Finding Your Soul Food

May 04, 2022

Finding Your Soul Food

I have been on a long journey back to health. One of the Ministry Health Sessions we are studying is What brings you true joy?

I call it ....Soul Food.

I am not talking about the food that you eat. But what are the real things that bring you joy before you became a person that was formed by religion, culture, family pressure, and events? What brings you fullness? I know Jesus fills your cup, rest and joy come from him. Even that whole topic can be sprinkled with religious ideas of what that means and far from what God meant for it to be. I can tell you now it is not all from God but man-made ideas that tried to shape you.

I am talking about what were you designed to do that comes naturally to you. Since I am such a right brain and designed by God, I love all things art. Design is a passion of mine. It is the creative that I was meant to be. I went back to a few pictures of me as a child that I naturally gravitated toward before I was shaped by the influence of expectation. Here is what I found. To this day if I can find a writing area and clear it all away I am happy. I will be able to list what brings me joy. I love music, drawing, photography, design, nature, horses, and gardening. You all know how I love to travel and see the world now. However, I have to stop and make a list of things that I could have done all day without hesitation as a child. This shaped me. This shapes you. The innocence of what life was in the imagination of a child in a world without salted pressure of expectation. I loved quietly reading and writing letters to friends. Curling up with a great book or a magazine on a cold rainy day was heaven. I loved experimental baking without my mother in the kitchen. I had to go back and remember. Soul Food!!!

Now, It's time stolen unless I make time for the JOYS OF LIFE. I end up filling calendars addictively with many things including food that could easily be replaced with something far more fulfilling. I love the connection of bringing groups around to connect more than the food itself.

Go back...if you are able to without trauma, what do you see as things that filled your cup with joy as a child? You will find that it is more relatable now than you think. Start there, Why?.... It brings healing. It brings back balance. It brings peace back into your life. Who knows it might lead you back to Joy,... real Joy. Let no one take that away, or your people-pleasing prison will be forever replacing it and covering it all up until you are gone and reshaped into something God never meant for you to be. I challenge you today to sit in a place of memory...go back and find what fills your cup. You might be surprised what was taken away from you and lost with time.

always singing and playing an instrument

I do not think a day went by without me drawing something

taking pictures was a hobby and I have hundreds to prove it.

My dad and mom were wonderful gardeners. I still get excited thinking about going outdoors and picking up something for dinner straight from the garden.