How are you?
“How are you?”
“How’s it going?”
“How YOU doin’?”
These are all pretty common ways to greet each other in our culture. Most of the time, we say them without expecting an answer, and if we do get a response, it’s usually, “Good!”. Honestly, it’s a little weird when someone answers that question seriously, right?
“Hey, how’s it going?”
“Oh, not that great. I’ve had a pretty terrible week… my husband and I were at odds over the dumbest things.”
I have a friend who always asks me how I’m doing but ends it with this crazy word… “really.” That totally changes the question, and it’s very hard for me to answer a lot of the time. It’s not something that I really think about as much as I should. I don’t understand why it’s such a hard question to answer, I’m constantly thinking about how my family is doing, how my work is going and how hungry I am… I would consider myself a person who is quite self aware, but I really struggle to answer this. Which really makes me think, I should probably ask myself this question a LOT more.
Many of us struggle to find time for reflection like this. We have families, friends, work, schoolwork, housework, we have to pay our bills. On the off-chance that the day-to-day stuff isn't overwhelming enough, there's all the stuff that we wish we could do: eat better, exercise, read more, spend more time with friends, do something special for our parents, spend more time in prayer, be more active in our communities, read our kids an [extra] book, or maybe just get a bit more sleep. And then we have our ministries--you know, those awesome-but-sometimes-weighty "opportunities" to affect others for eternity. Just when, pray tell, do we have time for navel gazing?!
During the month of February, we will be talking about Soul Care. What is Soul Care? Why is it so important? Isn’t it a little self centered to focus on myself instead of others? How do we create practices that help us care for our souls and make our relationship with Christ a priority?
We are so excited to be able to answer a lot of those questions in a webinar with our national director Phil Strout on February 16th at 7:30PM. (Register HERE)
I'm looking forward to delving into these questions and more during the coming month, but for right now, let’s take some time to ask ourselves the question, “How am I doing? ...really.”
-SARAH
