3 Bible-Based Tips to Prioritizing Your Health
Are you feeling worn out—like you can’t go on? There are three principles in the Bible which teach us how to best solve this problem—and it revolves around learning to take care of ourselves.
Episode Discussion Points
I tell the story of Putt-Putt the car which I drove when I went to college when I was younger. I didn’t keep up on the maintenance as well as I should have, and something unfortunate happened.
This taught me the importance of doing little things to maintain not only cars but ourselves.
3 Bible-Based Tips to Prioritizing Your Health
Take Care of Your Spirit
In Mark 1:35, we are told this about how Jesus prioritized his soul and the connection He had with God:
“And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.”
We too can ask God how we can best do this in our own lives—whether it is waking up early or doing it during a lunch break or at bedtime. God will inspire us to find the right solution for us.
Take Care of Our Physical Bodies
Paul taught the Corinthians that their bodies were temples because they housed their divine souls or spirits:
“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is bholy, which temple ye are.” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)
The story of how I had to learn to do this in my life when I was physically exhausted from taking care of kiddos on the autism spectrum.
Don’t Do Everything Alone
Story of Jethro telling Moses that he was doing too much and that he needed to learn to delegate:
“Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.” (Exodus 18:18)
In the book, Who Not How, Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy also talk about how usually when we are worn out and trying to change we need to learn to ask “who can help me with this,” NOT “how can I do it.”
The principle of learning to delegate is a godly principle.
So, if you are feeling stressed out and like you can’t keep going like that, maybe you can talk to God and begin to prioritize your own health and well being in baby steps. He will bless you to do it right in your life.
#tamarakanderson #storiesofhopeinhardtimes #podcast #hope #God #hardtimes #physicalhealth #spiritualhealth #notalone #Bibleverses #selfcare #story #priorities #maintenance
Transcription
You can find the transcription of today's episode here:
Tamara Anderson 0:03
Do you feel guilty taking care of yourself taking time for just you? I know that's something I've been guilty of in the past. And I know I'm not the only one who struggles with this. How do we take time to truly prioritize ourselves and why should we is there right? Is it okay to do that? We're going to cover that today. Stay tuned.
Tamara Anderson 0:31
Welcome to Stories of Hope in Hard Times, the show that explores how people endure and even thrive in difficult times, all with God's help. I'm your host Tamara K Anderson. Join me on a journey to find inspiring stories of hope and wisdom learned in life's hardest moments.
Tamara Anderson 0:57
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Tamara's Takeaways on the Stories of Hope in Hard Times podcast. I'm your host Tamara K. Anderson. And today I'm going to take you back to a time when I was in college and I was going to a local community college at the time. And my parents had allowed me the use of a little silver gray Toyota Corolla that was on its last leg. We lovingly nicknamed it Putt-Putt because every time you stepped on the gas, it would kind of do that putt-putt-putt, except really loud. And, and so Putt-Putt was my car that enabled me to go to work. It enabled me to go to school. And I was really thankful that I had Putt-Putt.
Tamara Anderson 1:48
So one of my responsibilities as I was working part time and going to school full time, was making sure that Putt-Putt was taken care of. And I remember my dad after I'd been driving Putt-Putt for, I don't know, six, seven months, eight months that he said, Tamara I think it's due for an oil change. And I was like, okay, yes, my oil lights on. I'm gonna take care of it. Totally gonna do it. And another week went by and he's like, Did you replace the oil? I'm like, No, I'm gonna do it this next weekend. Because that's when I have time. I've just been too busy.
Tamara Anderson 2:29
And so come next weekend, I got really sick. And I was like in bed and just not feeling I don't know if I got the flu or something. And so that next week came and I still hadn't replaced the oil. And I still remember I was driving down the highway on an errand for my job and all the sudden Putt-Putt started putting a little more than usual. And it started slowing down. And I pulled over to the side of the freeway, I was close to an exit, but I just passed one. And so I pulled over to the side of the freeway. I tried to problem solve, couldn't get Putt-Putt to start back up. And I was like, Oh no, what do I do? So I ended up working my way up to pay phone (because this is before cell phones). I'm really old, you know? And, and so I found a payphone at the mall that just happened to be right there off that exit that I just passed. And I called my parents and said, Putt-Putt broke down. This is where it is, can you get some help? And so my parents got a tow truck and towed it to a shop. You know, they came and picked me up. And the guy got back to us and said, The reason Putt-Putt is broken, is because he ran out of oil, basically. And I remember feeling this huge, huge amount of guilt because I was going to do it. And I was going to do it. And I was going to do it. And I didn't do it. And so the end problem was that the whole engine block had seized and wouldn't work anymore. It basically broke the engine.
