Only with real love does a person flourish and blossom. Without the warmth of love, the inside of a person dies just like a seed. Without light and the right temperature a seed growing is dwarfed, its possibilities to grow are limited. The best way to start receiving love is to give it first. Seek and ye shall find-Give love and you will find love but you have to give it before you get it. That is what makes it unconditional love because you gave it first. If you "expect" love in return, then the love you thought you gave was never a gift - it was something with strings attached.

As we go through the day we are presented with many choices. Choices we have control over and then those that are dependent upon the choices of others. If we are attempting to change our lives then it will not change if we keep make the same choices (headed down the wide path to the wide gate.) it is hard to do but we should really be... taking the narrow path to the narrow gate where there are more limited choices to make and really, it is not so dependent upon the choices of others because we've already decided upon the hard choices. In order to know which path to take just remember to pray for discernment, wisdom, and clarity. It really takes all three to make the right decision, not just "any" decision. God gave us free will to have the lives we want but happiness is not the same as joy. Happiness is rather fleeting, like our moods. Joy is that peace you feel when no matter what could go wrong in a day, it doesn't matter, your life is in a good place, your faith is strong, you have high hopes for all of your days, and you have God's gift of love in your life. It is your perspective to choose how you live your life. Now, take ownership of your life and use the tools at hand to choose well for your life.

Fear is like a reverse, it pulls you backwards instead of propelling you forward. Even standing in one place is good as long as you don't move backwards. If you start down the reverse path, you better stop and figure out what you are doing wrong. It is not only bad for you but you just never know who is watching you ...and perhaps making the same mistake. Turn fear into excitement about moving forward, instead make it a journey. You never know who you will meet or what you will do that will change your life forever. Or perhaps even realizing what you will miss if you never took that chance. Fear is an escape for opportunity.

We do not become more than we are on our own, God builds us. Think of it like God's basic training, then there is another level training and another, etc. The better you get, the more you are challenged the better you become. One does not become more for themselves alone because we are all part of the body of Christ, each part needing the other to work. If one part aches another steps in and helps out a little. If we hoard those gifts, then we will never see our true rewards.

This one is sort of heavy and quite poignant to my own life right now - the discernment of choices - paths to follow.  Just because someone else chooses a path does not mean that you have to follow suit.  It might be better to take the higher harder road.  It is the one not often taken - this is the path of virtue with God.  The other choice ahead is the one of loneliness, the path of suffering without the support of God - this is the wide path that leads to the wide gate.  I prefer the narrow path to the narrow gate and while I know it is not the easy path - nothing ever worth anything ever came easy. Start the path of choice making with a decision to pray for discernment and wisdom about what to do.  God will lend his hand in telling you what choices to make. Trust and have faith in Him.

We do not always know when challenges come our way but we can prepare for them and anticipate them, recognize the signs that we need to see. This requires a special gift to discern what is really happening at the time and I can tell you that practice in "seeing" helps a lot. Practice makes us stronger and the more we are tested the more we know that we are God's soldiers in training for the bigger fight. All the way through we just keep leaning on Him to get us through the "challenge." 

I heard a new definition for a "lie" and that is what is called "perspective adjustment." It's okay to go down the path as long as it does not involve a perspective adjustment or "lie". What this means is that when you choose a side and inevitably you will have to choose, choose with wisdom and discernment. Wisdom and discernment are gifts, it takes practice and it is perfectly okay to make mistakes and likely that too will be the case. Why? Because we are humans and sometimes we just do not see things quite so clearly. How to address all this and avoid dilemmas you ask? Pray - just pray about everything and you'll never go wrong. Have faith and trust in prayer.