"Follow your heart" Really? When our hearts are the most fickle, confused little things? God has given us brains for a reason. He gave us senses. He enabled us to think. You don't just jump into something without weighing it in. Not all the time can impulses and gut feelings be right.

Personal example. How many times has my heart told me "I am sure he is the one. Yes I'm sure he is" How many times has my heart told me, "this feels right" and yet, it's not.

Ladies, can you relate to that?

We need to use both reason and feelings. But more than that.The only way we can be sure is when we have got a divine peace. When we seek God in our decision making. Too holy for you? God is too big to involve Himself in your little life? He gave all He had for you. Doesn't that show you how much your seemingly little insignificant life mean to Him?

Pray and seek God when you're stuck in a rut. Ask for directions when you're at crossroads. In all your decision making, use all that He has given you. And until He gives you the answers, until you have got that divine peace, where you no longer are in doubt. Then go ahead. Get that job. Put your kids in that school. Migrate the whole family. Court that girl or that guy. Seal that business deal.

You'll then see that with God involved in your life, you can never go wrong. Your heart will no longer be fickle. There'll be no place for confusion.

It doesn't take much to make a world of a difference. It doesn't take a lot to make someone smile.

We've become so preoccupied with our own lives, so much so that the next life right beside us no longer seem as important. Some would say that before we start watching out for others, we need to look out for ourselves first. Well yeah, there's some truth in that. When then do we stop looking out just for ourselves and start thinking about others?

Someone else can be hurting more than you at one time, someone else might need that encouragement, that simple "how are you?" or that "I'm thinking of you pal" might mean the world to them.

Someone else can be hiding all that pain and hurt behind a mask, and that one minute of letting them know how much they mean to you, could save them, could lift up their spirits we won't know. Or how about that person who seems so happy all the time, we forget that they need encouragements every now and then too.

Would it kill us to love people the way we love ourselves?

Would it kill us to be as concerned for their well-being just as much as we are worry for ourselves?

Would it kill us to stop being selfish?

Family

Not perfect but still darn good.

I had a holiday trip back to Iloilo during the last week of November to visit and spend time with my extended family there. And I went there numb and frustrated with a few things. Never agreed to some of the choices made. But really, in the end, it's your family who gives you one of life's real joys and pleasures. No one's perfect and no matter how hard we try to make the best choice for ourselves or for others, life's such that we'll still make stupid mistakes. And not just once or twice, but probably a million times. To come around them, we just have got to make a mental note not to make the same kind of mistakes again.

My family has made some mistakes, but that does not mean I shouldn't try to understand them or stop loving them. They're still my family. And when I make mine, I know that I'll still have them to encourage me and walk me through it.

Spending time with my youngest aunt was what made this trip back home even more special. To have gone through what she did and to come out wiser than she was before. To live with the consequences and yet still make the best of it and choosing to look at the positive although everyone else might think negatively about it, I am proud of her.