Welcome to Sisters in Service, a series designed to lift, inspire, and motivate us to celebrate the (many!) different ways we can serve our brothers and sisters while we're here on earth. Each post will spotlight a project or idea that's lifting others and serving the Lord in ways big and small. There are so many ladies out there who are doing some amazing things!
(Don't you just want to hug her?!)
Heather blogs about faith, family, creativity, and choosing a joyful life. Her positivism (and realism) is wonderfully refreshing, as is her cute style! She also has a special project going called the
Joyful Life Library, which provides joyful books for families in pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) across the country. So... take it away, Heather!
In a sentence, what's your project?
The Joyful Life Library aims to create children's libraries in as many PICUs around the country as we can as a way to bring a bit of comfort from home to the hospital.
Why is this project important to you?
While we were in the hospital and hospice home with our newborn son, for all but 3 days of his 6-week life, we discovered the difference small bits of comfort can make on your life. Each small moment of kindness we experienced during those days helped us to keep putting one foot in front of the other. We learned firsthand that as parents, there wasn't much we could do to participate in our son's care, but by reading to him it helped us to feel involved. It helped to relax his heart rate and helped to relax us too, and now we want to make books available to all families whose children have been thrust into a similar medical crisis.
What's your long-term vision for this project?
I would love nothing more then to see this project expand to sponsor a library in every pediatric intensive care unit in the country, and of course be able to keep all those shelves filled with joyful children's books.
How can I get involved?
One of the things I understood very clearly when God put this on my heart was that it was not MY project. It's HIS and he wants as many hands touching it as possible. Because of that, we are constantly looking at new ways to get people involved.
If your heart feels compelled to help us bring comfort to kiddos in the midst of a medical crisis, you can:
- Help us establish a Joyful Life Library at your local children's hospital
- Host a book drive for one of our sponsored hospitals that's near you - Host a virtual book drive (use our joyful life library Amazon wish lists; see two of them here and here) for any of the hospitals we sponsor - Become a sponsor of my blog, which allows you to buy books for a sponsored hospital AND advertise your business or blog
You can read more about the Joyful Life Library right
here. Thanks for visiting, Heather, and for sharing your amazing project with us!
