Every year we pick a biblical theme to focus on at the retreat. This year, another girl and I are teaching on the doctrine of adoption. I’m excited to teach because nothing has impacted my life like Scripture. Nothing has shaped and reshaped my thinking like God’s word. I’m eager to share it with others.

We must take care of ourselves so that we are able to serve and care for others. Yet the concept of self-care often feels selfish, or unimportant compared to the other issues facing us on a daily basis. Today, we want to begin an on-going conversation around self-care and to offer a few ways that we try and practice self-care. 

I hung up convinced she couldn’t stand me. As I unlocked the door to my apartment I swallowed the huge lump forming in my throat. “What was I thinking?” I prayed out loud, “God, surely I am not cut out to be a missionary. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

It had been a hard week. It had been a week of caring for people who are suffering. It had been a week of helping my teenagers deal with living in a really broken world. It had been a week of facing people I care about breaking down physically, mentally and emotionally. It had been a week where the needs of everyone around me exceeded my own strength and ability.

Throughout all the changes, He stayed and He was the same. Every day and in every place. When I went to a new church or anxiously walked into an unfamiliar school, He was ahead of me and, at the same time, right next to me. In those years of transition I grew in the sweet assurance that I was rooted in Christ. 

I am human. It is that simple. I was made to need time and space because I was made within a constraint of time and space. I am human, I am not God. Only God is outside the realm of time and space. Yet that is not how he created humanity. He created us to be limited in time and resources. He created us with a need for rest and space to regain our resources. He created us with bodies and minds that break down and need to rest, with a soul that requires withdrawing to the lonely places to pray.

There are a growing number of women in ministry roles. Gifted female leaders and teachers are blessing the church with their gifts and wisdom. The single woman who has moved across the world to share the gospel is challenging the church with her courage. The woman leading worship has set aside her own career goals to serve the church. The Christian writer who wakes up hours before her family to labor over words and paragraphs she hopes will help others understand Scripture with greater clarity.