Speaker 1: Hi there, This is Delilah. Normally probably hear me on
Speaker 1: the radio at night, but this year we started a
Speaker 1: new way to connect with you. These are our conversations
Speaker 1: with Delilah, and in these podcasts, I can talk as
Speaker 1: long as I want. On the radio at night, I
Speaker 1: can only talk, you know, two or three minutes, because
Speaker 1: we play a lot of music, really good music, and
Speaker 1: I love, love, love that. But sometimes there's something on
Speaker 1: my heart, or sometimes I'll interview an artist and we
Speaker 1: talk for ten, fifteen to twenty minutes. I talked to
Speaker 1: Michael bouobleat one time for over an hour. And I
Speaker 1: want to be able to share all that goodness with you,
Speaker 1: all that great stuff, and sometimes there's something on my
Speaker 1: heart that I really need to talk and it takes
Speaker 1: more than two or three minutes. And one of the
Speaker 1: things we've been talking about on the air and on
Speaker 1: our show, on our Facebook page in the little memes
Speaker 1: I post is gardening as a metaphor for life. I'm
Speaker 1: a gardener. I love to garden. I have a lot
Speaker 1: of space now because many years ago I bought a
Speaker 1: hundred year old farmhouse and it's got acres of land,
Speaker 1: and then I bought more acres of land next to
Speaker 1: it so I can garden till my heart's content. But
Speaker 1: I have always loved being out in the garden since
Speaker 1: I was a little girl. I've loved plants, I've loved nature.
Speaker 1: I'm not a squeamy girl that screams when it's he
Speaker 1: a spider or a mouse, or a slug or a snake.
Speaker 1: Not only do those things not bother me or freak
Speaker 1: me out. I love nature, I do. I love birds,
Speaker 1: and I love eagles and hawks. I love watching a
Speaker 1: spider spin its web. It doesn't creep me out at all.
Speaker 1: It fascinates me. I love learning about honeybees, and I'm
Speaker 1: very sad that they're dying by the bazillions and we
Speaker 1: don't know why. So I wanted to talk about gardening
Speaker 1: as a metaphor for life on this podcast. And if
Speaker 1: you're not a gardener, that's okay, because I think what
Speaker 1: I have to say will still resonate with you, because
Speaker 1: it's really not about gardening. It's more about your heart
Speaker 1: and living a fruitful life. So we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about that, about planting seeds of hope and nurturing the
Speaker 1: good seeds in the Garden of your Heart. We have
Speaker 1: these podcasts and they're free because we have sponsors that
Speaker 1: pay for them to be produced. They're free to you,
Speaker 1: but they're not free to produce, that's for sure. I
Speaker 1: want to stop for a second and thank our sponsor,
Speaker 1: audible dot Com. Audible takes great stories, great books and
Speaker 1: make them available for you to listen to. So you
Speaker 1: can listen in the car, you can listen as you drive,
Speaker 1: you can listen as you commute, you can listen as
Speaker 1: you go to sleep at night. Thanks to audible dot
Speaker 1: com and they are sponsoring this podcast. So when you
Speaker 1: decide to plant a garden, whether it's a vegetable garden,
Speaker 1: an orchard, or a flower bed, the first thing you
Speaker 1: have to do is prepare the soil. Sometimes that's hard,
Speaker 1: hard work, breaking up the soil, getting out the grass,
Speaker 1: getting out the weeds. I have learned some tricks since
Speaker 1: I've been gardening all these years that make it a
Speaker 1: lot easier. One of those tricks is to cover the
Speaker 1: air that I'm going to plant with newspapers three or
Speaker 1: four or five layers deep, and then put rocks or
Speaker 1: bricks on top of it so it doesn't blow away.
