Nine Ways to Bend the Curve

Make someone's day

It would be reasonable to think that there are not that many greeting cards bought or sent these days as compared to say fifty years ago. Maybe because of the price of a postage stamp. Maybe because the electronic age is in full swing and has basically replaced what they call “snail mail” because we are all in a super-rush these days. Who has any extra time anyway? And there are so many other reasons too.

So, we might be surprised to learn “according to the Greeting Card Association, Americans purchase 6.5 billion greeting cards each year. Hallmark publishes cards in more than 30 languages and distributes them in more than 100 countries.” https://www.hallmark.com/cards/

Wow! Who knew! And this is just one (major) card company; there are also others to add. 

There may be many among us who still enjoy sending and, of course, receiving a welcome note or greeting from a friend or family member. It’s still fun and can brighten our day no matter what is going on in our lives. Sometimes it’s obvious why the card appears in our mailbox—a birthday, congratulations, thank you, or graduation day. It can even deeply touch our hearts if the card is one of sympathy. On all these occasions, we know someone cares and has not forgotten us.

What Are We to Do?

In these strange and terrifying days we live in right now, buying and sending a card to someone may seem very trivial and of little importance. In fact, there are plenty of merchants right now who are going out of business due to all the confusion, illness, and rioting in our world. We surely have never seen such chaos.

But what are we to do? We may be wrong, but it seems that the only solution to returning to “normal” is to:

Be a good neighbor

First, do our part and be responsible to our worldly neighbors by following the guidelines given by medical (not political) professionals. No. No one is trying to take away our freedom! Do we wear seatbelts in our cars? Do we wait at the sign to cross the street? Do we pay for our food or clothing items at the register? And so on. Why? Because if we do, we will enjoy a better world without chaos.

Second, we can try our best to continue caring for other human beings and strive for normalcy. We all know this is true because we as single-again women have been through a chaotic situation ourselves just getting to this point in our lives. We know how good it feels to finally reach a turning point and have a friend encourage us to keep on, keeping on.

In the same way, we can support, encourage, and care for others in many ways. We can manage to do something instead of sitting around twiddling our thumbs or worse yet, participating in rioting (hatred and anger), destroying businesses (stealing/shoplifting), protesting (complaining), and generally stoking the cause rather than finding solutions to our current problems.                 

Nine Ways to Bend the Curve

If we were asked to make a list of what we could individually do to help our friends and neighbors, what would that be? Try it.

1. Buy/make extra face coverings and handing them out to others
2. Cook/bake a dish to share with someone out of work
3. Babysit for a single Mom
4. Smile and thank the clerk at the grocery store
5. Volunteer at a food bank once a week
6. Leave a larger tip to a waitress
7. Pick up groceries for a shut-in neighbor
8. Surprise a friend with a flowering plant
9. Send thank you cards to the local police/fire station/hospital

Your turn. Go ahead and add to this list.

“As for the rest of you, dear brothers and sisters, never get tired of doing good” (2 Thessalonians 3:13 NLT).

Healing the Wounds

God will hear our prayers

Everyone is hurting right now in some way or another. Even if the virus has not hit our households personally, just watching others suffer is painful. Seeing our family members struggle with job loss is excruciating. Watching multiple members of one family lose their lives is agonizing.

If we can do nothing else, we can all do one thing. In fact, we should be doing this first. We can pray without stopping. God will hear. He wants to see us return to an even better situation than we had in the past. A life with Him and for Him. That IS the solution.

“Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14 NLT).