 I'm Emily Stimson. I'm a Catholic author who lives here in Steubenville and I'm speaking at the Defending the Faith Conference in the summer of 2015. I have just a few blocks away, a big garden, bigger than I can sometimes manage. The fun part is at the beginning when I'm sowing the seed and at the end when I'm harvesting the real work, however, and what makes the sowing worth it and the harvest, you know, something that's plentiful, is what goes on in between. It's when we're dealing with what is the fruit of my garden going to be like. And that takes work. That's where you've got to be going out every day and you're plucking the leaves back and you're pulling the weeds up and you're chasing off the little critters that want to eat all the fruit. And the same thing that's true in my garden is true for the spiritual life. There's all the fun at the beginning and there's the great and beautiful fruit we're going to see at the end of the time when we see how the Lord has worked with the little we've given him to bring something great of it. But in between time, we have work to do and it is not always fun and games. There are times when our emotions no longer are as flush as they are in the beginning when we don't feel the love of Christ in our hearts like we did in the first days. There are times when sacrifices are required. There are times when people are not fond of us for the lives that we are living or the choices that we have made. But it's those times, how we live in those times that really determines what comes at the end. So it's taking the time every day to pray. It's making little fasts and little sacrifices. You know, Paul always talks about the Christian life in terms of athletics. So it's a race or it's a wrestling match or a boxing match. And we have to train our souls for that great race that we're in and that involves maybe not eating meat on Fridays or getting up when the snooze alarm or the alarm clock goes off and not hitting snooze. The Christian life is filled with small sacrifices that we make each day. And it's also involves knowing why we believe what we believe and what we do, what we do, when the emotions aren't there to carry us through, when it's not easy to make the hard choices and to make the hard sacrifices. That's when we have to go back to the beginning and say, Lord, who are you? What does your church teach? Why is this reasonable? Why is this true? Why is this going to make me happier in the long run? And even if it doesn't make me feel like I'm going to be happy now. So that's the real work we're called to as disciples. And the more work we put in this phase, the more joy there will be when we get to the end. The more we will see that the Lord, you know, has blessed our efforts and the more we'll enjoy that well done, good and faithful servant.