The work of healing is hard. We're not going to sugarcoat it. But I really believe that living unhealed is much harder because you're carrying that load for so much longer and it seeps in to your marriage, your family, your career, your ministry. Your unhealed state seeps into everything that you do.

Welcome back. Today I'm with Deborah Fileta. She was on with us Smart Girl Summer last summer,

and I wanted to start the year with her because she's written a great book on

soul care. We hear a lot about self care. We're going to talk about soul care today. What you need to know,

what you need to avoid, what you need to do, and tons of takeaways to help you live the life that

God has for you. Everything we do on the show is about our growth. How do we grow in Christ? How do we

grow in our development? How do we grow in our career? How do we grow in our emotional health?

This is one of those episodes you're going to love. Deborah says something and breaks something down

about how we read scripture. That is a game changer. That is worth the cost of admission. When you hear her

break down the lens by which we sometimes read scripture, it's going to give you a new

understanding and a new empathy for yourself and empathy for other people, depending on what

their life circumstances are. I'm not going to give it away now, but I'm hyping you up because it is so good. I'm excited for you to listen. And without further ado,

here's my friend Deborah. Deborah, why in the world do so many Christian women struggle with

the concept of caring for themselves? Like we say all the time, we, the big we, self-care is not selfish. You need to

take care of yourself. You need to take care of your soul. You need to take care of you.

I don't see it as much in women who are not believers from a professional's point of view. What in the

world's going on. Yeah, it's true.

A lot of people really struggle with this concept. And not just struggle in that they don't do it

well, but I think they especially struggle with they don't even know if they believe it's right.

We might say it casually like, yeah, we know it's important. But if you really get down to it, do you believe that it is good and healthy and right? And I think from what I'm seeing behind the scenes, that the answer to that is no. And I think it's no for two reasons. Number one, I think we have a

misguided view of scripture. We think the Bible actually tells us not to care for ourselves.

And I could spend half an hour or three days actually talking about the misconceptions we have

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