What a Girl Wants. What A Girl Needs.

If the Lord asked you, "What is it that you most want from Me so that you can serve Me the way you most want to serve Me," how would you respond?

This question, as posed by Pastor Ed Underwood in his book, When God Breaks Your Heart, brought me up short last night and I've yet to shake it.

"What is that you most want from Me...?"

When I awoke, I was thinking about it.

As I ambled through a local candle shop with a friend, I mulled it over.

While preparing Italian beef sandwiches smothered in Provolone cheese for The Husband the question begged to be answered.

Again and again throughout the day--and now into late evening, I've considered, unpacked, and pondered where I've been (or not been as has been the case more and more frequently) when it comes to serving Him and following Him in the totality of my life the past few years. Given said considerations, these wants--these desperate wants--seem most paramount in getting back to a place a serving.   

* ENERGY* (i.e. physically, mentally, spiritually, relational, creatively): However you choose to define it, be it "the doldrums," "finding oneself in a funk," or some hormonal "Oh! My Ovaries!" menopausal weariness, the truth is I've been one whooped estrogen puppy these past 3.5 years.

I've dealt with depression in years past and this hasn't been depression--it's been something entirely "other." A compilation, no doubt, of several life-change/family-change decisions which didn't necessarily work out the way I imagined they would, parenting demands & worries (yes, I worried) that knocked me on my rear, and the inability to complete a book manuscript resulting in its cancellation. 

Yep. 
One whooped estrogen puppy was I. 
Am I.

Jesus, I want energy--restorative energy which reaches the undone places of my body, mind, spirit, heart, relationships, and creativity. 

Creativity. Oh, Jesus! joy-robbing disappointments, weariness and loss, shriveling ovaries, aging parents and mid-speaking event phone calls from 'local authorities' have run the Creativity Ship aground but good. I'd love it if you'd do something about that--you being the Captain of my Soul and all.

*FOCUS, JULIE, FOCUS.* 
It's probably not surprising given the energy matter; but boy-how-dee! where did my laser intensity run off to? (probably moored nearby that Creativity Ship.) A couple years back, a woman who knows me well asked, "Where's the Julie that used to call with book ideas and couldn't wait to teach the newest bits of scripture she had studied?" 

She gone. 

But here's the deal...
I don't think it'll stay that way.
In fact, I know it won't. 

Jesus, I want back the ability to see "The One Thing" that brings you pleasure in my writing and teaching. 

        
How 'bout you? What do you want most from Jesus in order to serve Him?