Speaker 1: And then wet it down, and if you do that,
Speaker 1: the newspapers block the sunshine and it kills off all
Speaker 1: the weeds and grass underneath. And then when you go
Speaker 1: to till it, because the newspaper is organic, you can
Speaker 1: till it right into the soil, and in that way
Speaker 1: you cut out a lot of the hard work. And
Speaker 1: in the same way, when you want to plant seeds
Speaker 1: of hope in your heart, you have to prepare the
Speaker 1: soil of your heart by getting rid of all the
Speaker 1: bad stuff. If you want to plant seeds of love,
Speaker 1: say you decided I want to be in a loving,
Speaker 1: nurturing relationship. I want to have a committed relationship with
Speaker 1: a significant other that I can grow in love with,
Speaker 1: and you decide to plant that seed in your heart,
Speaker 1: first you must prepare the soil by getting rid of
Speaker 1: all the weeds and garbage that exists there. If you
Speaker 1: want to have a loving, committed relationship with somebody, that
Speaker 1: means you need to get rid of all the friends
Speaker 1: with benefits that you're messing around with. If you want
Speaker 1: to have a loving, committed, nurturing relationship with somebody that
Speaker 1: is a long term, lifelong marriage or relationship, you got
Speaker 1: to get rid of the weeds in your heart, and
Speaker 1: maybe that's addiction. Nobody is going to be able to
Speaker 1: have a loving, committed, long term relationship with you. If
Speaker 1: you're an alcoholic, if you're a drug addict, if you're
Speaker 1: a gambling addict, if you are addicted to porn or
Speaker 1: to promiscuity, you can't do it. You can't have it
Speaker 1: both ways. So if the seed you want to plant
Speaker 1: in your heart, if you are saying, you know what,
Speaker 1: I would like to share my life life with someone
Speaker 1: and grow old with them and love them completely, then
Speaker 1: you need to get rid of the garbage that is
Speaker 1: choking out the soil of your life long before you
Speaker 1: ever plant that seed, long before you can enter into
Speaker 1: a long term, loving, committed relationship. You need to put
Speaker 1: to rest and get rid of all that dead grass
Speaker 1: and weeds where you're going to plant that seed. Maybe
Speaker 1: the seeds you want to plant are healthier relationships with
Speaker 1: your children. Maybe your kids are small, or maybe your
Speaker 1: kids are older, but you say I want to start
Speaker 1: growing healthier relationships with my kids, transparent relationships with my kids,
Speaker 1: same thing applies. Whatever is in the garden of your
Speaker 1: heart that prevents those seeds from taking hold and growing
Speaker 1: you need to get rid of first. You need to
Speaker 1: get rid of that first. Okay, once you have dealt
Speaker 1: with that stuff, maybe it's counseling you need. Maybe you
Speaker 1: were abused by your father, maybe you didn't have a father,
Speaker 1: maybe he abandoned the family, or maybe you went through
Speaker 1: something horribly traumatic as a young person, a child or teenager,
Speaker 1: and you are scarred as a result of that. You
Speaker 1: need to deal with that, honestly. You need to talk
Speaker 1: about it, You need to counsel through it. You need
Speaker 1: to find somebody to help you work through that stuff,
Speaker 1: whatever that stuff is, so that the soil of your
Speaker 1: heart is prepared to grow healthy fruit in your life.
Speaker 1: You cannot grow healthy fruit of honesty, integrity, and trust
Speaker 1: when you have been violated and you no longer trust
Speaker 1: been violated, and you no longer trust people as a
Speaker 1: result of sexual abuse or physical abuse, or emotional abuse
Speaker 1: or abandonment, there is no way you can grow fruits
Speaker 1: of trust in a relationship until you deal with that.
Speaker 1: Doesn't that make sense If you have been abandoned by
Speaker 1: a parent or somebody that you trusted, that should have
Speaker 1: been there to care for you and instead they were
Speaker 1: off getting high or messing around with somebody else or whatever,
Speaker 1: and that trust was broken when you were two or
Speaker 1: five or ten or fifteen. There is no way you
Speaker 1: are just going to be able to enter into a
Speaker 1: relationship and trust somebody and give them your trust. Life
Speaker 1: doesn't work that way. So in order to grow healthy
Speaker 1: fruits in your relationship, like trust, like integrity, honesty, transparency,
Speaker 1: you first must prepare the soil of your heart long
Speaker 1: before you say, okay, I am going to open up
Speaker 1: and be completely vulnerable and completely trusting. First, you got
Speaker 1: to deal with that woundedness that happened that caused you
Speaker 1: not to trust. Does that make sense? I hope that
Speaker 1: makes sense. So preparing the soil of your heart before
Speaker 1: you plant those seeds of hope, those seeds of love,
Speaker 1: those seeds of relationships, is vitally important. I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people that are having too much fun in
Speaker 1: life to settle down. They're having too much fun in life.
