Social Worker

Kathy’s Interview

My name is Kathy Knochel, and I am from a small community in Michigan. That’s where I was born and raised, and that’s where I still live. I am a clinical social worker and currently I’m providing clinical counseling. Going into the mental health field was not anything that I had a plan to do as I was graduating high school.

I had some plans to do things in the medical field, and I was probably going to pursue physical therapy when I was in high school, and that was the path that I felt was right for me. And so, in the second semester of college, I needed another class to stay full time. And there was an introduction to social work class that was offered, and I just thought, well, I don’t even really know what social work is and I kept flipping through the class outlines.

And for some reason it just kept coming back to me that this seems like an interesting class. I wonder what a career in this field would look like. And so actually at that point, I just signed up for it. I was still in this area of being unsure what the right direction was.

And through the course of that class, I really came to be very interested in the mental health field and I had an interesting professor. She had a lot of experience in a variety of areas in this field and so, at that point, I thought, you know what, I think that this is a path that I’ll pursue in college.

And so, I learned a lot about what the field was. We learned about working in the foster care system. You can do social work through schools and there is mental health counseling as part of it, and so learning about all those things was very interesting to me.

I got to sit in on a few crisis counseling sessions and that was really impactful. So, to see people that were in a really hard spot and to be able to see some of the hope that they were able to gain through a session and that process was really impactful as I went through that.

So, after that course was done and that semester was done, I felt pretty confident that this was the right path. It felt like the right fit for me at that point. I went from our local community college and applied to the local university and got into the Bachelor of Social Work program there.

And that was also a very huge learning experience for me as I went through each class. There were a lot of classes that I really enjoyed, and I wasn’t sure exactly the area that I wanted to focus on, but I was offered an internship in a foster care setting. So it was working as a case manager or working alongside of a case manager in the foster care system.

Through that internship, I had a lot of really great experiences. I got to see how the court system works and what it looks like to manage a case and walk alongside families in difficult times. And I also learned that going on to get my master’s degree was actually something that I did want to do for more job opportunities and different experiences that you can do as a master’s level social worker.

When I was thinking through what my interests were as far as age of individuals that I was interested in working with. Definitely, a focus was on working with children somehow. I had some thoughts that working in a school setting would be interesting or in the foster care program.

The interesting piece there is you find out that a lot of the work done in that program is actually with parents or with the adults involved. And that really fit well to me also. After that internship was over, I did end up going on to get my master’s degree. I was able to get an internship where I was working with teenagers in a school system.

The program was called Youth Emergency Services, and so that was teenagers being able to request counseling services. And I went in and was able to offer about nine sessions to them. That was a really good internship for me. I was not exactly sure as I was pursuing my master’s degree that I wanted to do clinical counseling. It was actually a little bit lower on my list of jobs I wanted to do. I was thinking I would do more school social work or some medical social work, something like that.

But I had a really good experience in the school system. After that internship was over, I was hired at that agency, and I worked there for a period of time just continuing to grow in the counseling field.

I did that for a period of time and then I went on to an agency called Community Mental Health. Through that agency I was able to provide counseling services for about five years and that was a really good growing experience. I had a lot of opportunities for continuing education and being trained in a variety of different therapies.

I was on a child and families team. So that meant that I mostly worked with individuals between the ages of 4 and 18. And then we did family counseling. So, the whole family was part of the sessions. And I did that for a number of years and really enjoyed that. And then the agency I was at got a grant for a social worker to be able to go into the schools and work in the local district to do some crisis work and some staff teaching and presentations for the school to better their education on mental health and how to meet needs of students.

And so, I took that job opportunity, and was able to do a little bit more of the short-term counseling with youth in the school. So, again, I think that’s the great thing about this career is that there are several different types of jobs and job opportunities.

And then, about a year ago, I began working here at ACCFS, where I’ve continued to work in the counseling field. So, in this job role I work with a variety of individuals. My work is not necessarily primarily with teens and families as it has been, but I do work with some children and teens and then mostly young adults and women of different ages.

As far as presenting needs, I continue to work with needs such as anxiety, depression, trauma, and needs in that area. So, in the counseling office, there are so many things that I enjoy doing. There’s a variety of things I do on a day-to-day basis but definitely the hours logged in counseling is my favorite part of the job. It probably goes without saying, but my favorite part of the job is when I start to see growth and change in someone.

