Give Therapy

 

Each and every August, something wonderful happens in my life. No, it isn’t the end of summer, turning into the highly anticipated, apple picking season, it isn’t school starting back, or even celebrating my son’s birthday. It is football season – more specifically, Friday night football. Imagine me breathing in deeply and letting out a sigh of joy as I typed that. It’s not that I enjoy this event or that it’s time with my family, no, in fact it is the exact opposite. For me, Friday night football means hours of me time. As my husband and son run off to watch the home team, I order junk food, put on pajamas, grab luscious yarn, and sit in front of the television, and binge watching, new episodes of last year’s programs. I don’t worry about housework, dinner, laundry, or honestly, much of anything. It is a night all about me…..that normally ends with my family rushing in to tell me (eye roll) play by play of who won.

Sitting on the couch this morning, with a warm purring kitty in my lap, a freckled faced boy smashed up close, and a warm cup of vanilla coffee pressed to my lips, I thought, this is not the morning I had planned, as I eyed my bible, wishing for a quiet morning. Then a happy kitty smiled up at me and a freckled faced boy, explained, yet another video game to me and I let out a joyful sign, realizing I didn’t want to be anywhere else. I was giving a warm lap to a kitty and a listening ear to a boy. I reached for a devotional and read two pages, which ended with this scripture and more importantly, this revelation.

In every way I’ve show you that by laboring like this, it is necessary to help the weak

 and to keep in mind the words of the Lord Jesus, for He said,

‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

Acts 20:35

Have you ever had a really bad day and someone turn to you and say you need shop therapy? Maybe you are out and see something you really want and decide to put it on your credit card because after all, it has been a bad week and this will make you feel so much better. Does it? What if, instead of shop therapy for a bad day, we had “give therapy”? Could you imagine a world where you had a horrible day and instead of stopping off at the bakery for a double stuffed chocolate cupcake, you took a dozen cupcakes to the local police department, as a thank you? Or, what if instead of buying a new outfit, you took a bag full of under garments to a local shelter? Instead of rewarding yourself with a steak dinner, you buy a grocery cart full of fresh food and then hand it out as shoppers leave the store? How wonderful do you think that would make you feel? Sure, you have nothing new in your closet, maybe you stopped yourself from gaining an extra pound, and yes, your check book is a little lighter, but how do you think you would feel?

I’m not the person I just described in the last paragraph. No, instead I am the reward myself person that most of us are. Hence, my love of Friday night football. Let’s all try, give therapy, this week. Now, here is the catch, don’t blast it all over social media. Don’t social media live the act of kindness, just do it, and go home with a warm feeling. Tell your family, if you want to, invite your kids to join you. Just make sure that while giving, you are not looking to, “receive”, through social media, praise.

Father, may I be one to give more than to give to myself. A world were people give when they are having a bad day, would be a world filled with acts of love instead of selfishness. Amen.