Power to Choose

POWER TO CHOOSE

True Stories of Tragedy and Triumph

BARBARA DAN

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Smashwords Edition

Power to Choose

Digital Copyright © 2012 Barbara Dan

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 94-62200

Cover Design Copyright © Laura Shinn Designs

http://laurashinn.yolasite.com

Smashwords License Notes:

Power to Choose is a work of non-fiction.

No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, except for brief quotations in critical book reviews. This book, first was published in 1995 by Eden Publishing, The Lakes, Nevada, is a work of nonfiction, based on clinical case studies and personal experiences of individuals. Names, locations and certain details have been changed to preserve and protect the anonymity and privacy of those involved.

This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another individual, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work and copyright of the authors.

Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 94-62200

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

DEDICATION

To all who grieve, this book is dedicated with much love.

* * *

To Gudrun Babcock, a wise woman, who like Mary the mother of Jesus, stored all things in her heart, believing and trusting God in all things.

In loving memory of her son, David Milburn Babcock (1963-1994), a gifted follower of the Lord, whose sudden death brightens heaven, making it even more a place of joyful expectation. Thank you, Lord, for sharing David with us. His joy in the Lord, his selfless sharing of himself and his contagious faith continue to bear fruit.

To the families of murder victims: God knows who you are and holds you very close to His heart.

And to you, dear reader: Thanks for taking time to consider what God has laid on our hearts to share. It has been a joy—and a challenge—to portray faithfully what God is doing in the lives of so many. May you face each new day with hope and a sense of expectation. God will not disappoint!

And to my dear husband and family therapist, John Dan, M.Div., M.A.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Words of Praise for the Counseling Ministry of John Dan

"John Dan is an active marriage and family therapist (who) undergirds his philosophy of hope and help with biblical principles. . . He is on the right track, offering genuine help to understanding the source for the true power to change.

—Gene Appel, Senior Minister, Central Christian Church, Las Vegas

* * *

John Dan writes about change. . . not just rearranging the chairs, but change with substance and at the spiritual core of our being. . . This book can create new possibilities for you.

—Chaplain Jerome Blankenship, Ordained United Methodist Clergy,Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, Las Vegas, Nevada

* * *

Truly a useful and thoughtful book, to be read and re-read.

—Dr. John Hinckle, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

About the Author & co-writer . . .

Barbara Dan has a diverse background, ranging from professional acting and television production to real estate, accounting, teaching, editing and publishing. She has degrees in Theatre Arts and Advanced Accounting and an M.A. in Humanities. She has written a number of plays and several novels, simultaneously raising four children and several litters of Labrador Retrievers. Currently she claims bragging rights as the grandma of five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. She and John Dan were married for forty-six years, until his death in 2005.

John Dan ~ A Navy veteran of World War II and the Korean War, John Dan and his future wife Barbara met in Hollywood, while he was a actor, appearing on Playhouse 90, Court of Last Resort, and other TV shows. After their marriage, he became an ordained American Baptist minister, earning graduate degrees in Theology and Human Development Counseling.

A church pastor, counselor, and mental health clinician for thirty-two years, he pastored four churches, worked as a prison and hospital chaplain in Los Angeles, directed a Salvation Army alcoholic rehabilitation center for two years, and did two internships in counseling, at the Los Angeles Family Institute, and later at Decatur Mental Health Center in Illinois. After that, John’s extensive counseling ministry as a counselor and mental health clinician led him to Las Vegas Family Counseling Services for five years. Next he became Director of Nevada Counseling, then moved his practice as a clinical therapist to Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services for fourteen years; during that time he also directed Henderson Counseling Center for five years. He was a licensed Marriage and Family Counselor in California and Nevada, and a clinical member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists.

Besides Power to Choose, John Dan also wrote Power to Change, which explores the role each Person of the Holy Trinity plays in bringing about spiritual change, and Behold! The Lamb of God:an Easter Passover Seder Service for Christians, available in eBook from WestBow Press, a division of Thomas Nelson. [Power to Change and Power to Choose are available in print by contacting his wife at http://barbaradan.com.]

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Table of Contents

SECTION ONE:

Whose Power Are We Talking About?

What Are The Choices We Really Have?

Preface

Chapter 1: The Road To Mental And Spiritual Health

Chapter 2: To Choose, Or Not To Choose

What Kind Of A Question Is That?

