I so angry all the time? What caused it? Why
did I portray such mean character? So many
questions.

My colleagues in the ministry made jokes
about me and the church folks laughed at their jokes.
They joked about my preaching, saying that I would
‘cut you up’ while I preached. “Janice doesn’t mind
getting you told”, they would say. But then they
would follow with, “But now I am not like Janice. I
won’t cut you like she will.” They used humor to take
a jab at me. The church folk laughed – some
innocently because they did not realize that I was the
brunt of the joke, others uncomfortably because they
were afraid that I did. I did not realize they were
laughing at me and that their observations were,
unfortunately, very accurate.

But no one knew I was hurting. They didn’t
understand that I was only acting out what was
happening to me. When I looked back over my life
and I saw the state I was in I was very saddened in my

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heart. I meant well. But my meaning well did not
excuse my abusive attitude while preaching,
teaching, leading and parenting.

We can be so quick to judge people’s behavior
without knowing what they have been through or are
going through. We see their actions, behaviors and
mannerisms and we judge them by what we
outwardly see. I was not mean because I wanted to
be mean. Meanness formed in me as a direct result
of remaining in a dead-end relationship with an
abusive person.

When people would tell me that I was mean I
would reply, “I am not mean. I just mean what I say. I
refuse to let anyone disrespect me.” Why? Because I was
being disrespected at home. I had to show anyone
outside my home that I am someone you don’t want
to ‘mess with’. Do you see that anger? I was
determined that no one else would disrespect me like
my then-husband had disrespected me. I needed to
realize that I was disrespecting myself by tolerating
him and all his vicious attempts to mentally and
emotionally destroy me. I heard a very powerful man
of God say in his teaching, “that which you tolerate
you cannot change.” As long, as I tolerated the

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disrespect, things never changed. They only got
worse. I never changed. I only became more
miserable.

I had become so angry that I could not
comprehend nor convey genuine love. I remember a
bishop said to me, “You just are faking it ‘til you make
it.” I didn’t know what he meant. I didn’t know that
faking it was exactly what I was doing. I bought
expensive clothes and shoes trying to cover up the
pain of hurt. When I would go out before people I had
to look a certain way. I wore what I really couldn’t
afford but hurt, rejection, and insecurity drove me to
do it. I did not want my colleagues and church
members to know that I was hurting and in pain. I
thought the clothes and shoes, and jewelry and the
expensive perfumes would make everything at least
seem to be alright while I was around them. I only
made myself worse. Nothing changed.

Leading While Bleeding
I was a very hard, strict, demanding person.

My leaders had to be perfect. I would tolerate no
faults in them. My demand for perfection developed
from low self-esteem. In ministry, we call it insisting
on a Spirit of Excellence but, when we are in that state

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of mind, it is really a demand for perfection and a
need to be accepted. That is not a good thing.

People saw my excellent work. My ministry
operated in excellence - or so people thought. The
reality is that I demanded perfection. I was a hard
task master. People were afraid of me. People were
afraid to make a mistake. They were afraid to come
and talk to me when they made a mistake. They
walked a tight line.

You may ask the question why was I like
that? I was like that because my life was a mess,
my children were a mess, my self-esteem was a
mess, and my marriage was really a mess. So,
whatever I did outside of that, had to compensate
for my messy life, had to be superb. At least, I
thought it did.

When my children disappointed me, I became
very embarrassed and ashamed. I wanted everyone
to think we were ok. I was busy helping other
people’s children while my own were hurting from
abuse, rejection and abandonment. You cannot help
your own children when you are contributing to their
negative condition. As pastors, we work hard to help

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other children. God commissioned us to do so. God
said . . .