There’s nothing better than after you’ve walked with somebody through a really difficult time that they come in and can say things like, I’ve just noticed that things have been going so much better. I’ve just noticed that I’m not experiencing as much anxiety, or I am connecting better with the people in my life or things like that. And so really being able to see that growth and see how God’s working in someone’s life really makes this job rewarding.

Through my years as a counselor, I’ve had a number of different training opportunities and different areas that I’ve worked in. And I would say through all of that, some of the work I’ve done with individuals who have experienced trauma, I find myself especially drawn to. There are people who have experienced traumatic situations who just have a very difficult road ahead of them. Sometimes when they come into my office, they’re at their most vulnerable point, and just feeling like they don’t understand why these things happened, and they can just feel like the road ahead seems so long.

There are a lot of great trauma interventions out there and I’ve been able to see people have so much growth as they have allowed themselves to just work through the process. I can find that type of counseling especially rewarding as a therapist, but just being able to see the benefit that it has to so many individuals.

Upon graduation from college the next step of the journey for me was to start the process of being a licensed social worker. So, going to an accredited college through the ASWB, is a really important thing to do because then that helps give the opportunity to sign up and go through the process of being a licensed practitioner. Being a licensed social worker gives a lot of job opportunities.

It’s really important for billing purposes and other things as well. Currently, I’m a fully licensed social worker in the state of Michigan. And then also just through this job, I’ve been able to get licensed in other states as well.

So, a typical day is primarily planned out for me several days in advance. I know anything can happen in the course of a day, but I typically know what my schedule looks like and what to expect for that day. A typical day is just primarily having scheduled counseling sessions. It depends on the day. Some days I might have four sessions and some I might have six, just depending on what the schedule looks like that day. Sessions are usually about an hour long.

And then outside of that, typical things that I experience in the course of a day, or the course of a week would be ongoing supervisions, both with my supervisor and then with other counselors. There are several staff meetings that can come up and then also there is real importance in having continuing education. And so, some days I have maybe a planned training or I do just some continuing education on my own.

So, when it comes to continuing education, I find it really beneficial to be able to grow in areas that I see the most need in. And so, sometimes, that can be just really understanding some of the interventions that are for anxiety or to help someone with spiritual growth or different interventions for depression. Probably the greatest number of hours of training I have is in trauma, specific interventions for youth and children but also adults.

There are several things about being a counselor that I really enjoy. Probably, just the ability to meet someone at a very vulnerable point and having the opportunity to walk alongside of them and help them understand what their goals are and where they’re wanting to head and then being able to walk alongside of them.

As with any job, there are certainly some not so fun things. Sometimes the hardest part can just be when you are walking alongside, it just seems like they continue to have really difficult life experiences, or maybe they’re walking through a time where they’re involved with some other systems and things aren’t working well.

And, that part there, when sometimes it just feels like there doesn’t seem like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. There always is. But sometimes in those moments, as a counselor, those can be really difficult, you feel with your clients in those moments.

When I was in college, they talked with us a lot about this philosophy of compassion fatigue and making sure that you’re practicing good self-care. Because some days in the social work field can feel really difficult. And I would say as a new graduate and as I started in this field, I definitely had that thought of like, well that’s not going to happen to me, I can do this. And you quickly find out that compassion fatigue and just taking on the people that you care about that you’re working with, taking on some of their hurts, can actually be a really real thing.

And so, I have found it important to just make sure that I have some kind of an outlet after a difficult day or even after a normal day, just to have a way to relieve and let go of some of that stress that you had during the day. So, I find it important for me to do something active or something outdoors that can be really beneficial. I also think an important thing for anyone in this field is that they have a really good layer of support outside of work and at work also. Being able to talk with supervisors, talk with coworkers, and then also just have friends and family that check in and ask how things are going.

If there is someone interested in the mental health field and is thinking that this sounds like a good career option, I would certainly say go for it. I think you will find that in any career there are challenges and there can be hard days, but this can also be a very rewarding career field.

So, I would strongly encourage someone that is interested and is wondering to just let themselves ask some questions about it, and kind of step in and just take it. Maybe if you’re in college, take it semester by semester, and just get a feel for it. I’m talking primarily from the social work field because that’s where my experience is.

But it’s important that as you go into a program like this, that you have a good sense of who you are and that you can be grounded in your beliefs and your value system. As part of this field, you learn a lot about different lifestyle choices and all of that. And it’s all a matter of you’re learning this information and you’re taking it in and then you are left to evaluate. So, where do I stand with this?

