Corella Roberts's Blog, page 4

SOUL FEAST: The Big List of Soul Care Ideas

I’ve been brainstorming, polling friends, reading books, and collecting resources from other writers for two months in order to bring you this Soul Feast, a huge list of soul care ideas. And I sure am excited to invite you to the table, friends! Before we dig in, I’d like to outline what I believe to be the four big principles of soul care. In other words, what makes these (and other) activities soul care and not merely self care or a leisure activity?

An activity is soul care if:

It conn...

How to Know if it is Well with Your Soul

“The salvation of your soul is not just about where you go when you die. The word salvation means healing or deliverance at the deepest level of who we are in the care of God through the presence of Jesus. Sooner or later, your world will fall apart. What will matter then is the soul you have constructed.”

John Ortberg, Soul Keeping

Sooner or later, your world will fall apart… maybe your world has already fallen apart. Maybe it happened years ago when you faced that unspeakable tragedy that ...

Soul Care #3: Created for Both Solitude and Community

The first day my children attended our school’s Summer Enrichment Camp a few months ago, I waved goodbye with perhaps too big of a grin, tossed aside my phone, grabbed my journal and Bible, and bee-lined for the porch. Where I sat by myself. Alone. Watching the rain. Quietly. Breathing deeply. Uninterrupted.

I had been craving this solitude for so long. I soaked it up like the ground drinking in the rain. “Wow, I really needed this,” I told God. As I unwound in those precious undisturbed mom...

Soul Care #2: How Your Body Connects to Your Soul

“In the midst of this, though words failed me, prayer without words—prayer in and through my body—became a lifeline. I couldn’t find words, but I could kneel. I could submit to God through my knees, and I’d lift my hands to hold up an ache: a fleshy, unnamable longing that I carried around my ribs. I’d offer up an aching body with my hands, my knees, my tears, my lifted eyes. My body led in prayer and led me—all of me, eventually even my words—into prayer.”

Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the O...

Soul Care #2: Your Body

“In the midst of this, though words failed me, prayer without words—prayer in and through my body—became a lifeline. I couldn’t find words, but I could kneel. I could submit to God through my knees, and I’d lift my hands to hold up an ache: a fleshy, unnamable longing that I carried around my ribs. I’d offer up an aching body with my hands, my knees, my tears, my lifted eyes. My body led in prayer and led me—all of me, eventually even my words—into prayer.”

Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the O...

Soul Care #1: Cleaning Up

Have you ever heard of the brownie analogy? It’s the one used to shock youth group attendees by passing out brownies, then, only after everyone has taken a bite, admitting that you cleaned up your dog’s “business” just before mixing the batter and forgot to wash your hands. While you were stirring you noticed a plop into the batter and realized it had come off the side of your soiled hands. You tried to find it and get it out, but you really couldn’t be sure you got it all. “Don’t worry, though...

What Is the Soul and How do I Care For It?

Soul care. It’s becoming a trendy phrase in spiritual circles these days, both Christian and not. But what is it? Is it simply me-time or self-care? Is it the same as spiritual growth? And if it’s something I should be interested in, how do I go about caring for this soul of mine?

(Disclaimer: I am not, for the slightest moment, going to pretend to be an expert in soul care. However, I am a student of it, and I promise to share from my own on-the-ground experiences as well as from people who...

Why Your Voice Matters

A year ago, I had the privilege of attending a coming-of-age party for a friend’s daughter. And a year ago, I was just beginning to design my website and call myself a writer. Oh, I’d written a couple of books already, but for the first time, I dared to hope that my words would affect someone’s heart. Like a squeaky, tremulous middle-schooler singing her first solo, I was stepping out onto the internet stage in the hopes that someone would be touched by my voice. So, naturally, when given the i...

The Face of the Father

“God,” I cried, “show me your face! I feel like I don’t know what you look like anymore. Who are you?!”

As I rocked myself in time to the music, an image grew in my mind: a little girl, curled up in her Father’s arms. She was held, protected, delighted in, and comforted. “I’m your daddy,” came that still, small voice.

I had never, before that moment, dared to enter the intimacy of a face to face encounter with the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Ruler of All Creation, God. And yet as sure a...

The Making of a Book and the Shaping of my Heart

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Today, I find sitting down to write to you hard. I don’t know why, other than the fact that I’m feeling a bit restless in general these days (why is the waiting always so difficult?), and I’m not sure if what I had planned to share with you is of interest. I wanted to tell you about how my book came to be and the journey that God took me on through its pages. But do you care? I honestly don’t know. And that, right there, tells me I need to write it anyway because while I do want my words to ser...