But ye shall receive power, after the Holy Ghost
has come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses
unto me both in Jerusalem; (your home) and in
all Judea, and in Samaria and unto the uttermost
part of the earth. [Emphasis mine.] – Acts 1:8

Collateral Damage
What I had tolerated not only affected me, it

negatively affected my children. I had to repent to
God and afterward, go to my children and ask them
to forgive me. The Holy Spirit had revealed to me
that, throughout the course of my years of parenting,
I had prayed for them, but I did not discern the spirits
that were attacking their lives. I did not target the
enemy that was trying to destroy them. I prayed for
them, but I did not war against the enemy that was
attacking them. It wasn’t that I did not know to do it.
I did not believe that I had to do it. Because I was
praying and had been speaking over their lives for
years I just assumed that would be enough.

It’s amazing how we can help everyone else
and miss it with our own. Oh yes, I was praying for

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them but because there was an anointing on me to
deal with evil spirits I assumed that my anointing
would keep the evil spirits at bay. I never fathomed
that they would dare to attack my children. I
frequently taught my members about demonic forces
and how to war against them. I guess I assumed my
children were listening and learning. But such was
not the case. When the demonic forces attacked my
children, they did not know how to defend
themselves. I knew how to defend them, but because
of assumption, coupled with being consumed with
ministry, I missed the opportunity. Simple prayer
just wasn’t enough. They needed me to target the
spirits that were attacking them. So, I say to you -
don’t just see a person’s problems. Learn to identify
the spirit behind the problem. Start praying against
the spirit that is attacking the person. Call it by its
name. That’s what Jesus did. He called it by its name.
He confronted the demon that plagued the person,
cast it out, and consumed the heart of the person with
His agape love. Jesus brought deliverance. We, the
Church, have been emboldened and empowered to do
the same. But I did not. Anger bruised me. Weariness
burdened me. Ignorance blinded me. When you do
not know your condition, and when you have lived
this life for such a long time this can become a part

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of your make-up. It becomes who you are. This is not
who God made you to be. But it is who you have
become. Life experiences de-formed your character,
your mindset and your spirit in so many ways.

Anger seethed in me. On the inside I was
ticking like a time bomb! My voice, my speech was
very authoritative, not like the authority Christ gave
but of a demanding, aggressive tone.

How Badly Do You Want It?
I wanted so desperately for things in my life to

be perfect, but they remained imperfect. I struggled
and strived so very hard to get things right, to
straighten things out, but could never perfect those
things because things weren’t the problem. It was
me - my choices in my life and my failing to make
certain critical choices for change. I made a lot of bad
choices because of a gross misunderstanding of what
love is. In today’s society, it is popular to make
excuses for our lives and to avoid taking
responsibility. “It’s not your fault”, they say. Well, it
may not have been my fault, but it certainly was my
future at stake and the future of my children. I had
to accept responsibility for what I tolerated. I had to
change!

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One Sunday after service I went into my office,
fell across my desk and cried as though I had just
heard that a loved one had passed. I first asked God
why was I like this? Then I told Him I was tired of
being that way. I asked Him to help me. I had grown
weary of preaching out of this pain, of ministering to
others out of this anger and pain, of living out of this
misery and pain. I was tired of being so hard on
people. I had been that way so long. I didn’t know
how to stop. But I refused to go another day this way.
I cried out to God like the woman before the unjust
judge. (Luke 18:1-8). I would not be denied.

I don’t remember the time frame, but I know
it was within approximately a year or two of having
prayed that desperate prayer that the Lord set me
free. It was during the divorce. I am not telling any
of you to get a divorce unless the Lord tells you to do
so. The Lord led me out after 29 years of marriage,
33 years total of being in a relationship with one man
who was emotionally neglectful and verbally and
physically abusive both before and after we were
married. The signs and the symptoms were all there.
I simply refused to acknowledge them because I
thought I was in love with my husband. The Holy
Spirit revealed to me, after much prayer and seeking

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the Lord that I was in love with the attention he gave
me – even if it was negative and detrimental to my
emotional well-being.