And so, it’s really good to make sure that you’re grounded in your belief system and that you have good accountability. You find a mentor in the field, you connect with them, you talk with them about different things that you learned and see what it’s like outside of the college classroom and what it’s like in the field and just that you have a good layer of support.

So, as part of my experience in this field, I have learned a lot about people and human interactions and how different events affect people differently. And one of the things that I have learned over and over as I’ve walked through different situations with different people is that everyone has their own story.

Everyone has their own life experience and the way that they view the world. And so, depending on what somebody’s life story is, it’s going to depend on the way that they react to situations or the reasons that they decide to do certain things. And so, it’s just been a really good learning experience for me that if you aren’t understanding why someone’s doing the things that they’re doing, just take some time to get to know them and get to know their story.

And then everything starts to make a little bit more sense and you’re able to meet them where they’re at and their ideas and just be able to see the world a little bit more through their eyes. I can come in with a curiosity of what are the things that are contributing to maybe the anxiety or the other things that you’re experiencing.

And so, I’m able to learn from their story and that helps inform the direction that we take and the resources that actually are going to be most helpful for that person. I don’t know if you ever stop learning in this field. With each individual that you cross paths with and with each situation that comes up, you learn just a little bit more.

And I certainly am someone who wants to be able to continue to learn from my clients, learn more about the world, different worldviews, and learn about their experiences. Alongside of that, I want to be able to continue to learn how God created us and how God created our minds to work a certain way and how that can intersect with when there’s mental health needs and how to help individuals navigate through that in the way that’s most helpful to them, is most clinically appropriate, and then also can help them the most spiritually as well.

I say to some people it would be great to work myself out of a job, but I think just because of where things are and how life happens, that’s something that probably will never happen. So, there’s always an area where there will be need and there will be people who are looking for someone to support them and walk alongside of them.

Ron’s Interview

My name is Ron Messner. I was born in Winthrop, actually a town near there, but the Winthrop, Minnesota Church, which there’s some context, that’s a little church, was very rural. So, after I’m finishing high school there, I went to school in Morris, Minnesota. It was a small liberal arts branch of the University of Minnesota.

I actually started as a math major because I liked math. I didn’t know you needed to plan any more than that. So, I just started as a math major and a couple years in, I realized I had no clue what I wanted to do and asked a few questions, but not enough and decided to change my major to sociology, which for those of you who are listening would know that’s not a functional degree either.

And finally, my senior year realized I had to figure out what I wanted to do with it. So, I applied for graduate school, four places that I thought I’d be interested in going to. I was accepted at those four, but only at one of them I was offered a grant, and I was pretty financially needy at that point.

And so, I didn’t really think through what I wanted to study. I decided to go to the one that gave me a grant. And the grant was from the National Institute of Mental Health, and required taking a track that was more of a mental health track, and after school, looking to work in the mental health field in a very broad sense.

Yeah, so even in high school, I liked math, but I had an interest in being engaged with people and I still remember in my senior year talking to one of the professors there that I’d gotten to like and took some interest in talking about options. And he said, really, you have to go to graduate school if you want to get some kind of a functional profession or a career in working with people.

And so, that really was the point that I thought about. Then I decided to pursue an advanced degree in social work, being in a very rural area and a relatively uneducated one, there really weren’t careers to look at. There wasn’t somebody I knew who was a social worker. There wasn’t somebody I knew who was a counselor or somebody that I thought, you know, I’d like to be like them.

So, it really wasn’t role model based. It really just was as broad and non-directional as sociology is more people based than math and sociology is a non-functional degree and you have to do something else. And the only reasonable thing to do with it was go on to graduate school in social work. So, once I got accepted and started, then it occurred to me because they laid out the different tracks and the tracks are different today, but there was the mental health track, which was the one that I had the grant in so that made sense, but there also was community work, community advocacy work, and there was a third, maybe more of an administrative. So social work was defined very broadly then as it is now, but it wasn’t until I was in graduate school that I realized that. And really the course that I took, the track that I took, was dictated by the money that I accepted.

And it became interesting, although I was a little bit intimidated because I didn’t know anything about what I studied. At the time that I completed my graduate degree, licensing was not fully in place. I actually don’t know if it was in place at all. What I remember is we were encouraged strongly to become an ACSW, which is through the National Association of Social Workers.

