Her New Frontier Interview: Janet
Janet Hartenstein
Q: What’s your journey been to becoming a Prayer Warrior?
A: “I’ve always been drawn to prayer, always. We moved to Mexico City when I was 27. My husband and I were really young. As we moved there, I was six weeks pregnant with my daughter, Briana. We took some counsel from my dad and we just headed out to Mexico City with our two young kids. We drove from Ohio, all the way down to the Florida Keys and then into Mexico. I don’t remember it being a traumatic change. We went to a church of English speaking Christians from all over the world. That really opened our hearts to worship and I had been praying for quite some time that the Lord would draw me as close to Him as possible and help me to be the strongest Christian that I could be. That I could be the woman He created me to be. I didn’t really care how that happened. It was just my desire. I had already begun to go into my children’s bedrooms and pray for them after they fell asleep. Prayer was already a part of my desire and drive and I knew that without it, I was on my own and I didn’t know what I was doing.
Briana was born and a year later my life emotionally and mentally just fell apart. I could hardly function. I had anxiety, I couldn't go anywhere, make any decisions. I would spend most of my time crying- which I had never done before. Emotionally and even physically, my body would not work properly. So I began to cry out to God even more because how could I take care of my children and take care of my home when that was the way I was? We were in Mexico for four more years and then we moved back to Ohio.
For six years after we were back, I still suffered from the same issues. I went to exactly fifteen types of doctors and they gave me every answer in the book about why my body and my mind would not function properly. I had to cry out to God to make it through every single day. So Finally, the Lord brought this doctor to me. His name was Dr. Jacobsen. The neatest thing about him was that he was such a Godly man. Every time I talked to him he would bring me to accountability spiritually. Then he went to the medical issues.
Dr. Jacobsen called me over the phone and we talked for almost two hours. Then he ran a bunch of tests and he called me one day and said “From your history and the tests we have run, your adrenal glands have almost completely stopped working. That’s a part of the body that runs everything.” He said, “How that happens is that you have trauma in your body that eventually closes your adrenal glands down.” For me, it was crash-diving in highschool. Then when Chris was born, I hemorrhaged. Then we moved to Mexico City and I got typhoid a couple of times. He said it all just made the adrenal glands decide that they were not going to work anymore. He gave me these drops to get my adrenal glands working again. Within about three weeks it was like the sun came out again. I continued to take them for three months and then stopped, but that was the answer to my issue.
I still have some of those issues and life can be a little emotional. I still have to trust the Lord for that. That’s why, for me, prayer is a lifeline. Especially on the days when I can’t think straight and my emotions are off the wall. He is just my lifeline and I’ve learned to trust Him in that way.”
Q: What is prayer?
A: “Prayer’s communion with God. It’s knowing God.
The more you know Him, the more you trust Him with everything that you have. I had to. I couldn’t have survived without that. So it helps you to know God more and more. But the thing that’s cool is that, even at my age, I still don’t know everything there is to know about God. So it's still an awesome thing to be able to learn and search.
Prayer gives you a chance to honor and worship and glorify the Lord.
You need to be submissive. You learn to surrender. The most important thing when I pray is listening to God. Just hearing what He has to say to me. I can do a lot of blabbing but, I love the verse that says, “In quiet, you’ll find rest. In confidence, you’ll find your strength.” It’s an awesome verse. As you pray you to know your Father better, but you also move into a deeper more intimate relationship with Him. So you hopefully hear his voice and feel His presence.
There was a time in Mexico before we moved back here that, that I was desperate. I cried out to God and said, “No matter what you put me through I at least need to feel your presence. And I began to feel His presence as I prayed and I still feel his presence today as I sit here talking to you. He is here and He always has been.
You can pray in any way you want to!
It can be a spoken word. It can be a silent prayer-I love that. That no matter where you are or what you are doing, I mean you could be in a conversation with somebody and be saying a prayer to the Lord. Or pray with music. I love music. When you’re just dizzy and crazy, all over the place, you put on music. And your mind and your heart just focus on that and all the other crap goes away.
Prayer shows faith and trust in God. No answer that you receive will be against His holy and wise purposes (John 5:14-15). Be persistent in your prayer time. That’s Luke 11:5-13 and Luke 18:1-8.
Confession of sin, thanking Him and being dedicated, and bringing your requests to Him. You get to be a part of accomplishing god’s work and building for the kingdom. What a joy it is to be a part of what God is doing!
Prayer is not a magic fix, your goal is still to know God. Answers come in His timing, not in yours. It’s not always in the way that you want.
God not only allows us to pray and gives us the gift of prayer. He also commands us to pray. I have some scripture about that, I’ll read off the references and then if you want to look them up you can. These are all scriptures that tell me “get on your knees and get praying, girl.”