Circumstance and Happenstance
I had two brothers who would not allow boys

to talk to me or to call me. When they left home I was
approached by a young, nice-looking boy. He was
very persistent. He gave me a lot of attention – the
attention that I thought I was lacking. When he
lavished his attention on me I did not know how to
handle it. In hindsight, I asked the questions to
myself, ‘What was I in love with? Who was I in love
with? Was it the attention he gave me, the flattery he
lavished on me, or was I just not accustomed to being
in this type of relationship? It was all the above. Do
you see how we can get caught up in our own
feelings?

A symptom or sign is defined as the ‘outward
clue of something dangerous.’ Often, when we search
for something that is hidden, we look for clues to lead
us. A symptom is meaningless to the unlearned, but
important to the learned. If a symptom is detected
early on, it can often save a life. Symptoms and signs
help doctors to make a proper diagnosis. Signs and

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symptoms can do the same for us. They can help us
to assess the health and condition of a relationship.
However, we can overlook them. We think we can
change the individual. This is what happens all too
often. We think after this person makes that
marriage vow before God and man that they will
change. We don’t realize that we are dealing with a
person who is bound by generational curses - habits
and learned behaviors from previous generations. I
remember God spoke to me and told me that I was not
dealing not only with my husband’s alcoholism but
with the spirit of alcoholism that has plagued
generations of alcoholics in his family. Wow!

Sometimes God will allow us to remain in a
certain situation until we mature enough to see
ourselves…until we get sick of our own selves. We
may say we are tired but oftentimes, we are not yet
tired enough to let go. God knows what it will take to
get us to that place of letting go. God knew what it
would take to get me there and He did just that.

The Beginning of the End
I got tired of yelling, tired of abusing my

children, screaming at my children and stressing out
the people in the ministry. For so long, I had preached

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in anger, judged while preaching, tried to cover up my
scars and pains. Hurting people hurt other people.
But when you have been that way for so long it
distorts your true self. When people have a problem
with you abusing, hurting or being harsh with them,
you automatically think they are the problem. You
don’t know you are hurting other people. This is who
you have become. It’s your personality, it’s part of
your character now. But it is not who God made you
to be. I had taken on another person.

Living this life became really complicated
when my eyes were opened. It became too much to
hide and to carry. It became too much baggage. I was
unloading and releasing my issues and problems on
anyone and everyone around me. And yet my
baggage stayed with me. It never went anywhere. It
never left me. It was stuck to me like glue sticking to
wood. I found myself disliking who I had become and
because of that I didn’t know how to regain my
confidence as the person God made me to be.

I cried many days after seeing the condition I
was in. I did not like who I had become. I was
ashamed, hurt, disgusted at myself for allowing
myself to get in such a terrible state. But thank God

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for forgiveness! I was so grateful when God brought
me out. What a sigh of relief. It was so beautiful after
the ‘finished work’.

When we see ourselves let us not be too ashamed to reach
out for help. The Lord promised that He would take care
of us.
Psalm 25:2 “O my God, I trust in you; Let me not be
ashamed.”
1 Peter 5:7 “Casting all your care upon Him, (Jesus) for He
cares for you.”
Philippians 1:6 “Being confident of this very thing, that he
which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until
the day of Jesus Christ.

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_______________________________________________________________________________________________

THE SPOTLIGHT IS ON

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Insecurity
insecurity – uncertainty about one’s self, anxiety and lack of
self-confidence; self-doubt, subject to fears.
-very flawed character trait that results from low confidence
and low self-esteem often due to rejection or a humiliating
experience as a child.
Living with Insecurity

People who suffer insecurity feel socially
inadequate. They constantly worry about other
people’s perception of them. They want to be liked

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by people and go out of their way to please others.
They don’t want people to be angry or disappointed
with them. Insecure people often compare
themselves to others to determine whether they
measure up against the perceived ‘competition.’ An
insecure male is often controlling in a relationship.
He feels he is not worthy of having this kind of
woman and, therefore, fears his girlfriend or wife will
find a ‘better man’. He gets angry and jealous if
another man looks at her.

