
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
Welcome, and Happy Fall! It is such a beautiful time of year. I'm so glad you're here. I hope you enjoy my post today. It came about out of my own need for rest in the midst of exhaustion and overwhelm. Maybe you can relate.
Do you need rest? I don’t mean just a nap. I mean deep soul rest the kind that is only available through Jesus. Sometimes exhaustion is so heavy you can’t get enough sleep to help you through. Have you been there? I have felt overwhelmed and exhausted lately.
It’s extremely important to take care of yourself, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We all need to prioritize that. And oftentimes people look to self-care as a remedy for that. There are a lot of great ideas available on how to incorporate self-care into your life.
Today I want to share with you another kind of care that I am finding helpful. It’s called soul care. Soul care is about the rest we find for our souls in Jesus. It’s about drawing near to Him to receive strength and help. It’s about being intentional throughout our days in coming back to Him. Intentional is the keyword here, because when life becomes so busy and there are so many things pulling us in different directions, we need something to fall back on. There are some important facets of soul care that I’ve begun to incorporate into my life, and I am finding it makes a big difference.
Matthew 11:28 is one of my favorite verses that point me to finding rest in Jesus. It says, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.]”
Here are a few ways I am learning to find rest as I come to Jesus:
- I use breath prayer when I am anxious and stressed. Side note: I have an excellent resource to help me with this. It’s a book titled Breath as Prayer: Calm Your Anxiety, Focus Your Mind, and Renew Your Soul by Jennifer Tucker. I have worked through this book multiple times and continue to. Although now, I am often apt to use a verse out of a devotional I’m going through, a study I’m doing, or from the section of the Bible I’m reading and change it into my own breath prayer. One I used this past week was “You are my Refuge. My ever-present help.” I had been reading Psalm 46 and the first verse was exactly what I needed to put my heart and mind at ease. Oftentimes, I’ll write a breath prayer on the daily page of my planner the night before. I will repeat that breath prayer as I go to sleep and continue saying it throughout the next day. Sometimes I use one for a whole week, other times it’s one a day.
- Another way I’ve found that helps me focus my mind on Jesus is to choose to look for ways He shows His love for me in a day, or to focus on an attribute of His or a promise from His word. I receive a daily email from 365 Promises. Each day a promise from God’s Word is waiting in my emails. It is usually the first thing I look at when I open my emails. It is filled with encouragement and gives me something to hold onto for the entire day. Again, we can find rest in Jesus as we continually come back to Him and find all we need in Him.
- I also am learning how restful it is to worship. I love spending time in nature. I love feeding the birds and watching wildlife. Being outside gives me a wonderful opportunity to praise God for His creation and give thanks to Him for all I take in. Listening to the sounds of the birds, giggling at the scampering squirrels, watching the bear family under our bird feeders (Don’t worry, I’d be viewing them from our kitchen window), whatever it may be. There is always an opportunity to worship our Creator God.
- Inside, I am refreshed in doing activities I enjoy, such as lap loom weaving, or slow stitching on small quilts. I want to begin to use the time I weave or stitch to meditate on Bible memory verses. To think about the words, and their meaning and how I can apply them in my life. Weaving His words in my heart and mind, what could be better?
- Finally, journaling is one of my favorite ways to find refreshment for my soul. I use it to declutter my mind and to take my thoughts captive before Jesus. Most recently, as I was doing some decluttering, I found a piece of paper with the acronym REST on it. It was something I had made a copy of. The words that make up the acronym are Reflect, Engage, Surrender, Trust. I don’t know where I originally found this, but I’ve started using it as a way to find rest. I work through each section before bed, first reflecting on my day, then engaging the Lord about a concern or worry or need. Oftentimes more than one. I seek help, or strength or resolution. Then I surrender my need of trying to control everything surrounding that issue to Him. I write about ways I know I’ve been controlling outcomes and pray for help to let go. Finally, I write about my need for Him to help me deepen my trust in Him. At first, when I thought about doing this, I couldn’t imagine how there would be something different each day, but there always is an area I’m struggling in when it comes to trusting. This prayer journaling activity is a wonderful way to pour out your heart, to review at the end of the day as I do, or to begin the day going through what you have on your schedule with the Lord. I have found pouring out my heart in my prayer journal using this format has helped me sleep much better.
There are so many ways to find rest in the Lord. And in reality, there’s nothing mind-boggling about any of them. They just take intentionality to do them as you go through each day. And getting legalistic about this is not restful. I have at least one day that I wrote on the daily page of my planner, “no time for soul care today.” Obviously, that day was overwhelming, and I got too wrapped up in it all.
I hope that you have found these ideas helpful and encouraging. If you have ways that you find rest in Jesus, please be sure to share them in the comments.
Finding hope in Him as He leads me to find rest,
Cheryl
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