Soul Care

By: Brent Nussbaum

In October, my wife and I celebrated our 40th Wedding Anniversary with a trip to Mallorca, Spain. We had a great time. We hiked and explored the island, enjoyed great food, and came back refreshed and renewed. But it wasn’t long after we returned that we found ourselves right back in the hectic world we had left.  

Recently, my wife and I had a conversation about this. How do we keep our hearts and minds refreshed and renewed in this crazy world we live in? How do we keep from getting taken out?

One of my favorite authors, John Elderidge, was recently talking about “soul care”. John is the author of several books and hosts a weekly podcast called Wild at Heart. In his book, Get Your Life Back, he talked about the need for ongoing “soul care,” especially today when everything in this world is designed to drain and deplete us. His encouragement was to build sustainable time that we can keep up with week to week, that helps us nourish our souls. He shared that it’s easy to pick up our phones, check the news, text someone, or watch a funny video that someone sent us, but those activities are not nourishing. Being in nature is soul care, beauty is soul care, music, worship, a walk is soul care. We need to have a set of practices that allow us to come out of the world and be refreshed and renewed. 

When was the last time you just sat in the stillness, in the quiet of a morning, in the beauty of the view out your window, or drinking your favorite cup of coffee?    

Take a breath of fresh air. Turn off your phone. Take a scenic drive. Don’t open the newspaper or turn on the news. Take the dogs for a walk. Stop and enjoy the beauty of nature. Enjoy a blue sky, the orange of a sunset or stop to listen to the sound of water trickling across the rocks of a stream. 

The further I travel in the journey of life, the more I crave soul care. I relish freedom in my evenings to sit quietly and chill out. I rarely allow my schedule to include evening activities more than one or two nights a week, and I make sure my Saturdays and Sundays are filled with soul-nourishing activities. What do they look like? A walk with my wife and our dogs in the hills and trees where we live. A bike ride. A drive in the country or to a nearby lake. A trip to the mountains is like balm to my soul, but if that’s not possible, finding a forest is the next best thing.   

That’s where I encounter God, and He nourishes and renews my soul.   

Blessings! 

Brent