Philippians 4:6-7
Psalms 40:1-3
1 Chronicles 16:11
Jeremiah 33:3
1 John 5:14
Luke 18:1
Q: What is a prayer warrior?
A: “A prayer warrior is committed to praying for other people through God’s direction, wisdom, and guidance.
A prayer warrior is one that is committed to God intimately and consistently seeks to know more about Him from His word and uses their prayer time as a battleground for change.
We need to always remember that when we wake up we put our feet on the floor that we are in a war. It is a war every day of our life. The war is already won. The victory is already Jesus, but the spiritual battle will continue always. You want to put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-20). It’s good to memorize or even look it up and think about each piece. I do that every day.
A prayer warrior recognizes that focus is imperative in the spiritual battle. Quiet time, whenever possible to get time with the Lord, but you can pray anywhere.
Part of a prayer warrior’s job is to be on tap all of the time as much as you possibly can. So whenever you hear someone who is asking you to pray, pray then. If they don’t want to walk away and pray. Just be on target.
If you choose not to engage there is a huge price to pay. If you sit on the sidelines you are setting targets for Satan. Satan loves to defeat a Christian more than he cares if someone gets saved. This is a thing you really need to think about if you want to be a prayer warrior. If you choose to sit on the sidelines, it not only affects you but the people around you and those you love. That’s really a heart jab for me. Engage in the war, knowing that the time is short that we have time to learn and serve here on earth.
Prayer warriors pray daily, pray fervently, have a passionate intensity, make requests boldly. Pray without ceasing. That doesn't mean always in every second, but being consistent in prayer and taking on an attitude of prayer in everything that you do. It doesn't mean that you aren't going to have days where you get up, you have a list and you get with the Lord, and get your heart right and you’re ready to go for the day and at four in the afternoon and you’re done with your list and you think “Holy crap, I haven't talked to God all day long.” It happens. He loves us anyway and you go “Hey God, I’m still here.” It’s okay. It’s not a big thing.
Prayer warriors keep an attitude of prayer in everything that they do and pray as the need arises. Be on the alert through God’s help and guidance. Pray with expectation. Sometimes, change doesn’t always come right away or as we might expect or imagine that it will. But we should pray with the expectation that we serve a God that is mighty enough to deliver on anything that I may ask of Him in His will. Pray and stand on His promises, expecting Him to move that mountain.
Prayer warriors pray and act when God says to. When God shows you that you are to be a part of the answer, obey Him. If He says you go- you go. If He has something for you to do, You do it.
Prayer warriors pray through fear. Big bold prayers can cause big fear. Timothy says that we are not made of fear, but of power and love and of sound mind in Jesus Christ. When Satan attacks you, you don't have to accept that fear because you were not born with it. You just pray it down, in the blood and in Jesus’ name and you say “I’m walking away from this,” while claiming the power of God over your life and mind.
Prayer warriors stand up with spiritual warfare prayer. Cast down the evil and ask God to deal with it. And ask God to bring peace and clarity.
There’s a lot of times that you can have evil thoughts. You can be jealous, you can be afraid. What I do is I pray through the blood of Jesus Christ, in His name and in His power and I ask Him to take it. I picture in my mind whatever it is. I wrap it up in a ball and I picture laying it at Jesus’ cross in the blood of Jesus Christ and just say “Father, I just need You to take care of this. I need You to take this away. I need You to fill my mind with You. With your feelings and thoughts and emotions and attitudes and actions toward whatever this situation is that is on my mind and my heart.” If it’s really bothering me, sometimes I have to do it twenty times a day until it goes away. But when Satan knows your weak points, he’ll always come back and attack you there.
Prayer warriors use scripture. It’s awesome to find scripture where you can plant your feet and hold them close to your heart. I carry scripture with me in my purse. Sometimes I’ll write a verse down and tuck it somewhere to keep it with me. When I have trouble throughout the day, I will just lay my hand on that scripture, and just claim it again. The scriptures come in to play so that you know what’s true and what's not. If you have been in the scripture and you have something to claim Satan can’t fight with that. He knows it’s the truth and He has to go away. And I have days when, because of my chemical issues my mind and my emotions are just not there so God is always faithful even in those times to rescue me and get me through that.
Prayer is also discipleship. When we are called to disciple others, prayer should always be the key component of our mentoring process. For yourself, and them. For wisdom clarity and understanding. Keep your heart right, confess sin. Stay close to God in your walk. Reject pride or being prideful. Refuse fear. Pray for miracles. Remembering what's true and what's not and never giving up.
That’s being a prayer warrior! It’s a neat place to be. I can't say that I’ve always been a total success at being a prayer warrior. Meeting all of the criteria, but I do have people in my life that are like that and I admire them so much. It’s a process.”
