"Soul care begins with time. We can begin with small time commitments. By tinkering here, cleaning and polishing there, we refurbish the soul. Some may need to 'get away from it all' for a major overhaul, but for most of us, day-by-day maintenance will add up to soul care. Now is the time to begin." ~Stephen W. Smith, Embracing Soul Care
Consider: What resources do you have available to you, and are you making good use of them? Is there a ladies' Bible study you could join that would give you the opportunity to connect with other women, and go deeper in Scripture? Do you have a friend you could trade off with (caring for your children), once every month or so, to give each of you a day of rest and reflection every so often? Do you have a book on your shelf that you need to read more diligently to fuel your mind & heart? Are you surrounding yourself with Scripture in your home to encourage and challenge you as you go about your days? Is there something practical you could change in your daily life that would reduce your stress & give you more time/mental space for "soul care"?
Smith writes this about soul care: "it figures out what truly matters in life and then realigns the self to those higher priorities.... it slows down the frenetic lifestyle to make time for the soul."
GOD LOOKS AT THE HEART; SO SHOULD WE
We sell ourselves short when, whether as a businessman or as a homeschool mom, our lives become about achieving, doing, and performing. God looks at our soul-- not at our outward appearance, not at our checked off (or unchecked) to do list.
Smith encourages us to be more curious-- "Curiosity invites us to wonder, 'What is God up to in my life? What is He doing in the world?' A curious soul seeks to know God and appreciate His ways."
Look around you, and look in your heart. Where is God at work? What things do you sense that the Potter is trying to shape in your life? Do you see something He is doing that you can take part in?
As you look in your heart and in your world, what do you see God doing? How can you join in? What things might you need to stop doing in order to "realign" yourself to those higher priorities? How can you begin, today, to care for your soul?
2 comments:
Sometimes it's easy to feel guilty (really guilty) about taking time just for ourselves. But this is such a good reminder of why to do it. I need to add a little more Mary to the Martha!
On one hand in the culture at large we have "me time" which can lead to excusing oneself from basically neglecting their husband, home and kids because of their dire need for daily visits to the nail salon after working fulltime outside the home. But on the other hand we get the message from certain circles closer to our own values, that the more dried up and burnt out we are, the higher our standing with God. But there is a reasonable way for each of us to plug in our charger LOL, and to your point, it's a worthy endeavor to figure out what that looks like, and furthermore, realize that our chargers might look pretty different from some other people.
The encouragement to take stock of our own specific resources is great. Like for example, when it comes to having someone to watch our kids for whatever reason, or having the means to take anything that even remotely looks like a vacation, there's pretty much nothing in the bank there. Those are just not areas where blessings come easy for us (though we're hoping it won't always be that way). However, I do have a husband who's super-power is being shockingly easy-going. I could probably go to a coffee shop by myself every single night, and he'd be happy as a clam to watch the kids till I get back. But I never do that... so maybe instead of *never*, I'll change that to once a week, at least I could if I wanted to, and that's something worthwhile to decide.
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