Libier Reynolds

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Fall Catch Up | Self-Care + The Best Fall Iced Coffee, Ever

Libier Reynolds

No matter where you are love, you are enough. You’ve done enough. You’ve cried enough. You’ve worked enough. You’ve made it to this day. I pray that you’d give yourself so much grace and a big pat on the back for making it to Wednesday.

I finally got the energy to film a YouTube video with a loooong update of where I’ve been and how it’s been a real challenge to get myself to do anything creative these days. My heart hurts so much from my dad dying and some days are just incredibly painful. But we are here. The Lord is enough and he has held me in his arms as I’ve grieved some pretty dark days. Something that has been absolutely helpful to my grief has been self-care. I believe self-care transcends the going to the salon for a touch-up of those grays. It goes beyond the, wax treatment for down yonder. Or even the, go-get-your-nails-fixed-because-you-don’t-want-to-seem-haggard, appointment. Self-care to me means much more than those things because self-care to me has nothing to do with “fixing” a problem, rather being at peace and finding ways to express love to myself in spite of my many imperfections. That’s only come for me in this journey from self-hatred to self-love, at the intersection of surrender to Jesus and Self-Awareness + Acceptance. Acceptance of who I am in my flesh and who I get to be in Christ. All of me. The dark sides of me and the light sides of me. Self-care is saying I honor and respect myself even IN my brokenness because Jesus paid his life for mine. What a loving thing to do for me and how would it be if I were to reject that gift of Mercy and Grace by not taking care of the body and soul that Jesus died to save? Because he lives in me, I can love and respect myself enough to be intentional with time in which I do things not to “fix” myself but to encourage tenderness to myself from myself because if Jesus can give me his grace, I can give myself grace. A gift I don’t deserve paid in full by a God who knows every part of me and instead of my former shame, Jesus provides a double portion of JOY. (Isaiah 61:7)

I encourage you to care for yourself. Not just because it’s trendy. Which I can enjoy just on its own. But because you are a princess in Jesus’ eyes and he delights in you. So you can too, no matter what you look like, sound like, what you’d done or not done. Jesus just loves you and he understands the reasons why it’s sometimes hard for you to see yourself as he sees you. But he is a God that never gives up on you. So you take your time.

My girls and I are doing a Bible study each morning for HomeSchool now and one project we’ve got going on is a piece of paper in which we labeled “Attributes Of God” and whenever we read a character trait of God in the passages we read each morning we jump up and with a fresh Sharpie, ready to roll, we write in what God is like, based on the Bible Scriptures we are reading. Here are the words that we’ve discovered about God’s character; Loving, Kind, tender, glorious, has everything control, and is always in perfect timing. Let these character traits sink into your bones and discover what they allow you to feel. My daughters wrote in their journals today;

“I feel safe because God is loving “ - Maddy

“I feel loved because God is tender.” - Haylee

Speaking of self-care one of my favorite ways to start a round of self-care for me is to make myself a delicious drink and right now this Fall Cinnamon Iced Coffee is giving me major pleasure! I hope you enjoy it too!

FALL CINNAMON ICED COFFEE RECIPE: