Twenty Ways to Support Families Facing Medical Challenges

"Let me know what I can do." 

It is an offer we make to families facing illnesses, hospital stays or medical challenges.  We all say it, and we mean it, but it is also an offer we know they won't take us up on.  It is not a matter of gratitude.  Help offers are always appreciated.  Help is likely needed, but those families might not have the energy to muster up suggestions or the ultra vulnerable response, "Yes, please help me."

Our family's past year was a giant medical challenge, and we have been loved right through it.  Our friends gently and intentionally placed us on a mat and heaved us over their heads for carrying.  From our position perched on the shoulders of others, we were taught to graciously say yes to receiving offered blessings.  We were loved on in a host of creative ways, and our hope is to pay that forward to others when needed.  

But how can any of us show big support in ways that don't max out our already maxed agendas?  First, we remind ourselves that it's not about perfection.  It's not about impressing.  It's about loving.  It's about sending the message that you will stand shoulder to shoulder in the hard places.  It's simply about showing up.

Here are twenty incredibly thoughtful and helpful ways in which our family has been shown support.  I hope they spark ideas for ways your family can serve others.    Pick one of these and go for it when someone facing a challenge doesn't respond to, "Let me know how I can help you." 

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1.  Meals.  A family might be capable of toasting some bread and scrambling up some eggs, but the gift of a meal is as much of an emotional blessing as it is physical help.    My favorite site for online coordination is Take Them a Meal.  The organizer can easily set up and send out a calendar with sign-up slots.  Volunteers can see what others are bringing and also get emailed reminders.  Food equals love, people.   Many times when my family saw friends standing in our doorway with soup and salad, our hearts were lifted.  And it was their presence and their hugs that mattered even more than their ciabatta bread. 

Meals do NOT need to involve your finest, most complicated recipes.  Rotisserie chicken and grocery store sides are all kinds of yummy too.  This is not about exhausting yourself.  It is about blessing by doubling your spaghetti dinner or halfing a big pot of chili. 

2.  Group Prayer:  Get your friends, your life group, or your neighbors together to pray big, bold, out loud prayers prior to a surgery.  It doesn't have to be a big event, just a circle spilling their requests before the Lord. 

3.  Voxer Messages.  Download the Voxer app on your phone and have your friends do the same.  This app was a sweet lifeline during one of our long, out of state hospital stays .  It works like voice texting, and allows an ongoing conversation that you can listen to, or record, when you get free moments.   Uninterrupted, coherent phone conversations while in the hospital are hard, but hearing the voice of those who love you is a spirit lifter.  I might have spilled my guts in LONG Voxers a time or two. 

4.  Hospital Care Bags: Fill a bag with some comfort items for weary families spending days in sterile hospital rooms.  Include things like chocolate, magazines, granola bars, chapstick, fuzzy socks, chocolate, tea, bags of grapes, nuts, hand lotion, a journal and pen, and more chocolate of course.

 

5.  Visit.  Always ask first if company would be a blessing.  If it's a yes, then show up to be shoulder to shoulder in support.   Consider asking if you can pick up some non-cafeteria food.  When you show up with a Chipotle or Panera bag, don't be surprised if you see tears.  Try keeping the visit to under an hour, as patients get tired easily. 

6. Text Personal Videos/Knock Knock Jokes:  Don't have time to visit or whip up lasagna?  No fear.  Pull out your phone, tap record and have your kids, or your whole family, send a get well video message.  Send videos of the kids telling goofy knock-knock jokes.  In the easiest way possible, you are "present" on a hard day. 

7.  Gift Cards: It can't be denied, we all love them, and they are a big blessing to a family facing medical challenges.  Think Starbucks, Subway, hospital meal cards, and restaurants that deliver. Our family also got an iTunes card which was a fun pampering of new songs and games to entertain us.   If travel is required for surgery, gas gift cards help lighten financial burden. 

8.  Hospital, Ronald McDonald House, or at Home Mail:  Send a card.  It will matter.  Kid art is the best.

9.  Balloon, Flower or Cookie Bouquet Delivery:  Ever see someone hand a two year old a balloon on a string?  Yep. 

10.  Text or Message:  It means something for someone to remember where you are and what you are facing.  You might not get an immediate response, but don't think it too small an act.  Don't wait until you have the right, profound words to share.  Just send your love. 

11.  Prayer Blankets:  We were given an adult and Evie size hand tied fleece blankets for an out of state hospital stay and we snuggled up under those blessings with deep gratitude.   Just buy two pieces of fleece fabric and create "no sew" blankets.  These become "prayer blankets" when loved ones pray over the family as they tie pieces. 

 

12.  Send a Laugh: Jimmy Fallon might bring a smile during a hard moment.  Email a clip. 

13.  FREE Online Hospital Cards:   Lots of hospitals have free inner hospital mail.  You can easily create your own card online and the hospital will deliver it.  Surprise mail is always a win. 

14.  Child Entertainment: Fill a plastic tub with nail polish, temporary tatoos, fuzzy & fun socks, Color Wonder markers and books, glow sticks, Play-Doh, bubbles, jumbo coloring books, or stickers.   

15.  Prayers, Scripture, or Card Compilation: Ask friends to each share a verse of scripture that they'll be praying over the family and then give them in an envelope, or have those friends each type a prayer to be printed and attached together.

16.  Make a Spotify Playlist:  Use this fun website to create 2015's version of the mix tape.  Find songs, save to a playlist and share for late night listening or to fill a hospital room, or home in crisis, with songs of hope.  Here's a playlist I share with medical mommas. 

17.  Laundry:  Give a couple days heads up that you'd love to serve by doing laundry.  Sheets, socks, underwear and all. 

18.  Unplanned Blessing Drops:  Several times post-surgery for us last year a friend showed up with warm banana bread. This act of kindness blessed us big as it was pampering, comforting and helpful, a support trifecta. 

Knock on a door with breakfast muffins, a devotional book, a bowl of cut fruit, a handful of flowers, pre-cut veggies and hummus, or cookies.  It doesn't need to be a full meal to help and bless. 

19.  Offer a Play Date or Fun Outing for Kids: Whether it is a parent who is sick, or a child, offering some fun time for kids/siblings is so helpful.  Knowing your kids are getting to have fun is relief for parents' stretched out hearts.  Be specific, "Can the kids go to a movie with us on Thursday night?" 

20.  Date Night Babysitting:   Offer to babysit so the parents can decompress over dinner or de-stress with some laughs at a movie.    Be specific, "Can I babysit on Friday or Saturday night?"

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There are so many creative ways to bless families facing medical challenges. 

Somehow still, I often miss it. 

A friend's child receives a hard diagnosis, someone faces a challenging recovery, or another friend's husband faces a cancer battle. 

So I get scared or I get sad.  I'm not sure what to say, so I say nothing.

I plan to come up with the perfect words, but I never do.

Or, I say, "Let me know how I can help."  But I know they'll never respond. 

I've missed it so many times. 
 

But now we've been on the receiving end of community's lavish care, and we've got some paying it forward to do. We know what to do and how to do it.

All of us were made to walk through life' seasons together, both the hard and the beautiful, celebrating the joys, and also carrying one another's burdens.