Many of us are haunted by the past-things we did and things that were done to us. Life is full of hardship and pain, and it's easy to hold onto the old, not allowing the new to enter our lives and bless each day. We find destructive comfort in reliving the past, but in so doing, we rob the present of its joy and the future of its promise.

It is time to let go of the past. It is time to face your regrets and past pains and shake them loose, freeing yourself to finally be happy. In Gardens of Life, you will learn how to move on and move up to a better you and a better life. You can find your courage and find your hope, and in so doing help others who share your pain.

You have delayed your own healing for long enough. It's time to begin the process or rediscovering your joy. Heal yourself, and help others find their own strength, peace, and courage. You do not have to be a slave to regret any longer. Break the chains, face the truth, and ultimately, be set free.

Gardens of Life

By Maria A. Goodwin

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Maria A. Goodwin
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-7285-8

Contents

The crops............................................................................5Rebellion............................................................................7Cover Ups............................................................................9A Fix................................................................................11Anger................................................................................13Stop the fight.......................................................................15Fighters and Losers..................................................................17Competition..........................................................................19Godly expectations are not deceptive demands Do not desire, obey.....................21Diseases of the Soul.................................................................25Love of Self Versus Lover of Self....................................................27Forgiveness Is Not Tolerance.........................................................29Sickness.............................................................................31Sadism is deceitful..................................................................33Hard Workers.........................................................................35Beliefs..............................................................................37Poor.................................................................................39Value of Money Versus the Love of Money..............................................41Hate for the Rich....................................................................43Godly People.........................................................................45Abuse................................................................................47No Honor.............................................................................51Dishonor.............................................................................53The Pain, Abuse, and Control.........................................................55The Crop of Regimentation............................................................57Laziness.............................................................................59Hopeless.............................................................................61Jealousy.............................................................................63Neglect..............................................................................65Comfort..............................................................................67Stubbornness.........................................................................69Perfectionism........................................................................71Paralyzed............................................................................73Help.................................................................................77New Way of Living....................................................................79Past and Present.....................................................................81Discipline Is Not Regimentation......................................................83Discipline is the preservation of life...............................................85Don't be guided by the conduct of others.............................................87Idols................................................................................89Seeds and Weeds......................................................................91Feed.................................................................................93Stand Up and Walk....................................................................95Perfect love casts out fear..........................................................97Healing..............................................................................99Redemption...........................................................................101I hope for you.......................................................................103Restoration..........................................................................105Stay focus on your convictions.......................................................107Meditate and Pray....................................................................109

Chapter One

Are you Rebellious ?

The crops

Of Love

And

The crops Of Fear

Rebellion

Do not rebel against truth.
Rebels are not winners.
Winners are obedient to truth.
They love themselves and others.
They are encouraging
with their lives.
They are not
aggressive or arrogant.


Cover Ups

When you cover up evil, because you are afraid of it,
you are giving it food to build on.
Stand for truth and do not waver, or you will
pay the price with your own life.
Do not fight with the enemy, or you will get in
trouble, do not under- estimate the power of it.
Be wise and gentle


A Fix

Don't look for a fix; look for a cure.
In order to look for a cure,
you have to admit that you need healing.

Many books are written, about how to be happy, but
not too many show you the route to misery. It is hard to
look at the cause of misery, so they offer you a fix.
So you get addicted to an easy fix, which is only
temporary, and the misery continues and gets bigger.
Get rid of your idols,
and you will learn how to love.


Anger

Don't try to kill the weeds with your anger.
Your anger will blind you, and you will damage the wheat; and
you might not even notice that the weeds may already be dead.


Eph.4:26 be angry but sin not


Stop the fight

By fighting against prejudice,
you will become low class.
By fighting against ugliness,
you will become cheap.
By fighting against stupidity,
you will become ignorant.
By fighting against competition,
you will get lost.
By fighting against image,
you will lose your goal.
By stopping you will learn to take care of you.


Fighters and Losers

When you spend time fighting
against someone's weakness,
you will miss out on your talents; and
you will stop others from using theirs.


Be not afraid.


Competition

Competition comes from insecurity,
and produces jealousy and pride.
Jealousy is deceitful.
Pride is arrogant and pompous.
Pride will make you a loser.
Jealousy will make you stupid.
Shame will bring you addiction.
They make fun of each other, they war with one
another; they engage in a score game.
They can be stopped.
Replace jealousy with value and pride with honor.


Godly expectations are not deceptive demands.
Do not desire, obey.

If you find where your fears come from, you have the power
to cast them out. Did they come from your fearful parents,
your friends, your teachers, or the world around you?
When you face fear, don't cast out your parents, your
friends, your teachers or the world around you.
Don't fight them; you cannot help them; without first honoring
your own person.


Physician heal thyself (Luke 4:23 ASV)


Are You
Sick and Tired
?


Diseases of the Soul

Only diagnosis of the truth- and the will
to be cured can bring healing.


Love of Self
Versus
Lover of Self

If you love yourself
you have.
Respect, worthiness, and self-control.
If you are a lover of yourself.
You have pride, pleasure, and lust.


Forgiveness
Is Not
Tolerance

I thought that certain people knew how to forgive, but they
did not forgive anything. They only tolerated the situation
because they were too afraid of the one at fault, they became
cowards because of it, they lost control of their lives.
Today they feed themselves with anger and bitterness, and
they invite others in the same condition to fight with them.
They are losers together.


