christian self-care

6 Simple Christian Self-Care Tips for Overwhelmed Moms

Do you feel overwhelmed with the busyness of your day to day activities? You are running on fumes and trying to keep up with the demands of work, family, home, church activities, Bible study groups…the list could go on. With so much going on, we often find ourselves in a place where stewarding your health well becomes the lowest priority task on your to do list!

As a working Christian mom, you know that sometimes it feels like there’s not enough time to do anything. You’re always running around and the dishes never seem to get done. How can you find time for self-care? It might seem impossible to take care of yourself when you’re trying to take care of everyone else first, but please don’t start neglecting your health!

Here are 6 Christian self-care tips for overworked moms that can help us recharge our batteries so we can serve others more effectively! 

CHRISTIAN SELF-CARE TIPS

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What is Self-Care

According to the World Health Organization, self-care refers to “the ability of individuals, families, and communities to promote health, prevent disease, and maintain health and to cope with illness, and disability with or without the support of a health-care provider.”

Self-care includes the things that you do to nurture your needs. It is the mindset, habits, and activities you do to get relief and take care of yourself so that you may become more supportive of others and live in the present.

Building a self-care routine is a conscious practice to do things that will enhance or preserve your overall health. It is a deliberate choice to identify your needs and seek out habits and practices that will promote your well-being. The overall impact of self-care is an improvement in how you feel, look, and think.

Can Christians practice self-care?

This is a common question for many Christians who struggle with the idea of putting themselves first. The answer is an unequivocal yes! Christians can and should practice self-care. In fact, taking care of yourself is one of the most important things you can do as a Christian! It is out of the fullness of you understanding God’s love for you and thus your value as his child that you are able to give to others.

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-40

Our first focus is to Love God, and then we are to love others as we love ourselves.

Want more self-care tips, activities, and ideas? Check out all of our Self-Care Resources created to help event the busiest mom steward her health well!

What does the bible say about self-care?

The bible is full of bible verses about being intentional about stewarding the blessing of health in mind, body, and soul that God has given us.

The idea of loving yourself and taking care of yourself can be a hard concept for many Christians because there is this underlying thought that self-care is a selfish and self-serving thought process. If the idea of loving yourself immediately puts you in the mindset of constantly neglecting your personal responsibilities or being subject to your human desires then, yes, the self-love movement is very self-serving.

But this is not what I mean when I talk about the importance of taking care of yourself and embracing self-love.

Taking care of yourself and loving yourself in essence means that you are stewarding the blessing of self (a sound mind, a healthy functioning body, and a whole saved spirit). It is honoring the temple that is housing the holy spirit, and it is pressing into the source of our strength, our peace, and our rest.

Our minds, bodies, and hearts are all blessings and gifts from God. When you think of traditional self-care and ways of taking care of yourself, this is what normally comes to mind. Self-care as a Christian implies we think of our health as a gift. We should consider the health of our minds, bodies, and souls as a way to be a good steward of the blessings that God has given us. It can be easier to work towards the goal of maintaining our health.

While there may not be any bible verses that say specifically self-care, I would propose that the entire bible is about the best ways to care for yourself. It’s a manual for how to live life well and isn’t that really what self-care is about. The bible is all about wisdom for health; mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health.

We are called to renew our minds, guard our hearts, protect our bodies like they are temples, and then tend to our spirits. If this isn’t the baseline for self-care, I don’t know what is!

Let’s look at a few additional bible verses about self-care:

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew 22:37-39 NIV

This bible verse is one of the most telling verses about self-care, self-love, and loving yourself. Many people see it as Jesus saying we should love in the following order, God, others, and then ourselves. But the wording is key here. Verse 39 says love your neighbor “AS” yourself. That is to love them in the way you love yourself.

When you consider this, the extent to which we show love to others is determined by how much we are capable of loving ourselves. It isn’t one or the other, it is a both, equally situation.

So Whether You Eat Or Drink Or Whatever You Do, Do It All For The Glory Of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31 NIV

This verse speaks to the motive of self-care and taking care of yourself. When we are intentional about loving ourselves and caring for our minds, bodies and souls well, and we do it with the mindset of bringing glory to God, that removes any selfishness that we may feel about self-care.

As Christians everything we do is tied to God’s character. We have to model wellness. Caring for ourselves means showing up healthy, joyful, and whole. In doing this we are showing the world what can be accomplished with God. Stewarding our health gives us the space to speak about the goodness of God!

Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” Mark 6:31 NIV

Personal care isn’t just something nice to do. It is a command as well as a gift. When we rest and we take the time to focus on our physical needs and health, we are better able to serve those who God has entrusted to our care. We can not pour from an empty cup. We can not serve our best when we are plagued with exhaustion or mental fatigue.

