Life brings opportunities, and from these opportunities comes growth.  To some "opportunities" are seen as problems, and not as the building blocks for growth they can be, forming the foundations for positive change.

Change can either be embraced or rejected, the choice is ours. When life - the universe - brings us challenges and obstacles, we can choose to embrace each opportunity as spirit work and discover what riches it may contain.

Sometimes, we must pause in the dark corners of our soul in order to shed light on what is hidden behind the curtain of our fear.

However, we can also choose to turn a blind eye to what benefits may be offered, hide from potential pain, and become paralyzed by our own timidity.

If we choose to embrace that fear, and pass through it, while searching for the gifts - opportunities for growth - it contains, then we choose to accept life and all it offers, which in turn helps us to become the positive light-bearing individuals we are meant to be.

If, on the other hand, we choose to close our eyes to our pain, and throw away the box, shielding our inner vision from what it may contain, then we choose to live our life as half a person; eventually closing ourselves off to even positive emotions. By living as "half a person," we become people constantly seeking to fill our other halves with material comforts, which bring only temporary relief and fleeting satisfaction.

When we choose to embrace our personal pain and experience the grief and the joy that life offers; we choose to live our life to the fullest and accept all the universe has to offer.  When we allow the universe to work with us, accepting everything it has to offer, choose to make things happen for us, instead of letting things happen to us.  The universe is not your enemy, God does not choose to make us miserable; only to further our capacities for love by providing opportunities for enlightenment and growth.

We make ourselves miserable by remaining stuck in the problem, or lingering in those dark corners, and constantly complaining about our lives; rather than striving to overcome our difficulties, embracing our pain, and moving beyond it into the shining beacon of acceptance and personal growth.