The irony of this is that insecure people will
often insult or bully others to feel better about
themselves. They will also lie about their alleged
‘success’ to impress people. An insecure person will
hide their true self to avoid being rejected or despised.
Let me ask you that are reading this book right now
this question? Do you know of anyone like the person
I just described? Well I found myself in this
description.

I felt insecure about everything and everyone.
I felt as if I wasn’t good enough. I always believed that
others could do it better. Why did God need me?

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It Wasn’t Always This Way
I wasn’t always this way. My childhood

personality and demeanor were very different from
this person I had become. I reached a point at which
I sometimes didn’t recognize myself. Where was the
precocious, vibrant, bold, adventurous person that I
had been as a child? What happened to her?

You see, I grew up with four brothers. I was
rough around the edges. I wasn’t afraid to take a
chance and I influenced my nieces, nephews and
cousins to take chances that they would not have
taken had I not influenced them. Some things were
good, and some were bad.

I was the person who was going to get
something started. We were not just going to sit
under the big oak tree and burn up. You know in those
days, the adults made us stay outside all day long. We
only came in to eat, then we’d head back outside until
the evening came. Then there were the chores to be
done. We had to feed the cows, shuck corn, clean the
yard or wash, iron and fold clothes. If we were not
busy they would find something for us to do. So, we
made sure to get out of the yard.

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I often gathered family members and the kids
in the community together to do something
interesting, exciting fun. We gathered to play
baseball, hide-n-go seek, or venture into the woods
to find a good swimming hole. I was always the one
who led the charge to find something fun to do rather
than sit around and bake in that hot sun. I did not do
anything that I did not want to do. I spoke my mind
freely and boldly. My Mom would say all the time,
“Princella, your mouth is going to get you into a lot of
trouble.”

Sometimes she would even go as far as to tell
me that my mouth was going to get me killed. (Of
course, you know I cancelled that word curse.) I was
like my dad who would just say whatever he felt he
wanted to say. It did not make a difference about your
feelings. So, you see I inherited that gene. Sorry dad.
No offense to you.

After being that type of person in my
childhood, I became an adult only to find myself in
an oppressive, controlling relationship. I did not
understand then why my husband rejected me and
how his rejection led me into that place of insecurity.
He became a dream-killer a memory-stealer. I had

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always been a fun person to be around. With him, I
became a sad, mean, lifeless woman.

Who Am I?
After we married my husband took everything

away from me that I loved to do. I enjoyed sports. I
would play any type of sports. I was an outdoors
person. But he felt that part of my life should be over.
He tried to make me become who he thought I should
be. He was very big on ‘appearances’. He constantly
argued that I must “act like” a married woman. I
must present the appearance of a married woman.
Those things didn’t ‘fit’ his idea of what a ‘married’
woman should do; how a married woman should
behave.

Everything I loved he tried his best to take
away. He never tried to separate me from my mother,
but other family members were off limits. He even
tried to get me to walk away from God, but I refused
to let go of my God. God was and is my Father - the
One who had kept me all these years out of harm’s
way. When I should have been dead, raped, or killed,
God saved and protected me each time.

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My children started to get older and they
helped to bring life back into me. I now can play ball,
play games, put puzzles together. My children became
my friends, my partners, my joy, my help and my
strength.

