Soul Care

The full title of the conference I attended this weekend was "Caring for Your Soul While Giving Your Heart Away."  Stephen and Gwen Smith of Potter's Inn Ministries of Colorado presented the workshop parts of the conference, which took place in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  The timing was perfect; I was fatigued, feeling almost brain-dead from four days of work squeezed into three, and experiencing more pain in my joints and tendons than usual, thanks to an approaching storm system that met us in Saskatoon and accompanied us all the way home on Sunday afternoon and evening.

The workshop sessions were designed to lead participants, mostly psychotherapists, pastors, and social workers, from the starting point of exploring the Jesus life to finding out what's wrong with our lives and within our souls. Then it urged establishing a life of rhythm (as opposed to balance), moved to embracing the Sabbath as a key way to sustain abundant life, and concluded with five ways to care for our souls while giving our hearts away to our clients and people we love.

I did a little soul care in our break period, walking along the river with Garry.

Travel is one way I care for my soul, so a 10 hour drive to Saskatoon (closer to 11 hours with stretch breaks) with the promise of a repeat performance on Sunday, didn't feel like a hardship, although we were pretty tired when we arrived on Friday, just in time for registration at 5:00 pm.  The first session was underway by 6:30 and we listened, pondered, discussed, and shared until almost 10:00 pm.  Did I ever sleep well when I finally got to bed and the motion sickness eventually abated!

On Saturday morning the sessions began bright and early, right after morning worship and continued until late afternoon when we were given a couple of hours rest time to get out of our windowless basement conference room and prepare for the celebratory banquet planned for the evening.  The Professional Association of Canadian Christian Counsellors, the organization which sponsored the event and to which I belong, was celebrating its 10th anniversary as a national organization with a formal banquet and program.  Sunday morning began with worship time again and moved right into two more soul care sessions before releasing us to head for home around 12:30.

My soul definitely feels cared for, refreshed, and renewed.  How could it not when almost every element I need to feel that way was present during the weekend?  There was learning from wise people and from Scripture;  beautiful music and worship; an abundance of excellent food (even cheesecake for dessert at the banquet;  lots of coffee; and a glorious hour of walking along the river (right across from our hotel) on the city's river park walkways.  Give my soul sunshine, trees, worship, music, and learning ... and fulfillment and refreshment are inevitable.