The whole idea of Soul Esteem was born from a truth in Scripture that cut right through me.
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing soul and spirit.” Hebrews 4:12
That verse shifted how I saw everything, especially myself.
Because the real point is this: your soul and your spirit move in two very different ways. Your soul runs on feelings; it's reactive and impulsive. Your spirit is eternal, calm, and led by God; it carries the kind of peace you cannot fake.
And learning to separate the two? That’s where healing starts.
Soul-esteem isn’t about self-love. It’s about soul order.
It’s the process of letting your spirit take the driver’s seat and telling your emotions:
"You can ride, but you can’t drive.”
I learned that lesson in the thick of raising my daughters. You don’t know what’s in you until you’re in the middle of it. My resilience wasn’t loud or proud. It was steady. Unseen. Like a quiet hum that just refused to quit.
That is where Soul Esteem took shape for me, not in a classroom, but in the trenches I had to walk through myself.
It is where I learned that environments feed you, whether you notice it or not.
If pity is what you are being served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it will not take long before your confidence starts to starve.
Pity feels like care, but it keeps you small. It feeds the wound instead of healing it.
Moreover, pity sounds like comfort, but it’s actually disguised disbelief in your strength.
And if you stay around it long enough, you’ll start to agree with it.
Once you recognize the weight of pity, you can finally see why Soul Esteem is different from self-esteem.
Self-esteem says, “I’m enough.”
Soul esteem says, “He is enough in me.”
Self-esteem starts with looking in the mirror.
Soul-esteem starts with looking up.
See the difference?
The thing is, I was never a wild child. I simply had to remind myself of the standards I already lived by. A woman raising two girls becomes a magnet for people who want to take advantage of her. So when I stepped into that season, I deliberately chose to raise my standards even higher. My body was a temple, not a tool, and I treated it like sacred ground, remembering that 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says it is the temple of the Holy Spirit, bought at a price, and meant to honor God.
My choices became a model. I wanted my girls to see a woman who didn’t live one life at church and another at home.
It wasn’t about perfection; it was about alignment.
Celibacy wasn’t a punishment. It was peace.
And if you’ve ever met someone who’s chosen it, maybe ask what led them there instead of assuming it’s about you. That’s where real conversation begins, where substance replaces surface.
The Word says,
"Train up a child in the way they should go, and when they are old, they will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6
That verse became my heartbeat.
Now my daughters are grown. They love God, they stand firm, and they understand that the path of least resistance rarely leads to greatness.
And here is the lesson I’ve learned through raising them:
Struggle breeds greatness, but
not all struggle is holy.
If it humbles you but draws you closer to Him, it’s from God.
If it drains you and distracts you from Him, it’s not.
Let that marinate. "You're welcome."
Soul esteem is about discernment, learning what deserves your energy and what just wants to drain it. It’s about recognizing that emotional exhaustion isn’t a badge of honor; it’s a warning light.
God doesn’t need you burned out to prove your belief.
He just needs you to surrender.
So if you’re reading this and you’re in that tug-of-war between how you feel and what you know, remember this:
The sword of His Word divides soul from spirit, not to harm you, but to heal you.
Let Him do the cutting.
You’ll come out whole.
~Sincerely, Jackie
For every woman tired of dining on pity and ready to feast on purpose.
