Self Care

 

Counseling is a blessing. I’ve never understood how people can discredit counseling and say “if you have Jesus, you won’t need counseling”. Ultimately Jesus, is all you need, yes. But I believe strongly He uses people, especially counselors, to work in people’s lives. To help them work through trauma and to even help them navigate His Word in the times where life feels overwhelming. Side tangent, over.

I went to my counselor for the first time in awhile. She told me that I need to work on self care. Which is a pretty big trend right now and I’ve just struggled to even wrap my head around what that really means. And to be honest, life feels much too busy to stop and smell the roses for “self care”. 

My husband tries to convince me to take a bath honestly weekly for just that, to spend a few minutes on myself. But this week, I thought okay if my husband and counselor tell me I need to take time for self care, I might as well give it a shot. So I drew a bath, setup some candles, and threw one of my favorite worship songs on, and just…rested. 

It made me realize that my heavenly counselor has told me the same thing. The counselor who lives in me, who loves me intensely, who guides me, and who gives me peace. Peace through people. Peace through prayer and His Word and yes, even peace through self care, which I’m now realizing, soaking in this tub, isn’t really self care at all, at least not in its modern definition.  

Self care isn’t blowing bubbles or humming a tune like google says, but it’s the things that bring you closer to Him. Journaling, reading, praying, and yes even worshiping in a bath-bombed tub with candles glowing are my ways of self-care.

Counseling is a wonderful tool, and self care is a beautiful and rewarding thing when it brings you back to surrendering everything to Him. When it means more than just spending some time on yourself. When it allows you to feel rest, in Him and Him alone. 

“Come to me all who are heavy laden and I will give you rest” Matthew 11:28

What a beautiful promise. If that’s not self care, then I don’t know what is.