Chapter 3: It’s Our Choice: Tyranny Or Freedom

Chapter 4: Magical Thinking

Chapter 5: A Major Impediment In Our Path

Chapter 6: Tough Lessons On Denial

Chapter 7: Breaking Free

SECTION TWO: The Dynamics Of Powerful Living In Christ

Chapter 8: Spiritual Power In Weakness

Chapter 9: Incentives To Help Us Overcome

Chapter 10: We Have God’s Assurance

SECTION THREE: The Power Of Kingdom Living

Chapter 11: Power Living On The Gospel Road

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

SECTION ONE:

Whose Power Are We Really Talking About?

What Are The Choices We Really Have?

Preface

This book is not an invitation to speculation, philosophical debate, or religious theorizing. It is about choice. About living through crisis and pain.

It is written for the person who is in the throes of a potentially life-altering choice or crisis, and for those who stand at the crossroads of making a decision that may affect the way they deal with life from here on out. Or you may know someone who has been left stripped and defenseless by tragedy, and you want to understand more clearly what your friend is going through, and how to help.

This book contains example after example of men and women who have struggled with the same heartaches and heavy burdens you have, and they have won! We’re not talking about mere survival here. We’re talking about making wise decisions and choices that will not escalate or increase your pain. About allowing God to transform you and the experience (since you cannot escape it) into something more than bearable—more than tolerable. Much more, I think you will agree, as you begin to examine your options and find the power to overcome.

Dare I say it? Power to Choose is about discovery, about recognizing that you’re on a great journey: A spiritual journey lived out in a physical body amidst many given tangibles and many more unseen, but infinitely more vital issues which affect the human spirit.

Most of us view life as a lifespan, if we’re lucky, of approximately three-score-ten point six years, starting with birth and ending with death. Our conception of time is filtered through those events and experiences we perceive with the physical senses. We are influenced, quite naturally, by what we see, hear, touch, smell, ingest, and so on. In other words, the data upon which we generally rely comes from the realm of feeling, or sensation, and the emotions. Even our belief systems and view of life tend to be shaped, in large part, by our experience of the physical world around us.

However, when we limit ourselves and our perceptions only to responding out of the limitations built into us as finite beings, we leave ourselves extremely vulnerable. This is particularly true when we are blind-sided by tragedy, regardless of the form it takes. And please do not mistake my meaning when I say that none of us can escape difficulties and sorrow. With all my heart I wish we could. But since we cannot avoid pain and suffering and loss, try as we may wish to, we need to consider our options.

To do that, we need to realize that we do have choices. Not so much about what has happened to complicate our pilgrimage here on earth, but about how we will deal with life in the here and now.

Most of us have either read Shakespeare’s Hamlet or seen one of the many film versions. If we have, we may have asked ourselves how the drama would have played itself out if Hamlet had not made such a fatally flawed choice. I am not referring to his famous soliloquy, To be, or not to be, in which he toys with the idea of suicide, but with the real question: Whether he should have listened to his father’s ghost and gotten caught up in the evil and madness that raged all around him, for in doing so, he invited that same destructive spirit into his own heart, eventually bringing about even more death and destruction to everyone around him, and eventually to himself.

"Aye, that is the question." What do we believe and upon what do we base our choices? Hamlet is but one of many classic cases in literature of the downward spiral created by getting caught up in what I describe as First Order thinking in my book, Power to Change. All the great playwrights, from Aeschylus to Chekhov to Miller, have done a superlative job of portraying this destructive pattern within the human soul. Where they do not succeed is in showing us the way out of this trap, this pit of human despair.

The Holy Bible very clearly shows us the human condition. It minces no words about our alienation from God, our sinful knee-jerk reactions to life, our spiritual blundering, or our propensity to strike out in blind desperation.

Where the Bible differs from all other books on the face of the earth is in its clear message of hope. We can find our way through the maze of our pain and confusion and difficulty! God has made a way of escape, not from the fire of our afflictions, but from the fear that paralyzes and deadens and hinders our progress along life’s journey.

This book will help you explore Biblical truths and the choices that are available to you, so that you may live, not amidst the carnage on the dung heap of Golgotha, from which Christ has come to rescue you, but on the Resurrection side of life’s sorrows and trials.

But you can only do it . . . by faith!

It will not happen by relying on your own strength. This is not a do-it-yourselfers manual, but a book about making healthy choices.

As a therapist for over thirty years, I will not lie to you. No choice is healthy that does not place Christ at the absolute center of your life. You cannot overcome and emerge victorious from the crucible of life’s toughest experiences in your own strength. I have seen this proven out in countless lives, including my own and my family’s. I have seen clients in the deepest pits of despair and loneliness and grief emerge into the radiant sunlight of