What do YOU need?

Last night...just last night...I told you about my "ought to."  

It feels like it was a lifetime ago...and it feels like it was an hour ago.  It's been a long day, filled with "get off your brother" and "stop hitting your sister" and "you may not talk to me that way" and "I love you."  And it's been a long day filled with longing, thinking, planing, bouncing around a myriad of thoughts like ping pong balls in my mind.

It hit me, sometime mid-day (3:26 this afternoon, to be exact--yes, I looked at the clock), that I don't know what is is with which women struggle!  I mean, I AM a woman.  I know what I struggle with every day.  I know what plagues my thoughts and pulls me this way and that and makes my mind spin.  But you?  I don't even know you.  How am I ever going to talk to you, to tell you my story in a way that will matter, if I don't know why you need to hear my story?  

Tonight, friends (and tomorrow and the next day and for the next 15 years), I implore you to tell me what it is that gets to you.  I need to know what you need to know.  I want to know what pulls you this way and that.  What pushes you, what pressures you, what really gets under your skin.  I'll never be able to talk to you if I don't know a bit about you.

Please, please take a moment and think about it.  If you're willing, tell me in a comment.  If you're not willing to leave a comment but are still willing to share, send me an email and tell me (mythisnthatlife@gmail.com).  I appreciate, so much, your comments!  

I want to leave you with this, because I love it and sometimes I need it:

Ought To

"God doesn't waste any part of your story."

Those were some of the first words the pastor spoke this morning.  God doesn't waste ANY part of your story.  People, I was glad to hear those words today.  I was glad because I have a story.  We all do, don't we?  But boy do I ever have a story!

The pastor that spoke today encouraged us to look at the "ought to-s" we see in our every day and really think about whether God is calling us to be the person that, rather than saying, "Someone ought to...," be the person that DOES.  

My "ought to," the one that immediately came to mind this morning during the sermon, has never EVER been prefaced by "somebody."  It has ALWAYS been prefaced with "I."

Friends, I was made to teach.  I don't think there's anyone that knows me well that would argue that.  God put it in my design before I was born.  When He knit me together, he knit me with a book in my hand and a passion for kids in my heart.  I was made for that.  

But teaching is not my "ought to."

Don't get me wrong.  I want desperately to teach.  But my ought to?  Well, it's still rolling around in my mind a little.  The pastor's words this morning really helped me to weave some bits together, though, pieces of a plan I've been secretly wrestling with for some time.  My "ought to" doesn't (necessarily) lie in a high school classroom, although that's where I long to be.  It doesn't (necessarily) marks its spot in a book deal, although I have always placed myself there in my dreams.

My "ought to," I think, puts me in front of a group of women, and it terrifies me.  My ought to tells me, over and over, "I ought to tell this story."  Most of you don't know my whole story.  You know the bits and pieces that I am willing to share publicly, but you don't know the whole thing.  Perhaps you will someday, though.  

You might, one day in the future, find yourself sitting in the third row with your conference schedule, and you'll look down and see my name on your agenda.  You'll think to yourself, "That name sounds awfully familiar."  And you'll look at me and think, "Oh, yeah!  She's the one with the 'ought to!' She's got a story!"  And you'll be right.

Friends.  I have a story.  And God's not going to waste any part of it.  He won't let me waste any part of it.  Some of you are going to be hearing it.  I don't know how, and I don't know where, but He's working in my heart, and He's showing me a path I am terrified to take.  

Lord, please take my "ought to" and show me how it will become a part of my story.  Don't let me waste my story.  Someone needs it.  I know that.  You know that.  Show me how my story and my "ought to" fit together in your amazing plan!