Therapy

I was just asked by a volunteer at church how much he should pay me for the therapy of helping out at church.

My brother has a farm in Indiana and he and his son can manage it most of the year but at planting and harvest time he needs some help. Usually in the spring he needs someone on a tractor preparing the field for planting with various implements. Then in the fall he will have them on the tractor or driving a truck loaded with grain from the field to the home grain bin storage. So it is not heaving lifting, usually just driving, so he hires retired farmers in the community to help him out. But there is a problem with this. You see, these retired farmers would like nothing more than sitting on a tractor and prepping a field for planting. They absolutely love the work and my brother has a hard time telling them to quit for the day and an even harder time giving them money for the work. Often he resorts to paying their wives because they refuse. To them, it is therapy. To “farm” without any of the responsibility or pressure, just to sit on a tractor, outside, and drive. In fact, as I write this, I am filled with a nostalgia that tells me I would do the same thing. Think of Forest Gump who became a millionaire and wanted to do nothing more than mow lawns … I can relate. (NOT to the millionaire part but to the retire to mow lawns part.)

There are a few widows in the church that LOVE to bake and living by themselves they just don’t get the chance to. So to bake for the church is therapy and they love to do it.

In any counselling I have to do my primary weapon in my arsenal of cures for mental ailments is “SERVE”. Feeling depressed? Go out and work in a soup kitchen or clothing distribution center for a day or two. You will get the focus off yourself AND you will feel like you are doing something useful and being a good Christian. All good things that make you forget your depression.

No matter what ailment you might suffer from, both mentally and physically, serving other people is the BEST therapy and it is usually way more inexpensive than traditional therapy.

Time to get your SERVE on?