So, it was not state governed. It was not a license. It was across states. So, when licensing started, I don’t know at that time if psychologists were licensed or not. I think they might have been. I mean, it was a related field, but I wasn’t paying close enough attention to it to know. But what I remember is when licensure was put in place for social work, it’s title protection, not practice protection.

And I think that’s significant if you think about, even the world that you live in, who all calls himself a counselor, you cannot call yourself a social worker unless your license is one, but you can do what social workers do if you have a degree in home economics. There’s no protection for the practice and partly because some people would say it’s a fairly soft field and it is in the broad sense a soft field.

It isn’t until you get into specific practice areas that it becomes specific, so you can’t have some other non-related degree and do mental health work. But you can counsel with people. You could set up your own shop and agree to talk to people who are coming out of high school, or people who are having family problems, or whatever those kinds of things.

But you cannot use the title of social worker unless you’ve been taking the test and been licensed as one. You know, so even the titles we use have changed over time. So, if I remember right, I’m not sure of this, but if I remember right, the term psychotherapist wasn’t used as much, and that’s probably the most specific title that’s used today for people who are in mental health work, whether that’s inpatient or outpatient as here at ACCFS.

So, a psychotherapist describing therapy today, within the psychological area, doesn’t just refer to a psychologist. Each of the people we have here, regardless of whether they’re an LCPC, licensed clinical professional counselor, an LCSW, licensed clinical social worker, or a licensed psychologist, we would all claim that generic term of a psychotherapist, a therapist in that area. Our focuses are a little different. Our training was a little different, but that would be the broadest term. So, we probably use counselor more easily because it’s just a more common term. Probably a good example would be sometimes an attorney will be referred to as a counselor. They’re giving counsel in the area of law. So counselor is a term that’s used very broadly and it could refer to somebody who’s giving vocational advice or something like that. So, while we use the term, and when we use it, we’re referring to mental health counselor.

But it’s not as specific. And so, in literature and sometimes as a term psychotherapist as opposed to counselor. Like, it’s a little confusing then with the degree in counseling, which is more clinical. Licensed clinical professional counselor, that does refer to mental health, but in the broad sense, we still tend to use psychotherapists when we want to be specific.

I think the term psychotherapist is becoming more accepted, but it’s still primarily used professionally because I think, not only can it be a little alarming, but it’s just plain not common for people. They’re not sure what that means. What does a psychotherapist do to you? They know that you talk to a counselor and a counselor listens and gives suggestions or try to reshape what you’re thinking.

Most people are not sure what a psychotherapist does. So, it may be partly that they’re intimidated by it, but probably that’s just confusing. The definition is not clear. So, I don’t know if it will be a change that we see. You know, in the coming years that becomes a more common term, but currently that’s not a common term in a general population.

So, people don’t know what it means and they don’t say that. They don’t say, I’m going to see a psychotherapist and I don’t think it’s because they’re afraid of that term. That’s just not what they’re used to hearing. You know, in some ways, I would say that we’re more aware of what we don’t know today as opposed to how confident we are in what we do know.

So, and this I would say is one of the strengths of social work. That social work looks at the whole person in the system and this is not about which is better because in this clinic, we very much use psychology as a way to delve more deeply into somebody’s individual psyche and their makeup and how they think and even brain function.

And I think the social workers add this dimension of encouraging the rest of the staff to think more broadly about family systems, where somebody grew up, what kind of society they were in, what kind of culture they brought forward. So yeah, I’ll say it in a personal way, I think we all draw from that, but I think the social workers may a little bit uniquely think more systemically about what is the system from the time they were born that they came through.

So, that would include genetic issues, but it also would include if there was not just personal trauma, but cultural expectations, things people were exposed to that just became a part of their thinking of their personality. And in the present, what are those systems also, what are the places they live and the things they experience that are informing how they function today that are a part of the story they tell themselves as they think about whether life is good or not good, or whether they’re treated fairly or not fairly.

So, that is the sociology which is kind of the underpinning of that and the emphasis in social work to think about the systems, the person in the system, or the person in society. So, when I was ready to graduate, we were in one of those recessions, this would have been in 1979, and there was not work.

The students who were graduating with me, we were desperately looking at just a few jobs. And so, I had just a couple of interviews, but I was offered one job. So, one of the themes that I want to capture that will be helpful to some of you and not to some of you, is I feel very strongly today that God opened each of these doors, but not because I was seeking them, not because it made sense to me.