But the damage had been done. By this point
in my life I was so insecure that I felt less than
everyone that I met. I praised and bragged on all my
friends. They were my superstars. I admired how well
they could minister the Word of God, how eloquently
they spoke, how powerfully they flowed in the
ministry of the prophetic. In my estimation, I was
like the ugly duckling. Various people would say,
“Well, you are just as anointed as they are, and you flow
strongly in the prophetic”. But I would usually deny it
and say, “No, I don’t think so”. I could never see myself
as equal to others. Even though I preached that we
are all equal I did not believe what I preached. Oh, I
wanted to, but that spirit had me so bound. I saw
everyone, even the ministers on television, as just so
powerful. But to myself I was less than. I never
thought I was ‘pretty enough’. I would get so many
compliments on my eyes, my hair and my teeth. But I
could never see what they saw. When you have low
self-esteem, you will never be able to see yourself as

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you really are. It is crazy how blind we become to who
we are and what we can do. Even when we are doing
wonderful things or fulling our goals and have
attained our degrees. You know you have gained
increase, but you can’t appreciate it the way you
should because you can’t see any value or worth to
your own life.

Our enemy doesn’t want us to see our value or
worth. He doesn’t want us to see that we are
“fearfully and wonderfully made”. (Psalm 139:14). Our
enemy does not want us to receive the revelation
from the Holy Spirit that we were created in the
image and likeness of the Almighty God; that we are
a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a
very peculiar people who have been called out of that
dark realm, that dark thinking, that dark view into
the marvelous Light. (see 1 Peter 2:9). I now see by
the eyes of the Spirit. I no longer see by my deceiving
eyes but my Spiritual eyes that help me to see what
God sees. Remember the song, “Do You See What I
See?” God says that to us when our eyes become
open, “Do you see what I see in you?” We have been
predestined and foreknown. God wants us to receive
that by faith and to live in the confidence of that
revelation. He knows the plans that He has for us;

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plans of abundance, fulfillment, hope, wealth and
not of evil. (see Jeremiah 29:11).

My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus Christ my Righteousness;

I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus’ Name.
On Christ the Solid Rock I stand;
all other ground is sinking sand.

– Edward Mote

I was married to a man who did not see me for
who I was. He never saw my worth or my value. He
never saw my leadership qualities and abilities. He
only saw the woman he wanted to control because of
his own issues of rejection, lack, poverty, hurt and
abandonment. My ex-husband never knew my
birthday, he never knew my height, favorite color or
my favorite food. He never knew my favorite flower
and so on for 33 years. The Lord spoke to me and
said, “You were with this man for 33 years but he
never knew you. How sad is that to be in a
relationship with someone yet they never get to
know you for who you really are. You never see those
issues another person has until after you marry them

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and begin living that life with them. That is when
their flaws and yours begin to become known.

The Blind Leading the Blind
We were blind to our own faults and flaws.

Some things we did see but we thought we were in
love. We just assumed after we married that it would
change, but oh how reality became clear. We
discovered that neither of us could change the other.
We each had to want change. We each had to choose
to change.

There are instances in which the flaw or
negative trait of a person is a direct result of being
possessed or oppressed by a demonic spirit. When
the Holy Spirit revealed to me that when I married
my husband, I married into generations of
alcoholics, my eyes became open. You see, society
calls alcoholism a disease. I do not dispute that. But
we who are spiritual, understand that alcoholism is,
in fact, a spirit that presents in the form of a disease.
In my husband’s case, it was a generational spirit.
That spirit would not allow him to ever be satisfied
with anything or anyone.

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It was a huge mistake for us to have married
without first addressing our flaws. It was foolish of
us to think things would be different after we
married. We had no plan to address and correct our
flaws. Please understand - unless you seek help you
are going to live a miserable life. That’s reality!

The Warning
My mom begged me not to marry him. She told

me he was not my husband. She made it very clear
that if he was mistreating me before we married, his
treatment of me would certainly become worse after
he married me. He would feel that he owned me. My
mother said these words to me: “My head may be cold
and I’m sleepin’ in my grave, but if you marry this man you
are going to live a miserable life.” Someone asked me
why I did not cancel that decree. I could have prayed
against it, but if my husband refused to change I
would have been believing God for something that
was never going to happen until he allowed God to
make the change. He made I very clear to me that he
did not want God. Do you know how many years I
fasted, prayed and declared the Word of God over my
marriage and over his life? Yet he got worse. He
treated me worse. The abuse, both physical and

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mental became worse. Sometimes I felt like he hated
me.

