During Christmas time 2020, my husband asked me to give him some ideas of things I may want as gifts. As I have gotten older, it has been a little harder to create a wish list because I am mostly satisfied with what I already have. But hubby insisted I give him a list. I started thinking about my priorities for this year. I remembered one of my priorities is self care.
I began an Amazon wish list of some things I could use during my moments of self-care. My hubby ended up surprising me with a self-care Christmas.
I will share beauty care ideas that you can place on your self-care ideas list in this post.
Self-Care For Your Face
Skincare is one of my favorite self-care activities. There is so much that you can do! You can try a face cleanser with a face brush, face mask, exfoliate with a face scrub, utilize serums, and so on.
Benefits include
Maintains healthy, elastic, shiny skin
Maintains youthful-looking skin
Prevents acne breakouts and scarring
Boosts your self-confidence when you are comfortable with your skin
One of my Christmas Day gifts was a facial brush.
My favorite features of my beauty care brush are
Make-up Sponge that massages and cleans the skin
Massage Head that massage acupoints and blends moisturizer in the skin
Coarse Brush that clears up dirt on the face.
Self-Care For Your Hands
The next idea that I have for you ladies is a manicure! Because we use our hands so much, it is vital to show them some TLC.
Here are some ideas:
Go to the nail salon.
At home, remove nail polish, soak hands and give yourself a spa experience with heated beauty mitts. They will leave your hands silky smooth and prepare them for your manicure. The True Glow by Conair Heated Beauty Hand Mitts is one of my favorite gifts I received for Christmas.
Groom your fingernails with a nail kit and apply your favorite polish at home.
Groom your fingernails with a nail kit and apply press on/glue on nails at home. My favorite brand is Kiss. The Kiss Products Store on Amazon has beautiful selections.
Self-Care For Your Feet
If you are going to do a manicure, why not also do a pedicure. Pedicures are great for keeping your feet soft and healthy in appearance.
Here are some ideas:
Go to the nail salon.
At home, remove nail polish, wash, and soak your feet using a foot spa, like this popular one on Amazon.
Groom your toenails with a nail kit and apply your favorite polish at home.
Self-Care For Your Whole Body
Also, consider taking a bath. Baths are very relaxing and calming. Utilize bath bombs, essential oils, Epsom/bath salts, and bubble baths. Dr. Teal’s Foaming Bath is a highly rated brand that includes pure Epsom salt and a lavender scent.
Besides adding products to your bath; also consider lighting some candles and playing your favorite chill tunes.
Peace is the subject of my first declaration. I value peace because it creates a calmness in me when I’m going through the pain of trials, sickness, anxiety, depression, and grief.
Jesus Christ has overcome sin, the enemy, and death. He is our sovereign King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I have eternity in my view and I know during my time on this earth, Jesus’s power will reign.
Trials and sorrows may not disappear or cease for us, but having Jesus Christ as our Savior lightens the load.
Therefore,
I DECLARE despite my circumstances, I have peace knowing that my Savior, Jesus Christ has overcome the world.
In addition to peace, I’m focusing on rest which is similar. 2020 was a stressful year of uncertainty. I allowed the stress to overwhelm me at times.
While stress and uncertainty still may be present in 2021, I look forward to being more at rest. After all, the devil is already defeated. So once again, I’m giving my burdens and baggage to Jesus. I refuse to be bound by stress.
Matthew 11:28-30 in the New Living translation says,
As a believer, salvation has given me eternal rest. I no longer have to be weighed down by the guilt, shame, and pain of sin. And neither do you…
Christ lightens all our burdens. Jesus offers us his yoke, which in essence brings us to a point of surrender where we release our will and submit to His.
I feel at rest knowing that despite the stresses of this life, I have salvation and an eternity with God, free of pain.
Therefore,
I DECLARE that I have taken on the yoke of Christ and found rest in him. I am his disciple and have eternity in my view.
In Conclusion
This was a fun activity. It gave me the time to reflect on my needs and study the scriptures for answers to them. I intend to recite these two declarations every morning during my AM routine.
I’d love to know, are you making declarations this year or plan to do something like this?
If you do and you want to share with the community, please share with us in the comments.
Thank you for being a part of this community. I pray that Her Faith Walk continues to bless you during 2021.
If you need to know how to become a believer please click here and visit here to submit any prayer requests that you may have.
In today’s post, I thought that it would be fun to share my powerful, quiet time with God routine and my favorite books.
First, I must share why daily quiet time with God is so important. It’s a necessity to fuel ourselves spiritually because it helps us to maintain strong faith. I do my best to pray, worship, and study the Word of God every day. I have found that when I neglect my time with God, my faith wavers, and doubt begins to bombard my mind.
