Two completely unrelated incidents collided this week as to briefly take my breath away and reconsider life as I know it and wish it to be.

The first event came in the form of a trailer for the soon-to-be released film Motherhood. In the movie, Eliza Welch (played by Uma Thurman) is a “mommy blogger” struggling to find her voice in the midst of her life as a stay-at-home mother. In the trailer, her husband, Avery (played by Anthony Edwards), looks at his wife and says, “I want to know what makes you want to live a life with passion.”

When I watched the trailer (see below), tears welled up in my eyes. It could have been that particular day or just this particular season of life (the stay-at-home/homeschool mom season), but while deep inside I know what the answer should be (Jesus, right?), there are days I dread thinking about the question.

The second breath-taker: I recently decided to go through World Harvest Mission’s Sonship program. My book arrived this week and I began listening to the first lecture. I didn’t get very far before I had to pause again. In lecture one Jack Miller, the late 1970s pastor/evangelist, reads several verses from Galatians and then says, “The key question that the book of Galatians brings to us is this one: What happened to all your joy?”

Again, tears. What happened to all my joy? What makes me want to live a life with passion? If I can’t sincerely answer those questions with Jesus, then I’ve seriously lost touch of who I really am and was made to be. I can get so wrapped up in my identity—as a mom, as a homeschooler, as a writer—that I forget the very essence of the “why?” behind the “what?” of the “where?” and the “when” of the “how?” I do what I do.

And for Whom? That’s what I really need to ask, isn’t it? That’s the question: for Whom?

What makes me want to live a life with passion? What happened to all my joy?

How would you answer the questions? I’d love to hear from you.