Tamara Anderson 4:27
And I felt awful. I felt really, really bad. And this taught me early on in my life, the importance of doing little things like maintenance. Now, obviously this is the story is talking about a car but the same principle applies to each of us in our lives.
Tamara Anderson 4:51
How many times do you just keep going and keep going and oh, I'll get to myself. Oh, I'll get to myself but life just seems To run us ragged, and we don't take care of ourselves, we don't schedule time for ourselves. And I don't know about you. But I've had that issue many, many times in my lives. And it's something that I've been working on fixing for about the last four to five years. And it's made such a huge, huge difference in my life.
Tamara Anderson 5:26
And I want to tell you a little bit about some of these things that are Bible based, and can really, really help us as we learn that it is okay to take care of ourselves. So the first principle I wanted to talk to you about is that it is important to take care of our spirit. Now our spirit is housed inside of our body. We learn that in the Bible. And one of the great examples in this is Jesus Christ. And I wanted to share this verse with you. It is found in Mark chapter one, verse 35. And this is talking about Jesus. And it says, "And in the morning, rising up a great while before the day he went out, and departed into a solitary place and there prayed." Isn't that neat? So he also was super busy. Once he started his ministry, people were always there, they always wanted him, they always needed him. He was healing people, he was teaching people, you as people always wanted to interact with him. And that's because he was amazing. He was the Son of God. And so you can see that because of this, He had to take time to recharge His Spirit, to recharge his soul. And to do this, He had to make time the only way he knew how, and for Him that was early in the morning. Waking up, going somewhere where He could pray, where He could ponder, where He could be alone, and recharge His soul connect with the Father.
Tamara Anderson 7:07
And that is the first principle that I want to teach you is if you are determined to change this in yourself, that is the first place you start is your connection with God, that should be your number one priority. Just like Jesus, find time take time to put him first. For Jesus Christ. It was in the morning, he got up early. And He did that. For me, when I decided to do this, I've never, ever ever been a morning person, I was always too exhausted because I was up at all hours of the night with kids with autism. And so that didn't work for me for many years. Until recently. And in my brain, I told myself, I'm not a morning person. And then I read "Miracle Morning" by Hal Elrod, and it changed my mind enough to try it. And I'm not waking up in the middle of the night anymore with little kids or with kids with autism. We've solved that problem for our family. And so this became a possibility for me.
Tamara Anderson 8:07
And so is I woken up early, two hours earlier than most people in my home, I have found such a strength as I connect with God every day. And connecting with him allows me to draw from His power. It's just been an amazing time for me to feel strengthened beyond my own capacity, because by myself, I am weak. And one of my mantras is I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And that's found in Philippians. And so, I need to connect with him so that He can strengthen me. So that's the number one thing and it should be a number one priority for you every single day.
Tamara Anderson 8:50
Now you it might not work for you to connect in the morning, maybe you pray about this and take this problem to the Lord say, Lord, when can I connect with you every day? And He will inspire you to know what is right for you. Morning might not be right morning might be right. But talk to him about it and he will inspire you to know when it's right for you. Maybe it's on a lunch break at work, where you can just close off and nobody will bug you. But find that time to connect with God and put Him first connect and fill your soul.
Tamara Anderson 9:24
The second thing that I want to talk to you about as far as taking care of your own personal maintenance is the importance of taking care of our physical bodies. There is a great verse in First Corinthians chapter three is actually two verses verses 16 and 17. Where it says, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God" (meaning our physical bodies), "and that the Spirit of God dwells within you." We just got finished talking about how our spirit is inside of us. "If any man defile the temple God"(meaning our bodies) "him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." Wow, I never knew that the physical body was so important to God.
