inspiration and theme are sometimes the same thing

I always have an inspirational quotation at the top of the Word document for each novel I write. It's often song lyrics, but sometimes it's a Bible verse or a quotation from another novel. This time, I started with this song lyric at the top:

You’re an army in a horse 

And you have taken me by force 

And all the freedom in this world could not resist 

The sweet temptation of your sweet elusiveness.

– Caedmon’s Call

But as the story has progressed, and I've learned more about my characters and their choices, I've added this quotation:

The one thing you can’t trade for your heart’s desire is your heart. – Lois McMaster Bujold

And then, as I began to find the answer to the question that had prompted me to write the story in the first place, this verse came to my mind: the answer I was looking for, sure as if it had been fixed in stone:

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are beneficial. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. – St. Paul

Well, I say "fixed in stone", but I'm pretty sure my quotation there is an amalgam of various translations I've read that verse in. But the principle stands. And my characters are beginning to acknowledge the truth of that verse too. It's exciting times in the vast world contained by that 0's and 1's of that Word document.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell