Put Yourself First: The Importance of Honoring Your Body

I promise you, God does not think self care is selfish. God wants you to care for your body. He lent you that body. He wants you to thrive and do the amazing things that you can do in it. And you cannot do that if you are not taking care of yourself first and foremost. I promise you. Are you feeling disconnected or incomplete? Are you feeling like I'm just not whole? There is something missing. Many of you joined fast to faith because you want to be part of a sisterhood. You want to connect and have that community of women. I keep hearing that you feel alone. You feel like you're the only one that's going through this. You feel disconnected from your body. You feel disconnected from your loved ones. And I am so glad you're here. Literally, we need to reconnect our body, mind and spirit. We need to strengthen our faith, and that is the only way that we're going to feel whole again. So there's a lot of reasons that we can be struggling emotionally and having this feeling of being disconnected or not complete. You know, we have social expectations as women. We have to juggle all of these things and fulfill these roles. And it's very much ingrained in us to put our family first, our co workers, our jobs, our parents, everybody first and us last. And that can lead into lack of self care. So having these societal expectations that we can multitask and run the show and handle everything seeps into this idea of self care is selfish. And so we end up not giving ourselves what we need and we neglect our physical health, our emotional health, our spiritual health. And that leaves us feeling very disconnected and often resentful. You know, I hear from a lot of women that they are resentful toward their husbands or their children because they're not getting what they need in return to all this, you know, they've given. And so I really encourage you to take a step back and realize that you have given of your own free will. You have taken care of them, you have cooked for them, cleaned for them, done the grocery shopping, whatever, run them all over Timbuktu, all the things you have done. There probably was not a verbal or written agreement that you were going to get your needs met in return. It was society saying, this is your job as a wife, a mom, a professional woman, whatever the case may be, and hopefully your needs will get met on the other side. And really that's not happening. So we're feeling resentful, we're feeling angry, we're feeling disconnected. So what we can do is realize that we have so much power and control in this situation. We literally say, God, please help me be more aware of my boundaries and my decisions and how they impact me and how I feel and what I need. And please help me to put me first. The old adage from the airplane, put your oxygen mask on first, literally is the way to live. That is exactly how you need to think about it. You need to fill yourself up before you fill up your children and your husband and your. Your friends and anyone else in your life. And definitely before any work in your life, you come first. God promises that of you. He wants that of you. So we have to just get rid of all these lies that have been embedded into us through society that we're supposed to put ourselves last. That is not what God wants at all, actually. So if you can do that, you will start to feel like, oh, my needs are being met, my body is feeling stronger, my mind is feeling stronger, I'm feeling loved. Because you're giving yourself what you need. Okay, so in the Bible, First Corinthians 6, verses 19 and 20, do you not know that your body is a house of God where the Holy Spirit lives? God gave you his Holy Spirit. Now you belong to God. You do not belong to yourselves. God bought you with a great price. So honor God with your body. You belong to him. That right there, First Corinthians 6, very powerful. That says it all to me. He wants us to wake up and go work out and exercise. He wants us to. To practice meditation and prayer. He wants us going to therapy and working through our past traumas. He wants us choosing his food, God's food. Whole clean food, not this processed Franken food that we've created. It literally says, honor God with your body. That's it right there, you guys. So stop feeling bad for wanting to take care of your yourself and start, like, spreading this idea of I'm taking care of myself as a way of honoring God and show the people in your life that that's what you're doing and be bold about that. God doesn't want us to be timid in our faith. He wants us to make bold declarations like, I love you, God, and I appreciate this life that you have given me. Going to show you by honoring you, by taking care of my body. So how powerful is that? I love that so much. Because then you don't have to feel guilty about spending the extra money on the healthy food, spending the extra time on working out and going for a walk and journaling and doing all the things that fill you up and make you healthy and whole again. That's actually what God wants for you. And in return, when your body is functioning better and your mind is working better, you can actually focus on the stuff that God put you on this earth to do. You're not stuck in, oh my gosh, my pain, my suffering, my medical issues. No, you can focus on what he actually put you here to do. And maybe that is to, you know, motivate and inspire others to live healthy lives. Maybe that is to be a librarian. Maybe it is to run a children's worship service. Maybe it is to travel the world and meet amazing people. Like, whatever it is, if your physical ailments are preventing you from living the life God created for you, that's not okay. Like, we need to make that shift. You need to get back in the driver's seat and take that bold faith and say, thank you, God, for this body. I'm going to do everything I can to actually make it the strong, healthy body that you originally gave me and that I know that it's capable of being. I just didn't know how to take care of it and now I know how to take care of it better. So we're going to take care of it by eating God's food. We're going to supplement it with high quality vitamins and minerals and protein and everything else that our body is lacking. We're going to move our bodies, we're going to heal our bodies. We're going to fast and do all of the things. So please let me know what you are shifting to honor your body more and I will see you soon.