You must understand this. God changes the
hearts of those who will allow Him. He doesn’t force
His way into an individual’s life. He will woo you and
appeal to you. If you continually resist, refuse and
reject, God will withdraw – for a season. God never
stops trying to get you to accept and receive Him, but
He does not force any one.

I Tried
I tried to be the model wife. I submitted to my

husband even when I knew he was wrong. I covered
him when I knew he was wrong. Yet this man was
not willing to give up the world and become a real
partner with me. I served him with everything in me.
It was never enough. The more I served him the
worse he treated me. He felt like I was supposed to
serve him despite how he treated me. We constantly
lived a divided life style. I sacrificed much and
received very little. I prayed and asked God to teach
me how to be a good wife. I did everything God told
me to do. With hurt ripping at my heart, tears
streaming down my face, and anger trying to stir in
my spirit, I humbled myself, showed love and respect

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and submitted to the man I married. I repented when
he was the one that wronged me. He never asked me
to forgive him. Once, after an incident in which he
had hurt me deeply, I mentioned to him that if he
would just say he was sorry, I would feel better. He
replied, “I thought you apologize when you done wrong
and feel you have done wrong. Well, I am not sorry about
anything I have done.” That callous retort came from
a deep place of hurt, anger, and resentment about his
own personal issues.

How could I have a reasonable expectation for
him to change when I tolerated so much? A callous
and controlling person will try to strip you of
everything. It is a form of control. Therefore, we
must not give our power to anyone. My life wasn’t
going to change until I took back my God-given
power and authority. I had to make the change for
things around me to change. Never allow anyone to
have that much influence and power over your life
and in your life. It will weaken you. It will enslave
you. It will rob you of your identity.

Making a Change to Get Change
I put up with stupid stuff. My situation never

changed. A person will only do what you allow them

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to do. If you continue to tolerate being mistreated,
you will never experience change. You become
reduced to seeing yourself as nothing more than the
object of another person’s mistreatment. Although
we know it is not the will of God for us to be
mistreated, we make the choice to tolerate it whether
knowingly or unknowingly.

I Am
Wake up people. God gave you to be YOU - not

who someone else says you are but who God says you
are. God gave me a motto in 1996 while I sat in a
beauty salon in Copperas Cove, Texas. My heart
weighed heavy. I struggled to understand why God
had allowed some things to happen in my life. My
eyes filled with tears and I heard these words in my
spirit:

I am what God says I am,
I can do what God says I can do;
I can be what God says I can be;

I am God’s am; so,
Since I am what I am then I am

I am victorious, I am prosperous,

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I am healed; I am delivered, and I am set free;
I am saved, I am holy, and I am righteous;
I am what God says I am;
I am an heir of God and a joint-heir
with Jesus Christ;

I AM!

Then I heard the Spirit of the Lord say, “Write
it, bring it to the ministry, and begin to confess it.” I have
been doing this since the Lord committed it to me.
But in that moment, I asked God, “What does this have
to do with what I am going through?” I didn’t want to
hear that. I wanted a change in my situation, not a
confession or a declaration! But God was doing
something different with that entire situation.

CONFESS THIS DAILY: You don’t have my mind, I have
my own mind because God has not given me a spirit of fear

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but of a sound mind. My thoughts are God-thoughts. I
have the mind of Christ, so, IthinklikeChristthinks.Iknowwho
I am, Whose I am and what I am. Say it like you mean it. Say
it from your heart. Mix your words with faith and bring
forth the manifestation of what you are confessing, what
you are decreeing and what you are speaking.

So how can I be who God says I am when I don’t know who
I am? Well, the spotlight is on! When you can ask that
question, God has gotten your attention.