Daily quiet time with God can be in different ways. Let’s dive into my routine. I hope it will give you some inspiration.
Worship
The first part of my routine is worship.
I have a plethora of Christian music that I have collected on Spotify. I like to utilize my Daily Mixes on the platform. I push play, sing along, meditate on the words and open my mouth in adoration to God.
If you need some song recommendations, I’ve included some of my favorite songs on a “God’s Girl” playlist I created just for the Her Faith Walk community. Please feel free to add this playlist to your account.
Powerful Quiet Time Prayers
Once I’ve spent some time in worship, I begin to pray. The way I pray depends on how I feel that day.
I love to prayer journal. The best way I can describe this is by writing a letter to God. I generally journal my prayers when I have a lot on my heart that I feel needs to be poured out on paper. Praying in this way also allows me to review my prayers over time.
I also enjoy praying out loud as I worship. I most often pray out loud when I am deep in spiritual warfare. There’s just something powerful about speaking out loud when I use my spiritual weapons in prayer. Believe it or not, when I’m dealing with bad anxiety and depression, crying out loud to God and declaring my healing by faith strengthens me.
Now sometimes, I feel more comfortable praying silently. I generally do this when there is something on my heart that I strictly want to be for God’s ears only.
I felt that I should address prayer length. I pray for as long as the spirit leads me. I conclude what I have to say and, I often sit in silence. This is my way of quieting myself so that I can hear from God. I also continue to pray throughout the day and before bed. I encourage you to not focus on the length of your prayers but to focus on opening yourself up to God and having a conversation with Him.
Lastly, I have a special freebie for you if you could use some help organizing your prayer list and keeping it manageable. I’m sharing my personal prayer list template with you and, it’s customizable! Grab yours at the bottom of the homepage and enjoy!
Read & Study The Bible
I save my reading and study time for the end of my quiet time. I use different resources to assist me in my Bible study time. Afterward, I always sit quietly before God for a few minutes to hear from Him and reflect.
I have staples that I use daily such as, The Bible App/Bible.com, a paper Bible, a commentary, a notebook for note-taking, pens, highlighters, and occasionally I have my concordance on hand.
My heart is always sensitive to pay attention to what God may have for me to study each day. When I feel like I need some structure, I often utilize the plans on The Bible App/Bible.com. I enjoy the studies on this platform because they include a theme to study, one, a couple, or sometimes several scriptures and supplementary readings written by the author of the study.
Here is a list of a few studies I have completed that were very beneficial to my spiritual growth.
I also like to look up passages that speak to specific topics that are on my heart. For instance, one month, I wanted to focus on wisdom, so I dove into the book of Proverbs. It was amazing to read and study each day.
Lastly, sometimes I enjoy a devotional or Christian book with scripture infused into the text. I love using these tools when I may not have much energy to do an in-depth study. Other times if I do a morning study, I will use a devotional or book to close my night before bedtime.
Click here to visit my tools page, where I share my favorite Bibles, devotionals, and books.
In Conclusion
I hope that you enjoyed this overview of my powerful, quiet time with God routine.
I want to encourage you to take these ideas and design your very own system. I’m praying that you find a routine that works for you and benefits your spiritual growth.
What are your thoughts? What may you include in your daily get together with God?
Let’s chat in the comments!
Continue to press on in building your relationship with God,
Before you go, do you need prayer? If you feel led to, submit your prayer request here.
Do you want to find yourself or are you searching for your true identity? Who are you are outside of your DNA, earthly character, and personality? Are you a woman struggling to find who you are?
Many of us Christian women label ourselves unhealthily and negatively. Some of us have no clue of our true identity and worth, and if we feel we do have some understanding of who we are, we have identified ourselves poorly.
Trauma, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, self-doubt, memories, and bad seeds planted by Satan can all cause us to formulate negative views of who we are.
It is imperative for us as Christian women to demolish the negative views we have of ourselves. These negative views create strongholds in our lives.
Negative self-identity can stall us from walking in God’s purpose for us as believers. It may also make accomplishing a specific assignment or calling more difficult or extend into a longer process.
I pray that none of us settle for a reality that prevents us from being all God has created us to be.
In this series, we explore what our true identity in Christ looks like.
What Scripture Says About Our True Identity
The following scriptures define our true identity in Christ.
We Are “Children Of God”
But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.
Receiving Jesus is the act of welcoming Him into your life to be Lord over your life.
God desires that we all be His children!
We as believers have the best Daddy in the whole wide world and universe combined. He is a loyal and loving Father. He never fails as a Father and is always present for us.
We Are “Loved”
9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
In the verses above, two sacrifices emphasize why God loves us. The first sacrifice we see is that God, The Father made a sacrifice by sending His Son to this earth, “so that we might have eternal life through him “.