Sickness

Revenge hits the belly.
Jealousy hits the throat.
Hate hits the head.
Hypocrisy hits the face.
Indifference and neglect hits the heart.
Sadism hits the neck and ears.


Sadism is deceitful

It hits you in the back; you don't know when it's coming.
Be still and listen to the symptoms to identify the target.
If you name it, you can stop it from damaging you. Don't be
afraid or too pound to admit that you hear what you hear.
It is the same for the other demons.
You don't know what they are doing to you,
until you are not accepting them.
Stay focused on your convictions, believe in
yourself, and continue on your path.


Hard Workers

A hard worker is a man who works to avoid
seeing what he has to work on not at.


When you work out of fear, you work to fulfill someone else's
interests or expectation rather than your own needs. You have to
work hard just to survive, and this does not produce joy or peace.
The hard work covers up a person's needs and
stops him from knowing what to work on.


Beliefs

When a home is build on a belief
in
Money, works, and unworthy morals,
we are victims of that; we are wounded children, abused
neglected, misunderstood, disrespected and unloved.
This is what we are

Change

First we must stop blaming the abuser, the neglecter,
the underminer, the un-lovely, or we will never be
healed and the sickness will be passed on.


Poor

Being poor it is not having anyone to protect you.
It is not to having enough finances.
It is not to having family.
It is not to having joy.
It is not to having happiness.
It is not to having health.


Two things will make you poor: fear of poverty and hate for the rich.


Value of Money
Versus the Love of Money

Fear of Poverty and Hate for the Rich
People in poverty do not know how to solve their problem, so
they try to cover it up, make it pretty, make it look rich, make
it look perfect, anything, to cover up, cover up, cover up.
At the sight of poverty, fear turns to arrogance for help, and they
make a mockery out of the poor. They make fun of their looks,
their clothing, their homes, whatever, whatever, whatever.
Fear says: let us get money out of others, without regard for their
labor. Fear has paralyzed them from getting what they need on their
own. They find people to help them up, but when they get help they
get mad, and their envy and hate for the rich keeps them poor.


Hate for the Rich

Hate for the rich, makes the rich vain, unkind, and hateful.
They stay by themselves. They neglect the poor and they do not
associate with them, they do not want to be seen in their company.
Vain rich people never help anyone. They just find
charitable causes to use them and to prove themselves. But
if those same causes lift the poor out of the pit, the rich
get frightened, and in their vanity, they look for tragedy to
shine. They don't love the poor or get along with them.


Godly People

Are neither poor nor rich. Their needs are met, and their money has
a godly purpose. They do consume themselves with either poverty
or riches; they work to make life easier for themselves and others.
They do not listen to fear; they do not associate with past
miseries; and they do not compete; or gossip. They train
themselves to be still and to listen for truth; they are helpful
to themselves and others at the sight of weakness.


Abuse

They don't have to stop being abusive.


You have to stop taking the abuse.


Control

Caring is not control.
You control when you don't care.


Don't abuse yourself, and don't let anyone abuse you.


Are You
Desperate
?


Jeremiah;17-9


No Honor

NO
VALUE
NO
VALUE,
NO
FRUIT


Dishonor

If you've never seen honor, how can you know how
to honor yourself with harmony and care?
Relationships without honor produce miserable people, and start wars.
Search for honor, not worldly love.
Honor will give you true love.


The Pain, Abuse, and Control

When people live with control and abuse, they find ways
to survive that are not healthy for their being.
Some choose to become numb and mute.
No one will touch me here.
Some become violent and aggressive. This puts fear
into others; their survival is at the cost of others,
and they never recognize their own needs.
Some cry and scream for survival. People feel sorry
for them, and give them, what they ask for, not what
they need. They don't even know who they are.


The Crop of Regimentation

Wrong communication
Produces:
Defilement
Stubbornness
Laziness
Wrong guidance
Aggressiveness
Abuse of self
Abuse of others
Too many guidelines and too much direction
produce boredom and lack of self-control.


Laziness

You want to work, but abuse stops the
Joy of doing.
Stop accepting the abuse.
Take control of yourself.


Then you will honor your person, and you will
become safe in your surroundings.


Hopeless


When you lose hope, your create a set of beliefs
for yourself, and a world of your own.
From there on you make sure that people don't disturb your world.
The fight starts now in order to keep you safe.
This gives you nothing but misery and loneliness, and you
become as hopeless as the people that you gave up on.


Jealousy

Jealousy is caused by dishonor, so the people cannot see their value


Jealousy instigates pride.
Jealousy doesn't find anything, doesn't try anything,
has a new thing, nocks it down, someone speaks
better, does it better, it is never good enough.
If you are afraid of jealousy, in order not to be affected by it,
get rid of pride; accept yourself only for what you are capable
of, humble yourself, stand firm to your convictions.


Neglect

If you are neglected, it is because the
people around you don't know your needs.
Find your needs, take hold of yourself,
and walk. Don't lose your self-control and
become a loser.


Comfort

If you are looking for comfort in mankind, you will be deceived.
They will give you money, and pleasure, which you will find that
anywhere, in people, in the welfare system or in your family,
but you will lose your honor and dignity, and eventually your
possessions, including those who are most dear to you.
Turn around, take hold of yourself while you still have
time and don't be tempted. Find ways to bring the best
that you have into focus, you will help yourself, and you
will help the world that you might want to help.
Don't let pride make you a loser.
Don't let jealousy make you stupid.
Don't let shame make you addicted.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Gardens of Lifeby Maria A. Goodwin Copyright © 2010 by Maria A. Goodwin. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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