Speaker 1: They're players, they're traveling, they're doing this, they're doing that.
Speaker 1: They think they're living the good life. But one day
Speaker 1: they're going to look back and go, Dang, I could
Speaker 1: have had a relationship, I could have had a family,
Speaker 1: I could have had a community, I could have people
Speaker 1: that care about me instead of of superficial friends that
Speaker 1: mean nothing. So if you want those things in your life,
Speaker 1: if you want committed, loving relationships, friends that are there
Speaker 1: for you through thick and thin, that are there for
Speaker 1: you when the diagnosis comes in and you've got to
Speaker 1: face a battle that's going to take every ounce of energy.
Speaker 1: If you want real friends that are going to be
Speaker 1: there and see you through those things. If you want
Speaker 1: loving relationships with your children and your grandchildren, with your neighbors,
Speaker 1: you have to first prepare the soil of your heart.
Speaker 1: Once that soil is prepared, once you've dealt with the past,
Speaker 1: once you've faced your character defects or your addictions head on,
Speaker 1: then you carefully plant the seeds that you want to
Speaker 1: grow on your life. You want deeper relationships, then you
Speaker 1: plant those seeds and you water them with your time.
Speaker 1: You cannot have a deeper relationship if you're not willing
Speaker 1: to spend time nurturing that relationship. Just like a seed
Speaker 1: won't grow without sun and water, a relationship won't grow
Speaker 1: without time and attention. You cannot say I want a
Speaker 1: long term, lasting relationship with a significant other, or I
Speaker 1: want to nurture my children and then let poison get
Speaker 1: on that relationship. And the poison that comes into relationship
Speaker 1: is jealousy, bitterness, lies, selfishness. The worst poison you can
Speaker 1: allow to get into your relationship is selfishness, bitterness, jealousy,
Speaker 1: those are poison too. But the biggest poison in any
Speaker 1: relationship in any family that I've ever seen is the poison,
Speaker 1: the toxic poison of self fishness. That's poisonous to relationships.
Speaker 1: You cannot let selfishness into relationships. You can't let it
Speaker 1: touch your relationships. If you are more concerned with your
Speaker 1: appearance or your selfie or your glass of wine with
Speaker 1: your girlfriends, or you're going to a party or going
Speaker 1: to a concert than your kid's pta meeting or your
Speaker 1: kid's basketball game. If you're more concerned with your selfish
Speaker 1: pleasures than the needs of your children, that selfishness will
Speaker 1: destroy your relationship with your kids. If you are more
Speaker 1: concerned with getting your pleasures met than meeting the needs
Speaker 1: of your family or friends, that selfishness is toxic poison.
Speaker 1: It poisons relationships. Jealous See is another poison. If you
Speaker 1: are insecure and jealous and controlling of your partner, checking
Speaker 1: their phones, checking their social media, telling them what they
Speaker 1: can and can't do. That's poison. Now, if your partner
Speaker 1: is a liar, liar, cheater, cheater, then why are you
Speaker 1: trying to control them. You're not going to control them.
Speaker 1: All you're going to do is make yourself miserable and
Speaker 1: make them miserable. If you know you can't trust them,
Speaker 1: then walk away, hold your head high and walk away,
Speaker 1: or say to them, either you deal with this or
Speaker 1: I'm done. But trying to manipulate and control someone else's
Speaker 1: behavior is like trying to chase the wind. It's as
Speaker 1: foolish as trying to chase the wind or trying to
Speaker 1: hold a gallon of water in your bare hands. You
Speaker 1: can't do it. It slips through your fingers. And jealousy and
Speaker 1: control insecurity, those are poisons that are toxic to relationships.
Speaker 1: Neediness is another poison that you need to keep away
Speaker 1: from the garden of your heart. Neediness and selfishness are
Speaker 1: tied very close together. People who are needy we call
Speaker 1: them emotional vampires. They suck the life out of you.