***If you want to read more Her New Frontier interveiws follow us on instagram HERE.
A: “I’ve always been drawn to prayer, always. We moved to Mexico City when I was 27. My husband and I were really young. As we moved there, I was six weeks pregnant with my daughter, Briana. We took some counsel from my dad and we just headed out to Mexico City with our two young kids. We drove from Ohio, all the way down to the Florida Keys and then into Mexico. I don’t remember it being a traumatic change. We went to a church of English speaking Christians from all over the world. That really opened our hearts to worship and I had been praying for quite some time that the Lord would draw me as close to Him as possible and help me to be the strongest Christian that I could be. That I could be the woman He created me to be. I didn’t really care how that happened. It was just my desire. I had already begun to go into my children’s bedrooms and pray for them after they fell asleep. Prayer was already a part of my desire and drive and I knew that without it, I was on my own and I didn’t know what I was doing.
Briana was born and a year later my life emotionally and mentally just fell apart. I could hardly function. I had anxiety, I couldn't go anywhere, make any decisions. I would spend most of my time crying- which I had never done before. Emotionally and even physically, my body would not work properly. So I began to cry out to God even more because how could I take care of my children and take care of my home when that was the way I was? We were in Mexico for four more years and then we moved back to Ohio.
For six years after we were back, I still suffered from the same issues. I went to exactly fifteen types of doctors and they gave me every answer in the book about why my body and my mind would not function properly. I had to cry out to God to make it through every single day. So Finally, the Lord brought this doctor to me. His name was Dr. Jacobsen. The neatest thing about him was that he was such a Godly man. Every time I talked to him he would bring me to accountability spiritually. Then he went to the medical issues.
Dr. Jacobsen called me over the phone and we talked for almost two hours. Then he ran a bunch of tests and he called me one day and said “From your history and the tests we have run, your adrenal glands have almost completely stopped working. That’s a part of the body that runs everything.” He said, “How that happens is that you have trauma in your body that eventually closes your adrenal glands down.” For me, it was crash-diving in highschool. Then when Chris was born, I hemorrhaged. Then we moved to Mexico City and I got typhoid a couple of times. He said it all just made the adrenal glands decide that they were not going to work anymore. He gave me these drops to get my adrenal glands working again. Within about three weeks it was like the sun came out again. I continued to take them for three months and then stopped, but that was the answer to my issue.
I still have some of those issues and life can be a little emotional. I still have to trust the Lord for that. That’s why, for me, prayer is a lifeline. Especially on the days when I can’t think straight and my emotions are off the wall. He is just my lifeline and I’ve learned to trust Him in that way.”
Q: What is prayer?
A: “Prayer’s communion with God. It’s knowing God.
The more you know Him, the more you trust Him with everything that you have. I had to. I couldn’t have survived without that. So it helps you to know God more and more. But the thing that’s cool is that, even at my age, I still don’t know everything there is to know about God. So it's still an awesome thing to be able to learn and search.
Prayer gives you a chance to honor and worship and glorify the Lord.
You need to be submissive. You learn to surrender. The most important thing when I pray is listening to God. Just hearing what He has to say to me. I can do a lot of blabbing but, I love the verse that says, “In quiet, you’ll find rest. In confidence, you’ll find your strength.” It’s an awesome verse. As you pray you to know your Father better, but you also move into a deeper more intimate relationship with Him. So you hopefully hear his voice and feel His presence.
There was a time in Mexico before we moved back here that, that I was desperate. I cried out to God and said, “No matter what you put me through I at least need to feel your presence. And I began to feel His presence as I prayed and I still feel his presence today as I sit here talking to you. He is here and He always has been.
You can pray in any way you want to!
It can be a spoken word. It can be a silent prayer-I love that. That no matter where you are or what you are doing, I mean you could be in a conversation with somebody and be saying a prayer to the Lord. Or pray with music. I love music. When you’re just dizzy and crazy, all over the place, you put on music. And your mind and your heart just focus on that and all the other crap goes away.
Prayer shows faith and trust in God. No answer that you receive will be against His holy and wise purposes (John 5:14-15). Be persistent in your prayer time. That’s Luke 11:5-13 and Luke 18:1-8.
Confession of sin, thanking Him and being dedicated, and bringing your requests to Him. You get to be a part of accomplishing god’s work and building for the kingdom. What a joy it is to be a part of what God is doing!
Prayer is not a magic fix, your goal is still to know God. Answers come in His timing, not in yours. It’s not always in the way that you want.
God not only allows us to pray and gives us the gift of prayer. He also commands us to pray. I have some scripture about that, I’ll read off the references and then if you want to look them up you can. These are all scriptures that tell me “get on your knees and get praying, girl.”
Philippians 4:6-7
Psalms 40:1-3
1 Chronicles 16:11
Jeremiah 33:3
1 John 5:14
Luke 18:1
Q: What is a prayer warrior?
A: “A prayer warrior is committed to praying for other people through God’s direction, wisdom, and guidance.