Self-care starts with knowing God and resting in him. It starts with being intentional about quiet time to seek his direction, and sometimes that direction is to sit down for a while and simply soak it all in.

These bible verses about self-care and taking care of yourself are important reminders that it is okay to slow down and regroup.

Also See: 27 Bible Verses about Self Care that Prove “Me Time” is Okay

Christian Self-Care tips for working moms

So what can we do to be a better steward of our mind, body, and soul blessings? How can we be more intentional about taking care of our health in a way that glorifies God and allows us to be able to show up as our best selves? Here are a few self-care tips all Christian moms can use to get started…

Create schedules and routines that prioritize rest

I like to consider Sabbath a lifestyle that gave us our very first glimpse of what health stewardship should look like. We know that the Lord does not need rest, but during creation he took the time to take a day off. Why is that?

Well the Lord, in all his wisdom knew we would have a propensity to excess when it comes to doing. He wanted to be the example of what we should be striving for, and that is the relentless pursuit of him! But in order to do that we would have to slow down from the seeking around and look up.

Creating schedules and routines that prioritize rest ensure that you are able to fully embrace the gift of sabbath. When Rest is routine, you no longer overcommit and find that stewarding health is so much easier to achieve.

Create a daily self-care checklist

Another self-care tip for the overwhelmed Christian mom is to create a daily self-care checklist.

Now I want to encourage you that this daily routine checklist does not need to include anything that you THINK you need to include and should hold everything that you KNOW you need to include! You don’t need to feel guilty when completing the items on your checklist!

Some of the things you might want to consider adding to your daily routine self-care checklist include:

  • Reading a devotional or scripture
  • Focusing on prayer and meditation
  • Journaling
  • Listening to calming music

It can also include more basic routine tasks like showering, brushing your teeth, washing your face, and actually eating a breakfast that doesn’t include your children’s gummy snacks and flat sparkling water.

Be intentional about quiet time with God

Are you intentional about your quiet time with the Lord? Do you make consistent effort to not only include God in your day to day life but to make specific time to just be silent at his feet? Quiet time with God is essential to soul care.

Psalm 46:10 says “Be still, and know that I am God.” When we take the time to be still and just focus on him, all the other things that seem so important start to fade away. We can find peace in his presence and start to see our lives from his perspective.

This simple act of slowing in his presence and drawing peace, comfort and strength from him is the single more effective step you can take to begin the journey to stewarding your health.

Cultivate calm with journaling

Journaling for self-care can take many forms and is a great way to not only express your thoughts but also to focus on the positives.

Journaling can be used to process emotions, focus on gratitude, listen to God’s guidance, explore personal identity and goals! It is essential to remember that our soul needs healthy rest too!

Even taking a few minutes a day to copy a verse of scripture can be an effective journaling step. Prayer Journaling is another way to build a more consistent habit of prayer and reflection.

Find hobbies and activities that help you relax

Another important step you can take to better self-care is to find activities that feed your soul and help you to unwind mentally, grow physically, and release mentally. These relaxing ideas range from fitness classes to pampering activities.

You might enjoy a Bible study or book club that allows for time to socialize and relax with friends. Other ideas include taking a class, going on a hike, getting a massage, visiting family or starting an activity like knitting or pottery classes.

Also check out: 18 Unique Creative Things to Do at Home

Seek God daily and lean on him instead of your understanding

The last self care tip for Christian working moms is to seek God daily. When you learn to see God in everything and to ask him into every situation, you begin to see how he is intimately invested in everything you do.

This simple mindset shift of seeing him in your day to day life helps you to overcome to tendency to hold on to control so tightly. When you begin to see actively his sovereignty in your life, if becomes easier to focus on the tasks that he gives you, and you will find that more often than not, that task is to rest, to slow down, to seek him, and to be still.

Soul-Care Made Simple

I hope you have been encouraged by these thoughts and that they’ve helped you to see the importance of self-care. The next time a thought about “having enough time” or “not having energy” comes into your mind, ask yourself if it’s really worth giving up on taking care of yourself?

Stewarding your health can feel hard to do when you are a busy working mom. The bible encourages us to steward our health for the glory of God, but it also warns against putting ourselves last on that list. If we don’t take care of ourselves first, then how will we be able to take care of anyone else?

christian self-care

I hope this post has given you some ideas about ways you can better prioritize self-care in your life as well as provided inspiration and encouragement along the way! To help make all these tips easier for you (and me!), I’ve created Soul-Care Made Simple Toolkit with over 1000+ activities and tips on how you can take better care of YOU.

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