Speaker 1: They're like, need me, Please call me. Why don't you
Speaker 1: ever call me? Why don't you ever text me, and
Speaker 1: they keep track, They keep track, they keep score. I
Speaker 1: called you the last three times, why haven't you called me? No,
Speaker 1: do not let that kind of neediness on your part
Speaker 1: poison the garden of your heart. If you're the kind
Speaker 1: of person that says, did you get the card I
Speaker 1: sent you? Did you get the flowers I sent you?
Speaker 1: I didn't hear from you, then you didn't really send
Speaker 1: that gift as a gift. You sent it with a
Speaker 1: string attached. Hope you could reel that person in. Now
Speaker 1: that person should have good manners and say thank you.
Speaker 1: But if you give gifts waiting to hear from somebody,
Speaker 1: you didn't really give them a gift. You gave them
Speaker 1: something with a string attached. Don't be needy. Don't make
Speaker 1: somebody else responsible for your happiness. You are responsible for
Speaker 1: your happiness. If you are needy, that is a poison
Speaker 1: that poisons relationships, that poisons the good fruit in the
Speaker 1: garden of your heart. So don't let selfishness, don't let jealousy,
Speaker 1: don't let neediness those poisons into the garden of your heart. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: once the fruits or the vegetables or the flowers begin
Speaker 1: to appear, the roses start to blossom, the carrots start
Speaker 1: to make their little green tops, and the fruit is
Speaker 1: forming underneath. The next thing you need to be careful
Speaker 1: of in a garden are weeds. Uh huh, the dandelions,
Speaker 1: the morning glories. I hate morning glories. Oh, they're so invasive.
Speaker 1: They choke the life out of everything. When weeds start
Speaker 1: to spread in a garden, they might fool you. They
Speaker 1: might look pretty at first. Buttercups look beautiful. I love them.
Speaker 1: I love their bright yellow, buttery color. But they choke
Speaker 1: out everything in my garden. And the weeds will steal
Speaker 1: the nutrients from the soil that the flowers need, that
Speaker 1: the roses need, that the irises need that your carrots are,
Speaker 1: your tomatoes need. Those weeds will not only steal all
Speaker 1: the nutrients, they'll grow up right next to the flower
Speaker 1: or next to the vegetable and begin to choke the
Speaker 1: life out of it. Those weeds in your are weeds
Speaker 1: of bitterness. When you have weeds of bitterness or anger,
Speaker 1: unresolved issues in your heart, those weeds joke out the
Speaker 1: goodness in the garden of your life, and you have
Speaker 1: to be vigilant because they come back over and over again.
Speaker 1: Anger comes back over and over again. Unforgiveness comes back
Speaker 1: over and over again. It's not something you deal with
Speaker 1: once and it's gone. It's something you have to be
Speaker 1: vigilant about. When you see yourself cursing your ex in
Speaker 1: your mind, when you see yourself saying negative things about
Speaker 1: your ex to your kids, when you see yourself being
Speaker 1: pissed off at your dad for what happened thirty years
Speaker 1: ago or didn't happen thirty years ago. When you get
Speaker 1: angry because somebody you love betrayed you and walked away
Speaker 1: from you, and you catch yourself having those conversations in
Speaker 1: your mind where you're trying to convince them to be
Speaker 1: good to you. Those are weeds of bitterness and unforgiveness,
Speaker 1: and you've got to pull them out as soon as
Speaker 1: they pop up. As soon as you find yourself having
Speaker 1: one of those conversations in your mind, as soon as
Speaker 1: you find yourself being bitter to somebody who wronged you,
Speaker 1: you need to stop. I stop, and I pray, and
Speaker 1: I say, God, help me to forgive them, help me
Speaker 1: to forgive them. And if I have wronged somebody, help
Speaker 1: them to forgive me. I don't want anyone to walk
Speaker 1: around with seeds of bitterness in their heart because I've
Speaker 1: wronged them. And I have wronged a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Trust me when I tell you I have hurt people
Speaker 1: on very very very deep levels. Some of them I
Speaker 1: can't make amends too, because to make amends to them
Speaker 1: would would be to open up a wound that is
Speaker 1: best left and opened. And so all I can do
Speaker 1: is pray and say God, please, for every person I've
Speaker 1: ever hurt, If they are bitter, if they are angry,
Speaker 1: please let them forgive me. You have to be vigilant
Speaker 1: and get those weeds of bitterness and anger out of
Speaker 1: the garden of your heart. Every day. You can't let
Speaker 1: them grow. Some people will come along and they'll want
Speaker 1: to feed those weeds of bitterness. They'll want to point
Speaker 1: out to you how that person cheated on you. They'll
Speaker 1: want to gossip and tell you garbage about that person
Speaker 1: that makes you feel even worse. You got to weed
Speaker 1: that out. You got to get rid of that seed
Speaker 1: of bitterness that is growing in your heart. Okay, if
Speaker 1: you do those things, if you prepare the soil of
Speaker 1: your heart by dealing with and getting rid of the
Speaker 1: bad habits, the character defects in your life by getting
Speaker 1: rid of the useless relationships that aren't relationships at all
Speaker 1: but userships, and preparing that soil before where you plant
Speaker 1: the seeds of meaningful relationships. Then, once you plant those seeds,
Speaker 1: if you nurture them and water them with your time
Speaker 1: and attention. Your time and attention, it doesn't take money.
