Every day people everywhere are admitted to the hospital for serious illnesses and diseases. A small act of thoughtfulness can console those who are recovering.
“2004 statistics for the United States show that coronary heart disease (CHD) is the single leading cause of death in America. CHD causes heart attack and angina.… Estimates are that 9,100,000 people in the United States suffer from angina.”27
Join your family in shopping for lotions, books (used books can be found inexpensively at thrift stores, garage sales, or library fundraisers), magazines, socks, generic pajamas, and small knickknacks. Put together small decorated boxes of items for those who are in the intensive care unit at the hospital. Place a piece of clear cellophane wrap around each box, and curl ribbons or add a bow for a cheerful look. Remember to include a generic card and a Bible.
Those who have suffered heart attacks, strokes, or other life-threatening circumstances will appreciate the thoughtfulness that comes with the boxes your family donates. The hospital will be able to have them on hand for when such needs arise.
Up for Discussion
What did your family write in the card that was included in the boxes you donated? What other words of comfort or verses would be especially helpful to someone facing any type of illness or disease? What other items did you place in the boxes? Why would decorating the boxes and adding the cellophane wrap and bows be important? How did completing this project humble you in regard to your own good health?
Proverbs 15:30 states, “Good news gives health to the bones.” How could the boxes you provided be a form of “good news”? How would this apply to the good news in the Bible that was placed inside the gift packs?
Read Heb. 13:2. Discuss how this verse applies to the activities throughout this book that are done for strangers. Why should we think not only of family and friends when it comes to being thoughtful but also those we don’t know?
Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.
—Heb. 13:2