Tamara Anderson 10:14
But we can look at our physical bodies as a temple. How are we doing taking care of it? Are we taking care of our physical bodies in a way that shows respect to the spirit to the divine child of God, the soul within us? Are we doing that? And if not, and we could do better, we need to do that. We need to respect our bodies take good care of them. Well, what does that look like?
Tamara Anderson 10:47
Are you taking care of your mental and emotional health? That's a big one. I know that after years of taking care of my children with autism, I was physically not doing well, myself. I had gone into adrenal fatigue several times where it would lay me flat, if I even tried to sit up, I would get really, really dizzy. Because when you go into adrenal fatigue, one of the signs is that it affects your blood pressure. And so I took, oh, my goodness, this is probably 15 years ago, I had to learn that I needed to start taking care of myself better if I was going to be able to take care of my family.
Tamara Anderson 11:29
And so I started on a journey of learning more about what was happening to my body and what I could do to better take care of my stress. And one of the things is exercise, and taking care of my mental health. Now I've struggled with anxiety, what can I do to take care of that? What resources can I get? What stress relieving techniques can I learn. And so this has been a process of things that I've learned over, over a decade of implementing different strategies, finding the right doctors, and physicians to help me in this journey to balance, rebalance my endocrine system, and be able to start doing better physically.
Tamara Anderson 12:12
And part of that is learning to eat right for me. For many years, I knew that if I ate sugar, it would trigger a migraine. And so I had to avoid sugar. So find the things that are right for your body, and start implementing those things into your life. Taking care of yourself, allows you to then take care of others better, and involve God in this process. God, who can you help me meet that will help me fix this next part of my body that's broken. And schedule that and talk to people and get the right advice, God will guide you to the right people to help fix and heal your physical body as you're able to process that. And some of these changes take a long time. But I promise you that I've seen baby steps of improvement in myself over the last 15 years, specifically more in the last five years when I've been trying to regulate my hormones and stuff like that working with a doctor and an amazing pharmacist who have been helping me and I'm just so very thankful. But I had to prioritize that.
Tamara Anderson 13:25
And lately, I've implemented another exercise program that I'm working on building my muscles and becoming stronger both in my core and in my walking and stuff like that. So figure out what works for you. And take baby steps towards taking care of your body, schedule time for it, make that care of your temple, your physical body a second priority. And if that means going to a doctor and getting medication for mental health issues, and maybe that's what you need. Or if it means for like for me getting medication to help me balance my hormones, then that's what I need to do. So take care of your temple, your physical body.
Tamara Anderson 14:15
The third thing I briefly touched on already, but I want to dive into it is don't do everything alone. We live in a society where for many, many decades it has been promoted that you are strong if you do everything on your own, and you're capable and you're independent and all these things. And I don't think that's the way God intended for us to live. He intended for us to love and serve one another and to help one another. So this third principle is don't do everything alone. You weren't meant to.
Tamara Anderson 14:54
A great scripture verse that talks about this is found in the Old Testament and Exodus. And at this point in time, Moses had led the children of Israel out of Egypt, and they were wandering in the wilderness. And every single one of the Israelites took all of their problems to Moses. And so he was counseling and trying to solve problems and disputes all day, every day, completely wearing himself out. And his father in law, Jethro, finally saw what was going on. And he came to him and he gave some good father in law advice. And this is what he said in Exodus 18. And I'm starting on verse 18, "Thou will surely wear away both thou and this people that is with thee. For this thing is too heavy for the thou art not able to perform it thy self alone."
Tamara Anderson 15:54
He's basically saying, This is too hard, this is too heavy for you, you're not able to do this alone. And basically, he invites him to talk to God, and and figure out a solution. And one of the things is--you are the Prophet, you can talk to these people as a prophet, and teach them what they should do. But then let's appoint judges, and they can judge all the problems and challenges, and it will lift your burden.