Secondly, Jesus sacrificed his very life for us. Jesus took on the wickedness of our sin and underwent the most horrific death.
Jesus suffered for us and, God The Father watched his only Son suffer.
Remember that God Almighty loves you the next time you have a negative thought about yourself or when the enemy tries to tell you are not loved.
19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.
God sees worth in us, so much that he paid the wages of our sin.
Also, our bodies are precious to Him. I say this because our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, we are called to care for and not defile our bodies.
In Conclusion
These verses share only a small bit of what scripture says about our identity. I look forward to exploring identity more in upcoming posts.
How does being a child of God, being loved, and having worth make you feel about yourself? Are you beginning to see yourself for the special person you are?
These truths strengthen me on my journey to developing a healthy self-esteem. They give me the reality check I need when false thoughts enter my mind.
Share with me in the comments, how any of the three examples make you feel.
If you are looking for a creative way to spend time in God’s word, grab your free copy of this month’s scripture writing plan.
Until next time!
Be blessed and not stressed,
Are you a believer? Explore the gift of salvation here.
Many of us get F.O.M.O. (Fear Of Missing Out) when we think about logging out to take a break from social media. I always struggle with deleting the Facebook and Instagram apps off my cell phone. How about you? Do you ever feel like you have to stay present and be aware of everything going on in the lives of your friends, acquaintances, and celebs online?
Approval Addiction
Think for a second about how important it is to you to post your best self and life on social media. Like many people, you may be concerned about whether your life looks exciting enough, or if people like you. On the other hand, you may secretly envy and desire the lives of people that you follow.
With this in mind, I must stop for a second and make something clear to both myself and you. Listen closely and repeat after me, “This way of thinking is NOT healthy, period!”
Here Comes Hardship
At this point, I figure you may be thinking that approval addiction is not that big of a deal. However, when life around you feels like it is closing in, and you have lost all hope in yourself, the habit of always being concerned about other’s opinions can become dangerous.
Earlier this year, my life felt like it was spiraling out of control. I looked at myself and saw my anxiety building rapidly and depression pushing me lower and lower into a dark hole.
Sadly, I looked at others around me and felt like I was pretty pathetic. Two significant areas of my life were being affected. One was my work life, and another was my personal life. I felt like I had lost all control of my work, and my best friend tragically passed away as well.
Fast forward to today, and I have to tell you that being consumed with what other people might think did not push me back to stability. The only one who pulled me through that storm is God himself. Many times we neglect our time with God when we see life is progressing well, and we feel life is grand. But God wants relationship and fellowship with us in the good times and bad.
Why Does Social Media Matter?
Now you’re probably wondering how social media ties into all of this. Well, it’s simple. Social media rules a substantial amount of time during our day. A portion of this time would benefit many of us better if we are spending it with God. Get a clear picture below of how much time our society spends on social media.
– An average user spends 2 hours and 24 minutes per day on social media in 2020.
– 50.1% of the time spent on mobile is done using social media apps in 2020.
– Facebook is the most popular, costing people an average of 2 hours and 24 minutes each day.
– Youtube takes an average of 40 minutes per day.
– Users spend an average of 30 minutes per day on Snapchat in 2020.
– Instagram users are spending an average of 28 minutes on the platform daily in 2020.
– Pinterest users take it slow and scroll through ideas for only 14.2 minutes every day.
In addition to reading statistics like the ones above, I checked my screen time on my cell phone and realized that this was time poorly spent. Social media can often be a time waster and a highlight reel that becomes discouraging after a while.
My Social Media Hiatus
After realizing this, I chose to take a break from social media recently. The time I spent on hiatus allowed my mind to be free from distractions and available to God. The two hours and some change that I would normally spend on social media became time for prayer, journaling my feelings, reading God’s word, self-care, and being present with the people around me.
During my break, I was able to
Talk to God more
Grow closer to God
Unwind
Implement Self-Care
Mourn in a healthy way
Deal with my feelings through therapy
Be free from the temptation to compare myself to others
Spend time with the ones who know me best and sincerely love me
Gain time back
Find peace
In conclusion, if you are struggling with mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual anguish, I encourage you to log off. Give yourself time to work through the obstacles before you and regain your strength. Get out of the face of social media and get in the presence of God.
Above all, my prayer for you is that your experience is as fruitful as my hiatus was for me.
Before you log back on, set time boundaries for social media. Stay committed to seeking the face of God in trying seasons as well as seasons of abundance.
You’ve got this!
Until next time!
Be blessed and not stressed,
Priscilla
Are you a believer? Explore the gift of salvation here.
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