Speaker 1: It takes time and attention to grow a child up. Well,
Speaker 1: it takes money too, but the thing that a child
Speaker 1: needs most is your time and attention. Put the stupid
Speaker 1: social media down and pay attention to your child. Put
Speaker 1: it down and talk to them, Ask them about their day,
Speaker 1: Listen to them, engage in conversations, build a puzzle, go
Speaker 1: for a walk, go for a height, go to the mountains,
Speaker 1: go swimming. Relationships take time and attention. So nurture those
Speaker 1: seeds that you plant in the garden of your heart
Speaker 1: with time and attention, and then be vigilant to make
Speaker 1: sure that poison does not get in your garden, the
Speaker 1: poison of jealousy, the poison of selfishness, the poison of insecurity,
Speaker 1: the poison that can get on the garden of your
Speaker 1: heart and destroy it. And finally be vigilant about not
Speaker 1: letting weeds of bitterness come between those flowers of those
Speaker 1: plants and choke out the beautiful life. That's my garden
Speaker 1: analogy to grow a beautiful garden in your heart, a
Speaker 1: garden of long term loving relationships, because, honestly, my friend,
Speaker 1: that is all that makes life worth living. There's beautiful
Speaker 1: places to travel to, There's fabulous experiences to be had,
Speaker 1: there's wonderful music to listen to. You can spend your
Speaker 1: whole life buying yourself diamonds and jewels and gold, or
Speaker 1: buying yourself trips to the Middle East, trips to Brazil,
Speaker 1: trips to Costa Rica, trips to white trips to fabulous places.
Speaker 1: You can spend your whole life learning and going to
Speaker 1: college and getting more and more degrees. But when it's
Speaker 1: all said and done, the only thing that matters is love, faith, hope,
Speaker 1: and love. And the greatest of these is love. And
Speaker 1: if you are not forming, nurturing, loving, healthy, precious relationships
Speaker 1: in this world, when it's all said and done and
Speaker 1: God calls your name, you're going to be very, very
Speaker 1: sad because you're not going to be able to take
Speaker 1: the diamonds and the gold the degrees, the trips, the photos,
Speaker 1: the Facebook post. You're not going to be able to
Speaker 1: take those things with you. The only thing that will
Speaker 1: matter is love. I truly believe that, and I want
Speaker 1: to encourage you in this podcast, in my rape video show,
Speaker 1: in the books that I write, in all that I do,
Speaker 1: I want to encourage you to love one another that
Speaker 1: your joy may be full. Thank you to Audible dot Com.
Speaker 1: The sponsor of this podcast is audible dot com, the
Speaker 1: source of so many great books narrated brilliantly by authors
Speaker 1: and performers alike. Discover a whole world by the books
Speaker 1: read to you wherever life takes you this summer, take
Speaker 1: a book along and many of them with Audible dot Com.
Speaker 1: Start a thirty day trial and your first Audible book
Speaker 1: is free. Visit audible dot com. Slash Delilah and thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. Have a wonderful day and do me
Speaker 1: a favor. Take some time out of your busy schedule
Speaker 1: to slow down and love summer. Slow down and lovesome,
Speaker 1: Live and love