It’s just, there was one door open. And so, I consider it just an incredible blessing that when I was done with graduate school, I was offered a job in Crawfordsville, Indiana in an outpatient mental health setting that didn’t even seem like a possibility. I think it’s wise to try to plan and think through and look at options and make choices, but also to trust that if you surrender, God may walk you through that unknowingly also.

And I would say there was very little wisdom, there was even very little spiritual wisdom in ending where I ended. But I had the privilege of working in an outpatient mental health setting and getting this training in mental health as a psychotherapist with a great supervisor who was not a Christian, but who was very much of a nurturer and a teacher.

So, I worked there for two years, which is not enough to learn nearly all there is or to really get trained and intended to continue in that. And then the position at what was then the Home for the Handicapped, what is now Apostolic Christian Life Points, opened up. I had been there, worked and volunteered a few times, and the position opened and they recruited me.

And that was a very traumatic change in course. My wife and I very much actually specifically decided not to go to Central Illinois. That was the one choice we had made. We weren’t going to Central Illinois. We had hoped to move back to Indianapolis, which we both loved. We enjoyed the church, the city.

And we were actively seeking that, and it was obviously not what God had for us. So, I actually ended up spending most of my career, as probably many people know at Life Points. And I don’t think it’s necessary to go into that. I would say just a little bit of an aside. The background in mental health is useful in many settings.

And having that background was very much useful at Life Points because people in that setting. as in every other setting, deal both with social work kind of issues and mental health issues. So, it was useful there, but it wasn’t a clinical setting in terms of that. But we’d been in Illinois, I think about a year, I couldn’t say for sure, I don’t even think I could find the record, but an elder approached me who was working with a young person and wanted them to be in counseling and asked if I would consider doing it. And I’d never thought about setting up a private practice. I didn’t, again, I didn’t initiate that. It’s more like God opened the door and said, you know, you should be doing this.

At least that’s what it felt like. So, I started seeing that one person, it was a good experience. When ACCFS got established, I agreed to roll my private practice into this practice. So, it changed very little for me, except it was a little more convenient in terms of having a place to practice and insurance and those kinds of things being covered, but it actually was a private practice for between 15 and 20 years and then rolled it into this.

And so that continued, even though I was working at Life Points, I continued to give about three hours a week to seeing private clients. As ACCFS got going, the function broadened, but you guys, Ted was through his licensing and practice and we started looking at, so there were some seminars, some seminar development, some education, and as most of you know, it’s continued to grow since then, but initially it was just simply seeing clients, three clients a week and a pretty broad array. There was some marriage things, some depression, anxiety, those things, some adjustment kinds of things.

Nothing that was terribly intense because when you practice alone, you can’t take that on. You don’t try to work through an addiction with somebody who’s actively addicted. You don’t take on a client who is presently psychotic. As ACCFS has gotten established, the situations I see are probably a little bit less clinical and a little bit pastoral.

So, I would say people with situations that need some good support and better insight to manage what they’re doing. But today, I would say I enjoy just as much meeting with a young single person who’s confused about getting their life together and struggling some with self-concept, maybe some spiritual pieces, just as much as somebody who’s dealing with depression, but has some understanding of what it is. And, has the insight and the willingness to work on making some behavioral changes to support that. Or a couple who would benefit just from some good teaching, some good exercises.

So, I would say presently, I don’t have a specific interest because of who we are here. I tend somewhat to get situations that are church related. Somebody who’s either experienced some spiritual distress or maybe some sin issues or discipline or something like that and needs help sorting through that. So that fits somewhat my role as spiritual director to try to be an educator or a liaison between how the church is working with somebody and how we might help them in that process.

I think it would be hard to say exactly what it is that’s satisfying in a specific kind of way, but it’s when you see somebody actually getting either enough insight or information or skills or whatever that is, where they actually change something about their life and it becomes either not as distressing or more fulfilling, or they feel more of a peace about it, or they know where they want to go. But when you see them changed in a way that life’s going to be good. And particularly if it’s a combination of the spiritual and emotional together where there’s a sense of peace and that they’ve resolved whatever they were confused or not handling well in a mental health way, but where they see God in that and realize either better who God is or how they can serve him better or where they’re in a better relationship with him because of what they understand.

So, I think one of the things is people consider whether to go into counseling or psychotherapy. I think there’s several things to think about. And one of those is to be careful that you aren’t going into it to get well. And that’s a mistake that’s often made. I think in any graduate program, you can pretty quickly spot people who have their own distress levels or issues and are thinking somehow that’s going to cure them.

