Hope For Today

Dear Friends, Self-Care Photo by bruce mars from Pexels Were you aware it was National Self-Care Week this week? I only realised it myself when I was scrolling my twitter feed a few days back. But it got me thinking. What does self-care mean from a Christian's point of view, or at least from my point of view as a Christian? Should a Christian even practice self-care? Shouldn't my life be spent caring for the needs of others not taking care of number one? Well, here are some of my thoughts.  I believe that unless we first practice and incorporate self-care into our daily lives we will not be able to care for anyone else. The Bible tells us: Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘ Love your neighbour as yourself. ' Matthew 22:37-39  (NLT) Everything we have has been given to us by God and this means we have a...

Dear Friends, Which Part of The Body Are You? I love how Paul explains the body of Christ in  1 Corinthians 12  using the example of the human body. He so clearly teaches how just as God has created the human body and positioned each part with a specific function, so God does the same with the body of Christ. I like how The Message paraphrases it as it gives me such a clear image as I read it: 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. .. I want you to think about how all this makes you more significa...

Dear Friends, Have you ever worn a mask?  The kind of mask you wear to hide who you really are, to pretend to be someone you're not, because you're afraid of being real and open with others.  I know there's been times in my life when I've firmly fixed my mask in place as I've left home and before meeting up with people.  With my mask on, I've said to people I'm ok, I'm fine thank you, but inside, the person who I really am, I'm struggling, I'm depressed, my poor health is getting me down.  I've kept the mask on in the past because I'm afraid of being judged, of being misunderstood, I'm afraid of letting myself be vulnerable, of people seeing the real me. Wearing a mask for any length of time is hard work, it takes a lot of energy, it's exhausting and impossible to maintain.  It's certainly not a healthy way to live my life. Perhaps you've worn a mask or are wearing a mask now to stop people getting too close to you, ...

Dear Friends, I've been a perfectionist for as long as I can remember.  I used to think it was a good characteristic to have until God showed me differently.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Although I wasn't really aware at the time, I had made life all about being perfect in everything I did and this put a tremendous pressure on me.  I hasten to add at this point that this pressure wasn't from anyone else but myself.  So I was constantly pushing myself hard at school to achieve, then again when I was at university studying to be a teacher, and being very hard on myself when I didn't do as well as I thought I should at teaching practices.  As a wife and later a mother I again strove for perfection and was so critical and judgemental of myself.  I had a strict routine which I "had" to follow, so for example, Mondays were the days I had to clean my home from top to bottom, and I had set days for washing dark clothes and light clothes....