1) Pray and ask God to help you and show you
how to change;

2) Find scriptures in the Bible that speak about
the mind, and about who you are;

3) Go to the Christian book store; find books on
the mind, the battle of the mind, how to
change your mind. There are many books
out there. Look for Christian material to help
you understand the importance of who you
are, and about self-worth;

4) Be careful of the people you allow into your
life. The company you keep will affect your
ability to overcome many things;

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5) Recognize and except what God shows you
to have become and allow Him to help you
change.

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________________________________________________________________________________________

IDENTITY

________________________________________________________________________________________

“YOU”
Identity - the fact of being who or what a person or thing is; Our
characteristics, attributes or expected behaviors; who the person
is, or the qualities of a person that makes them different from
others.

Did you catch that? - the qualities of a person
that make them DIFFERENT!!! When someone has no
identity, they don’t know who they really are, they
don’t know who they belong to. It is like having an
ID card. When a person doesn’t have an ID it is very
hard for them to claim anything, or get anything.
Some places will not allow you to purchase certain
things without showing proper identification. Your

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identification verifies your person. When I go to the
PX on the military base I can go in but I cannot
purchase anything if I do not have that ID card. Not
having a military ID speaks volumes in the PX for
purchasing. I am not permitted to purchase from that
facility if I do not have that ID card.

Without it, they cannot confirm my eligibility to
purchase from that store. I may enter that facility but
I cannot purchase from that facility. My ID authorizes
me to purchase from that store.

Discovering My Identity
I also have an ID in God. I have been identified

by God through Jesus Christ. I am an Heir of God and
a Joint-Heir with Christ. I am an original. There is
no one like me. I can be all that God wants me to be
and who God has chosen me to be. When you do not
know your identity, you may tend to take on the spirit
of someone else. I like what my sister told me her
Bishop ministered on about the Frankenstein spirit. I
would like to look at the Frankenstein spirit this way;
You like a person’s eyes so you change your eyes, you
like their mouth so you change your mouth, you like
their leg shape so you change your legs and so on

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until you become someone other than who God made
you to be and called you to be.

I realized later in life that I did not know my
identity. I was very busy teaching others to know
their identity but did not know my own. How
effective do you think I was? Oh, to many I appeared
to be very successful, but I was dealing with low self-
esteem to the max. I don’t think anyone knew it. If
they did they never said anything to me. In time, I
realized I needed to learn how to love my self.

That was very difficult. I had been so busy
trying to love everyone else so I could please God, I
forgot that it included loving ME! First, I had to
forgive myself for being so harshly self-critical and
not appreciating who God made me to be. I had
always criticized myself because of my height and the
size of my hands, the size of my nose and so on, not
realizing I was perfect in God’s sight. In time, with
the help of the Holy Spirit, I learned to love and
appreciate myself - flaws and faults alike.

It wasn’t easy, but I accepted all that I had to
go through to get to the place of security. I stopped
finding flaws. I changed my thoughts, my views and

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my vision by embracing the Word of God. I learned
to see myself how God sees me. He opened my eyes
to how wonderful and beautiful I am because He is
my Creator and He makes all things beautiful in His
time. (see Ecclesiastes 3:11). I had to accept what God
was showing me and choose to change. I could no
longer fight against what He was requiring of me if I
wanted to change. I had to submit to the mighty
Wisdom of God and obey His Word to come out of this
long-deserted place. Wrong thinking got me there.
Renewing my mind would get me out.

In 2017, the Lord commissioned me to launch
“I Rise”, a community-wide Women’s Gathering.
The very first message I ministered on June 6, 2017,
was “The You in You”. For the first time, I really felt
comfortable ministering on that topic. It was a true
sign. I knew what I was speaking about. I now am a
living witness. I shared with the women that night
how I got lost in my husband, my children, my
ministry and of course the church folks until I did not
know who Janice was and what she was all about. I
knew I had a call on my life. I knew I was chosen by
God. I knew I heard from God. But I couldn’t get out
of the circus - being the clown that the people so
enjoyed or criticized. I meant well but I had no idea

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