Self-Care that Revives the Soul
The voices weighing in on how we should care for ourselves are overwhelming right now. From beauty treatments to diets to exercise plans, we’re constantly hearing about something we “need.” But if we’re in Christ, these voices of the world generally nurture our old selves rather than the new creations we are in him.
Several years ago, I was a new mother flaunting all the badges of my trade—dark circles, unwashed top knot, and coffee breath. Driving to meet family on a particular occasion, I remember pouring out my heart to my husband. Near tears, I told him how I was struggling to reconcile my introverted personality with the demands of motherhood. Caring for my family seemed incompatible with caring for myself. Listening patiently, my husband patted my knee and suggested something that was like coming to a door in a brick wall, “Honey, who God made you to be allows you to be faithful, it doesn’t bar you from faithfulness.”
My husband was onto something—our struggle with self-care is often a symptom of our struggle with identity. So before we can understand how to care for ourselves well, we need to step back and grasp the gospel truth of who we are in Christ.
What’s true is that we’re a people created in the image of a holy God.[1] Our sin though? It mangles that holy image. Enter Jesus Christ. In the pivotal moment of God making “him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21), Christ put that mangled image to death by becoming the true image bearer.[2] So when we talk of dying to the old self and being made alive in Christ, we’re talking about a very real re-creation in and through him.[3] Being in Christ clarifies the direction of our self-care toward nurturing his holy image instead of nurturing our old, mangled one.
We’re still left with an important question though—what does this look like in real time? And honestly, being a fearfully, wonderfully, diversely made creation implies that there’s not one particular answer for us here. What we can do is note the basic needs of our design—like nourishment, rest, and beauty—and search the Word on those together.
Nourishment
In order to live, we have to eat. There’s more to this than whole foods and the right diet, though. While being tempted in the desert, Jesus clarified a greater hunger when he quoted an old scripture passage that reads, “He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna…that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:3). In Ephesians, we find Paul instructing the church to speak “the truth in love” so they might “grow up in every way into him who is the head [of the body], into Christ” (Eph. 4:13-16). Did you catch that? God’s word is the vital food source for growing and maturing the body of Christ. So we need to be in it—leaving it open in the rooms we frequent so we can read it, pulling out the audio versions while we shower or work out or do dishes so we can hear it, and choosing its language of truth in our conversations with family and friends.
Rest
Living without rest is unsustainable and impossible. The creation account tells us that God himself rested after creating.[4] Considering God never sleeps, what could this rest communicate but completion?[5] The laws that later ordained a mandatory day of rest for God’s people communicated the hope that what God begins, he also finishes.[6] The necessity of rest didn’t change with the coming of Jesus, it was fulfilled in him. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” he said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:28-29). In Christ, rest is a good gift of freedom. A gift that releases us from chasing after Instagram-perfect faithfulness and being the best, so we can instead be reminded of our limits as humans–and the limitlessness of our God. Believing that his completed work is the completion of ours as well, allows us to truly rest whether or not we’ve managed to sweep the kitchen floor today, make the right educational choices for the kids this year, or get through one verse (or ten) in family devotions.
Beauty
As a people made in the image of a good and beautiful God, we long for what’s good and beautiful and whole—in short, for the immortal. There’s tension in this longing while living in the mortal bodies of a temporal world. Fairy tales masterfully pinpoint this tension with their imagery of fountains of youth, perfectly fulfilling love, and immortal beauty. These things aren’t wrong, just misplaced. Christ is the only true embodiment of immortality, love, and beauty. Only in him is our longing for the good, beautiful, and whole fulfilled. So as we delight in the beauty of a fashionable dress or the order of a well-organized drawer or the results of a particularly effective skincare routine, we can also see them as signposts that point to the lasting beauty and glory to come.[7]
Friends, as we walk through each day making a thousand wearying decisions, let’s remember that caring for ourselves can be an opportunity for worship. Both our current bodies and our new selves are good creations of the Creator. So the best plan we can pursue for self-care is one that treasures his image in both.
[1] Genesis 1:27
[2] Colossians 1:15-20
[3] Romans 6
[4] Genesis 2:2-3
[5] Psalm 121:4
[6] Exodus 20:8-10
[7] In 2 Corinthians 3:11, Paul explains through the example of the law that yes, the temporal can be pretty glorious. And if that’s glorious, how much more so the permanent?
