Filling My Life with Joy: A Guide to the Better You

By Dr. Larry Manley

Filling My Life with Joy is a guide to the discovery of the better self inside of you. The book is designed to instruct and guide you through all the hurt and pain that lifes situations place upon us.

There are three essential things that will bring joy into our lives: something thats right for us to do, something thats right for us to love and, something thats right for us to hope for, and these three are the gardeners of our soul that cause it to bloom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449754945

Dr. Larry Manley

Dr. Larry Manley is a graduate of the Leadership Development Institute of Spartanburg, South Carolina; he was born in 1954 in Seneca, South Carolina, holds a Doctorate of Divinity from Progressive Life Church, is a graduate of South Carolina Baptist Convention New Works Seminar, and a graduate of the Granoff School of Music, Philadelphia. He served in the US Navy and was honorably discharged in 1971. He was awarded the National Defense Award Medal, Home Port at Norfolk, Virginia. Dr. Manley is currently the executive director of the House of Destiny International Ministries, counselor, teacher, minister, mentor, inspirational public speaker, and published author of The Majestic One, Jungle Within, Equipping Leaders to Build Healthier Churches, and his latest book, Filling My Life with Joy/A Guide to the Better You. He is a faith builder, extremely positive toward helping others, a veteran leader with “high revelations” in the Lord, and an excellent communicator, who loves working together for the common good of all mankind. He is a businessman and experienced leader in the community, partners with Feed the Children International Ministries and Operation Blessings, and is a builder of mankind.

Book preview

Contents

Preface

Chapter One:

Dark Night of My Soul

Chapter Two:

Spiritual Maintenance

Chapter Three:

Resurrection of Joy

About the Author

Endnotes

And in those days shall men seek death and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

Revelation 9:6 KJV

Preface

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THE LIFE OF A MAN is like the passageway through the forest of everlasting life. Inside the forest are many things to discover, those that are both helpful and harmful.

Within each network I found that there was a wealth of information to learn as I went through the wooded areas of my life. When I entered the forest correctly, my life became clearer. I discovered that God cannot be known without the knowledge of pain and rejoicing; for it is the lows of my pain and the highs of my rejoicing that inspired me to write such a valid course of guidance to my readers.

I want to reach the souls of those who need comfort. I want to help people by sharing the trials, temptations, and miseries—along with the triumphs and victories—that I’ve had in the face of perilous times beyond most of our scope.

After serving over twenty-seven years of my life in state and federal penitentiaries for just about every kind of crime that you could think of, I believe that I should be able to tell you a little bit about agony and despair and how our Creator can benefit us in these times of great distress. Everybody believes in something, even if it’s nothing but his or her own self. The only problem in believing only in ourselves is that at some point our days will run out and we’ll find ourselves in need of a helper to assist us in our discomfort and demise of strength.

These are the memoirs of my life and the quest for spiritual adjustment and prosperity through the One God that gave me the power to attain wealth. I had to discover this wealth within myself first before any manifestation of it showed outwardly.

To know God is to be touched by Him. This is a true guide of the path to take in order to be reached and touched by the One who created us and all the things that we desire. Everything is ours to have.

I began writing this book so that others could have a chance at advancing themselves through God the way that He has advanced me with joy. I had been trying to muster up the strength to write another book, but I never could get it going. It’s amazing what pain and despair will do. The motivation that pain potentially holds is incredible!

In writing I found healing by releasing myself into the pages so that others could read and find hope and assistance for their souls. The key instruction here is to search out a value from within you that can extend into assisting others in their battles in life. What we go through in life is not just for us but also to help others. Overcoming our dark situations makes us experts in helping others in the same or similar areas of need.

Chapter One:

Dark Night of My Soul

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MY SPIRIT WAS DEAD AND life had eluded me. Everything had become unbearable. God had made me to be simple and to serve Him, but I made such a mess of things. The whole idea of life was now confusing, and in this forest of my life I learned many things while forgetting most of them. The price of my forgetting would cost me dearly over the years.

My experiences in life have been so disjointed and counterproductive, yet ironically they’ve helped me grow into a vibrant, spiritual awareness that couldn’t have been possible without them. This book documents my journey through both pain and pleasure and will show you through my own actions how pain can become inspiring and pleasure can become destructive. When we neglect our spiritual duties, our lives can come crashing down faster than a rotten tree hit by lightning. Yet when we follow our spiritual duties, we receive joy far beyond anything we could ever hope for.

