Being Kind to Your Future Self

 Self-care has been on my mind a lot lately. Most people think of self-care as manis and pedi, spa days, shopping sprees, or chocolate  Yes, self-care can be those things but it is also so much more. In my opinion self-care is actually being kind to your future self. It can look like eating right and staying properly hydrated, exercising, or even putting dinner in the slow cooker in the morning so you don’t have to worry about it later. The other day part of my self-care was to clean out the fridge. How is that self-care? Well I was about to go pick up a grocery order and if I didn’t clean out the fridge then I would have had a much harder time getting all the groceries in the fridge. Plus, I didn’t want all those leftovers that were no longer fit to eat to stay in the fridge and start growing stuff (yuck!). 

Have you heard the saying, “you can’t pour from an empty cup”? Some people dispute this saying by saying that if you rely on God to give you what you need then you can pour from an empty cup. I disagree with that. Yes I wholeheartedly agree that God will give you everything you need to do what He has called you to do, but He also has called us into self-care, or being kind to our future self. When we regularly practice being kind to our future self, then we have what we need to pour out into others. God commanded us to rest on the Sabbath, He even demonstrated it when He rested on the 7th day of creation. God didn’t need to rest, He is all powerful. He rested as an example for us. Even Jesus went away into solitude to take care of Himself(Luke 5:26), and He urged His disciples to do the same (Mark 6:31) So make it a priority to be kind to your future self. Not only will your future self thank you for that, but also all those who you will be able to pour out into because you are kind to your future self.