The fact is, people who’ve been through some issues make good counselors, but they need to not be doing it to cure themselves. They need to be doing it because they have a heart for it, because of what they went through. How do you recognize whether you’re doing what you can do? You know, Scripture, I don’t care if it’s with your own children, I mean, issues with your children, or relationships with your parents or work, wherever it is. You can’t make your goal to make things well. Your goal has to be, like that’s out there as a goal, but your goal has to be to contribute whatever you are able to contribute to that. And then know that you’ve done what you can, but you are not responsible for other people’s lives.

So that’s a level of compartmentalizing that counselors who don’t do that, well, they burn out quickly because they take on the burden of the client and that’s what they have to make well. Whatever was presented to them, as opposed to their job being to present whatever skills, or knowledge, or insight could be helpful in the best way that they can understand it and make use of it, but that’s the end of your job then.

If you own the outcome, you will burn out. Do you know, I think probably everybody, regardless of whether you’re an engineer or farmer or pharmacist, whatever you are, as you grow through life and get older, you realize more and more how complex life is and that they’re just aren’t easy answers. They’re not as well-defined answers and you have to figure out how to sustain faith in people and in God in spite of the complexity and the brokenness of the world and brokenness of people around you.

So, I think the older I get the more I continue to realize that there is just a lot of brokenness that’s a result of living in a fallen world. Just that awareness and that I can’t fix that and that I don’t think it’s God’s intention to fix it, but to sustain us in it. In counseling or psychotherapy, probably like in every other ministry that deals with social services, the need is always going to exceed the resources being able to put to that.

So, it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about poverty or support for children or medical services or research or whatever that is, and the same is true in counseling. So, there are people who would say, and I don’t necessarily disagree that everybody could benefit from talking to a psychotherapist or counselor and just getting a little better insight into why you think the way you do, or maybe some triggers that you have or ways that are not helpful.

So, I think it’s pretty difficult to decide to describe the scope of the need. The fact is in every area of practice, it doesn’t matter if it’s medicine, if it’s a cardiologist, you deal with those people who know they have a problem and are willing to come and you deal with the resources you have available. You know there are more people out there who could use that medical service or that medical education and who could use additional help thinking differently about their marriage or about their life or about how they interact with other people or about how they process their own thoughts. So, the need is pretty hard to define.

We tend to think more in terms of, and this is actually a part of mental health diagnosing, it’s somebody who has a certain thought pattern which creates significant dysfunction in their life. So, there are people who have some pretty strange ways of thinking, pretty distorted, but in where they live and who they’re with, it doesn’t create a problem that’s not defined as a mental illness.

It’s when it starts to create dysfunction in work, personal relationships, family, community, then it becomes defined as a mental health issue. And so that’s where we end up targeting those people who are just not making it, experiencing significant distress or have been identified by someone else’s need to get something done.

You can’t work here or I can’t live with you or I can’t manage whatever’s occurring. That’s generally how need gets defined. When somebody chooses to be a psychotherapist, and particularly do that in a Christian setting, people can define that as somehow more noble. Not unlike my work at Life Points.

People are like, well that’s really special, or especially you’re called to that. And I think we have to be careful of that. We are called to align with God in the profession we do. And some people, I mean there need to be people who are producers, people who are engineers and manufacturers and doctors and whatever they are. That’s what makes the totality of society.

So, those of us who have the privilege. of working more personally with people, I would call it a privilege. And I would say it gives us the opportunity to notice God in a different way or call him to people’s attention. And that’s a privilege to be able to do that.

Not unlike the privilege of preaching, but it doesn’t make someone special or different. It’s just an alignment of what skills we’re given and how we address those skills. So, I would say to anybody if your gifts align with counseling and you have an interest in doing that, to consider that a calling to explore.

But it doesn’t make us closer to God or better in our spiritual relationship, but it also would be an error to say that it’s not a privilege. Of course, it is. You get to work with somebody whose marriage is better, more honorable, more God honoring when you’re done, of course that feels good.

I mean, it’s a great privilege. And I think back, you know, not going to use anything that’s identifiable. It’s somebody working through depression and understand that getting in a good place 35 years ago. I still know them. I see how they function as a result of learning that. I don’t even know what my part in it was, but anytime I see them, it’s heartwarming to know that, and not just good because emotionally they’re processing better, but they see God differently because of that.

That’s a privilege.