and this shall be the sign

It would be nice if discernment looked a little more like this:

Than this:

But our journeys through life are a little more complicated than any question that could be answered with a neon sign.  In the end, that's a good thing.  We aren't robots; rather, we're complex beings called into lives of relationship with God and one another.  There may not be one "right" answer.  In fact, there probably isn't.

The good news is that we do receive signs.  We await the ultimate sign of God's love and care this season, but we also receive signs of where our lives and our energies should be focused.  I suspect discernment looks a lot more like a branching family tree than a maze with one ending, but that's probably a very good thing.  Our lives have possibilities.  We are called to community and not to fill a slot in a machine.