You will follow me through some of my most humiliating adventures, yet you will also watch me embrace the Lord with a new reverence as I grip the essence of my pain and despair while searching out the true meaning of my life.

Yes, I’m a preacher, a man who speaks the Word of God. Yet I was tempted, often, by enchanted whispers from voices within myself that wanted to lead me off my rightful path. Foolishly, I listened, forgetting my lessons about worshipping false gods.

Born on September 1, 1954, in Seneca, South Carolina, the younger of two boys, my mother, Fannie Mae, was crippled and sickly most all of her life. But by God’s grace she lived to be eighty. She somehow always had a laugh, and she was such a beautiful lady.

My addictions have tormented me for over thirty-five years, and I’m still in occasional torment by them. The insanity people experience in situations like mine is sometimes permanent. It also causes many people who I thought were my friends to separate themselves from me, and I’m okay with that!

My genetic makeup was that of a habitual nature, but I had no idea what I was in for. I guess it all started back in 1971 when I went into the military. Before then, I was just a lonely little country boy who thought he wanted to see the world and leave all of his poverty and loneliness behind. My grandparents who raised me were poor. My mother was sick. And I lived in a forlorn world isolated from city or town life. When I look back on all of this, I can see clearly how it affected the essence in me.

In memory, there are two things that stand out: the boredom of loneliness and the shame of poverty. These two mixtures formed a cocktail of nitro that was to explode into unthinkable actions of destruction for me. None of this was seen in my high school years at Seneca High. But the need for action was stirring in my soul.

It was in my tenth-grade year that I began to run with students who were two grades higher than I and would be graduating soon. This connection of friendship with them only validated my desire to see the world in adventure. I wanted out, so when they graduated I quit school and went into the navy with two of them: Ronnie and Kendall. A year later, I married Brenda who also had graduated that same year and was one of the four of us who ran together. Throughout my life, I’ve always liked women who were older than me.

Brenda bore three sons for me—Adrian, Tico, and Justin—over the twenty-three years that I was married to her. Two weeks after I was in naval boot camp, Ronnie died of spinal meningitis. Of course this devastated me, especially after seeing how the company commander had kicked Ronnie out of bed and treated him when he was sick. I don’t blame Commander McNeil for doing this. He was only doing what he thought was necessary to toughen us up. He apologized to me when I cried before him, requesting to be allowed to take Ronnie’s body home.

After the death of Ronnie, I wasn’t fit for the military anymore. I wanted out, and the year ahead would turn out to be unproductive in everything the navy tried to get me to do. I didn’t care. I began drinking, doing drugs, and whoring around. Nothing mattered. My friend was gone. They killed him, and I was angry with the government. The navy sent me to submarine school in New London, Connecticut, but I didn’t want to be on a sardine can called a sub. I hated it!

Then they sent me to Norfolk, Virginia, and put me on the USS Diamond Head, an ammo ship, and I really hated it. All the time, I was lonely and angry and wanted my girl, Brenda.

Months passed while overseas on a Mediterranean cruise and I had already schemed on how I was going to get out of the navy just as soon as I reached land again in Norfolk.

I recall being on the bow of the ship on a four o’clock watch in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. I looked up and actually saw a flock of golden geese flying in midair at sonic speed in the shape of an upside-down V. I knew that God had spoken a vision to me. I knew it was Him. What the vision was, I didn’t know at the time. But I knew God was making contact with me on a personal level. This vision of geese that I saw was real.

Little did I realize how great God was going to use me in His kingdom, but not before going through much hell and agony brought on by my own hands and sinful nature. One thing I know for sure is that sin will always take us farther than we intended to go.

When I reached shore again, the first thing that I did was see a naval psychiatrist who admitted me into the Newport News Naval Hospital in Virginia. They put me in the psyche ward where real crazy people were, which made me second-guess my quest to be discharged from the military, but after two weeks I was honorably discharged from the navy after serving about a year.

As I look back over my life, I can see the drama of it all unfolding, but not without pain. It cost to remember.

I want to begin with the pains I’ve experienced. Pain is a healer for many of the circumstances we’ve been harmed by. Pain can be discomforting until it puts us back in right standing with life again. I went through over thirty-five years of the pain that comes from various