Tamara Anderson 16:26
So, so many times when we have struggles in life, it's because we're taking too much on our shoulders. And we go to God and we go, God, how do I solve this problem? And I'm reading an amazing book right now called Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy, which talks about when you come up with these struggles, when things are too heavy for you, you should be asking who can help me not How can I do it myself? And that is the whole principle of this book. It's an amazing book, I highly recommend you either listen to it on Audible, or read the Kindle version, or buy the paperback. Two thumbs up. But it's this same principle, you don't need to do everything yourself. Find the things that are best for you. And that you only can do, and then start delegating the things that you don't have to do, away.
Tamara Anderson 17:24
I know that's something that I've started doing in my own life, as my business is starting to take off. I have needed to start delegating some things. So I went to my son the other day, and I said, "Hey, would you be willing to make dinner one time a week?" And he said, "Yeah, I could do that." Not only will it help him prepare for when he leaves home. But he can do it in an environment where I can teach him, I can coach him. And we pick two meals that he could make, and he can rotate them every other week. And they're spaghetti and beef stroganoff. And I've taught him to make each of them I made him a little card about what goes into each one, what he needs to do. And he's made both successfully the last couple of weeks, and I can't even tell you what a relief it is for me when Wednesday evening comes to know, I don't have to make dinner that night.
Tamara Anderson 18:17
So finding little things like this, that you can delegate, or give to somebody else or find a way to simplify so that you don't have so much on your shoulders. And we can find the solutions to these challenges in our lives. When we ask Who can I find to help me with this problem? And God will bring people into your lives if you've learned ask the right question. So ask who, not how sometimes we can ask him how and God will teach us how we can figure it out on our own. But sometimes we need to involve another person. And so maybe you can take that dilemma to God. If you're doing everything, just say, God, how can I figure this out? Do I need to ask how or do I need to ask who? And he will teach you what is right for you and your own situation.
Tamara Anderson 19:09
Okay, back to the story of the car. Guys, I learned so much about maintenance. With that story of the car and unlike Putt-Putt and me and my life even though Putt-Putt died in early or late death because he was an old car. I my and my body are still going and even though I've had some really rough patches the last 15 years as far as learning to take care of myself, I now feel like I am in a so much better place because I've had to learn to prioritize--first, taking care of my spirit, second taking care of my physical body. And third, asking who can help me with the many burdens that I carry? As a mom a wife, a business owner and forever caregiver of children with Autism. So these are important questions that we need to pause and consider and prioritize as we are taking care of ourselves. And as we take care of ourselves and are feeling more healthy and better ourselves, we can then serve others in a better and holy your way. You too, can learn to prioritize your soul and your physical body with God's help, and you don't have to do it alone. Hope on!
Tamara Anderson 20:33
How many of you out there feel like your life is chaotic, crazy, and completely awful compared to the norm? What if I were to tell you you are normal for you? I'm so excited to tell you about my book Normal for Me, Learning to Love and Accept Life's Detours with God's Help. This book took me 10 years to write. And I shared 20 years worth of lessons learned in my life detours, including being in a car accident and having two of my children diagnosed on the autism spectrum. In this book, I share the secrets of how I made it from despair to peace with God's help. I talk about being a zombie mom, living in survival mode, learning true faith, and how I debunked the myth that God doesn't give you more than you can handle. Normal for Me also includes a bonus Diagnosis Survival Guide at the very end the book in which I shared 12 tips to survive and thrive in tough times. So what are you waiting for? Grab your copy of normal for me today on Amazon, or on my website? Tamara K anderson.com.
Tamara Anderson 21:52
Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's show. If you like what you heard, subscribe so you can get your weekly dose of powerful stories of hope. I know there are many of you out there who are going through a hard time, and I hope you found useful things that you can apply to your own life in today's podcast. If you'd like to access the show notes of today's show, please visit my website storiesofhopepodcast.com. There you will find a summary of today's show, the transcript and one of my favorite takeaways. You know, if someone kept coming to mind during today's episode, perhaps that means that you should share this episode with them. Maybe there was a story shared or quote or a scripture verse that they really really need to hear. So go ahead and share this podcast. May God bless you, especially if you are struggling with hope to carry on and the strength to keep going when things get tough. Remember to walk with Christ and He will help you bear the burden. And above all else, remember, God loves you!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai