How many times do I recommend that you listen to your own heart? What do you think that means? It means that you do your own thinking and feeling. You do not have to discard what someone says but nor do you have to follow it. You are not beholden to another. You are not obligated to follow any man's beliefs or tenets. You are not even obliged to follow Mine. You have choices in life, and you are the one to make them. I don't make them for you. Certainly, no man is to decide for you that which is yours to decide.

Free will wasn't given to you lightly. Free will isn't some form of recreation or a hobby to avail yourself of under some circumstances and not others. Of course, I am not intimating that you drive on the wrong side of the street or that you start a revolution. I am not saying that life must always serve you or that everything you desire is at your command and must be so. I am saying that there are choices in life, and they are yours to make.

You need no apology for your choices nor excuses nor justification. You do not need to judge yourself for following your heart anymore than anyone else has the right to. Life is too precious for you to secede from and give domain of it to anyone else.

Your life isn't something voted on. Even if you are the only one who sees and feels as you do, it is your choice. No one else has the say of you. Who is there to say your decision is not valid? In any case, it is your life you make. No one else is responsible for your life and your decisions. You are the one who reaps and you are the one who pays. You are not a pawn on a chessboard that someone else picks up and moves.

No more does it behoove you to take dominion over another's life. Stick with your own.

When you follow the dictates of someone else, you are following the dictates of your own fears. Since when must fear be the ruler of your life? Fear corrals you. All kinds of fears will limit your life when you accede to them. When you accede to your fears, are they not the rulers of you?

Look at your fears as you would cars when you cross the street. You can step in between them. Because there is traffic, that doesn't mean you can't get across. You do not immediately suppose that you will fail and therefore must not.

Is not your life more important than the crossing of any street?

And if someone wants to help you across, that's fine, but the decision to cross or not cross is yours. And if, in the middle, you decide to go back, that is also your choice. If you continue across the street, once on the other side, you and the other can part. You can go your way. Who is to say that another way is better? Someone may help you, but only so far. No one can take you all the way you are going. Only yourself.

Christ did not limit others' choices. He expanded their choices. He helped others cross the stream. He abolished fear. He did not promulgate it. He did not take away confidence. He gave confidence. He told everyone where the Kingdom was. He did not say he was the only one who had access. He said you did as well as he. He said you could do better than he. I say, trust in yourself more, and that is the same as trusting in Me.