A prayer warrior is one that is committed to God intimately and consistently seeks to know more about Him from His word and uses their prayer time as a battleground for change.
We need to always remember that when we wake up we put our feet on the floor that we are in a war. It is a war every day of our life. The war is already won. The victory is already Jesus, but the spiritual battle will continue always. You want to put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-20). It’s good to memorize or even look it up and think about each piece. I do that every day.
A prayer warrior recognizes that focus is imperative in the spiritual battle. Quiet time, whenever possible to get time with the Lord, but you can pray anywhere.
Part of a prayer warrior’s job is to be on tap all of the time as much as you possibly can. So whenever you hear someone who is asking you to pray, pray then. If they don’t want to walk away and pray. Just be on target.
If you choose not to engage there is a huge price to pay. If you sit on the sidelines you are setting targets for Satan. Satan loves to defeat a Christian more than he cares if someone gets saved. This is a thing you really need to think about if you want to be a prayer warrior. If you choose to sit on the sidelines, it not only affects you but the people around you and those you love. That’s really a heart jab for me. Engage in the war, knowing that the time is short that we have time to learn and serve here on earth.
Prayer warriors pray daily, pray fervently, have a passionate intensity, make requests boldly. Pray without ceasing. That doesn't mean always in every second, but being consistent in prayer and taking on an attitude of prayer in everything that you do. It doesn't mean that you aren't going to have days where you get up, you have a list and you get with the Lord, and get your heart right and you’re ready to go for the day and at four in the afternoon and you’re done with your list and you think “Holy crap, I haven't talked to God all day long.” It happens. He loves us anyway and you go “Hey God, I’m still here.” It’s okay. It’s not a big thing.
Prayer warriors keep an attitude of prayer in everything that they do and pray as the need arises. Be on the alert through God’s help and guidance. Pray with expectation. Sometimes, change doesn’t always come right away or as we might expect or imagine that it will. But we should pray with the expectation that we serve a God that is mighty enough to deliver on anything that I may ask of Him in His will. Pray and stand on His promises, expecting Him to move that mountain.
Prayer warriors pray and act when God says to. When God shows you that you are to be a part of the answer, obey Him. If He says you go- you go. If He has something for you to do, You do it.
Prayer warriors pray through fear. Big bold prayers can cause big fear. Timothy says that we are not made of fear, but of power and love and of sound mind in Jesus Christ. When Satan attacks you, you don't have to accept that fear because you were not born with it. You just pray it down, in the blood and in Jesus’ name and you say “I’m walking away from this,” while claiming the power of God over your life and mind.
Prayer warriors stand up with spiritual warfare prayer. Cast down the evil and ask God to deal with it. And ask God to bring peace and clarity.
There’s a lot of times that you can have evil thoughts. You can be jealous, you can be afraid. What I do is I pray through the blood of Jesus Christ, in His name and in His power and I ask Him to take it. I picture in my mind whatever it is. I wrap it up in a ball and I picture laying it at Jesus’ cross in the blood of Jesus Christ and just say “Father, I just need You to take care of this. I need You to take this away. I need You to fill my mind with You. With your feelings and thoughts and emotions and attitudes and actions toward whatever this situation is that is on my mind and my heart.” If it’s really bothering me, sometimes I have to do it twenty times a day until it goes away. But when Satan knows your weak points, he’ll always come back and attack you there.
Prayer warriors use scripture. It’s awesome to find scripture where you can plant your feet and hold them close to your heart. I carry scripture with me in my purse. Sometimes I’ll write a verse down and tuck it somewhere to keep it with me. When I have trouble throughout the day, I will just lay my hand on that scripture, and just claim it again. The scriptures come in to play so that you know what’s true and what's not. If you have been in the scripture and you have something to claim Satan can’t fight with that. He knows it’s the truth and He has to go away. And I have days when, because of my chemical issues my mind and my emotions are just not there so God is always faithful even in those times to rescue me and get me through that.
Prayer is also discipleship. When we are called to disciple others, prayer should always be the key component of our mentoring process. For yourself, and them. For wisdom clarity and understanding. Keep your heart right, confess sin. Stay close to God in your walk. Reject pride or being prideful. Refuse fear. Pray for miracles. Remembering what's true and what's not and never giving up.
That’s being a prayer warrior! It’s a neat place to be. I can't say that I’ve always been a total success at being a prayer warrior. Meeting all of the criteria, but I do have people in my life that are like that and I admire them so much. It’s a process.”
***If you want to read more Her New Frontier interveiws follow us on instagram HERE.
Posted in Her New Frontier
Tagged with her new frontier, janet, prayer, prayer warrior, warrior, battle weapons, interveiw
Tagged with her new frontier, janet, prayer, prayer warrior, warrior, battle weapons, interveiw
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