Soul Pampering | Real Women Blog

14 Jul Soul Pampering | Real Women Blog

Posted at 09:55h in Blog by

At our church every summer we have a very special event called Soul Pampering, and I’d love to encourage women to do this on their own at home or in a place without distractions.  We set up spaces and had over 200 women connecting with God through various spiritual disciplines. The idea is that we all take time to pamper our physical bodies (pedicures, manicures, eyelashes, clothes/shoe shopping, exercise, eating healthy, etc), which isn’t a bad thing, but are we taking time to care for our weary souls? How do we even do that? 

Jeremiah 31:25 says, “For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.”  Jeremiah the prophet hears from God, who says He will restore His people to the place of their fathers, bring His people back together and to Him, and turn mourning to joy, suffering to blessing! He wants to do that for us. The only way to refresh our souls is to get time with God to “satisfy” and “replenish”, and there are lots of ways to do that. When I was in my 20’s I read a book on spiritual disciplines that was very helpful, but if I don’t put it into practice it doesn’t do anything for my soul. Some of the methods discussed in Whitney’s book “Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life” were Bible study, prayer, worship, evangelism, serving, fasting, silence/solitude, and journaling.

Sometimes we don’t know where to start, or the method feels stale or overwhelming. At Soul Pampering we set aside three hours for the women, provided kids ministry, and gave them space without distraction of everything that normally competes for their time and energy. Women came in emotionally exhausted, grieving, and stressed and just needed God to breathe life into them. We used a program from a friend of mine called “Stillness” and some of the stations we set up were:

Journaling 

    • Journaling is a great way to keep track of what God is doing in our lives, both in the good and difficult times. If we can look back and see what He’s brought us through, we can thank and praise Him. If we are working through a difficult situation, it can be helpful to express our feelings to Him through writing. While it’s not necessary to organize your journaling, it can be rewarding to have a system that allows you to see growth over time. I don’t know about you, but I can be pretty quick to forget who I said I’d pray for or how God spoke to me through a certain verse. Or even worse, forget about my convictions and the things God has commanded me to do. I like to keep three separate journals for the categories, learn more here. 

Prayer

    • Spend time on your knees (humble posture) asking the Lord to help you make Him priority and offering thankful prayers.
    • Spend time reading sections of Proverbs asking God for wisdom in a challenging situation you are facing.
    • Spend time reading verses on a specific topic (forgiveness, love, peace, etc) and let them wash over you; believe God’s words to you.
    • Look up the World Watch list (opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/world-watch-list/)and pray for persecuted nations.
    • Spend time thinking about things that hold you captive (social media, shame, addiction to something, bitterness) and pray for God to release them and replace them with freedom from the Holy Spirit.
    • Look in a mirror and ask, “How does God see me? How does the world see me? How do I see myself?” Spend time asking God to replace any lies with the truth of how He sees you and ask for Him to give you strength to be consistent in living for Him and not the world.
    • Take Communion, confessing your sins, being reminded of Jesus’ broken body (bread) and blood shed (juice/wine) for you on the cross. See Mt 26:26-28.

 

Post-abortion healing resources (prayer and working through forgiveness).  ABORT ABORTION ebook link HERE

Floral expression (simple flower arranging while appreciating God’s beauty in creation). Buy a variety of flowers (1-3 main flowers, greenery, and filler/smaller flowers) and arrange them in a mason jar with a ribbon. Pray about how God’s creativity in nature blesses you.

Creative expression (arts and crafts of any kind that help you worship God). Paint, color printed verses, draw, whatever inspires your God-given gifts and connects you to Him.

Build good habits of spending time with God in various ways so you enjoy your relationship with Him and he can restore and pamper your soul!

Grace Driscoll
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