How do you pick an encouragement card when you’re not sure what to say?
If you’re like me, you’re always looking for just the right encouragement card to send a friend or relative to convey safety, support and comfort for them when they’re facing difficult times. But coming up with the right words isn’t always easy.
Consider these three ideas to help you pick the right encouragement card with the right message for your friend or family member.
1. Lean on your experience
Looking back, our own personal experiences can often help us to empathize and better understand the level of grief, stress, despair or loss of hope with which our loved one is struggling.
Using that personal experience as a reference point, I can then briefly try to “walk a mile in their shoes” to gain a sense of what encouragement message would have been most welcome to me back then under similar circumstances. This is one strategy to work toward conveying comparable words of inspirational or motivational support that your specific recipient might find most useful and uplifting.
2. Offer support and comfort
In general, it seems that many people are not particularly looking for advice about their struggles. Often, they appreciate patient assurances, knowing that there are people close by, who truly care and are eager to understand how best to help.
The “best way” to help may come through the simple act of listening or by staying in touch regularly. A message in an encouragement card can act as a reminder that the recipient is truly not forgotten.
3. Explore Treehouse Meditation cards
Treehouse Meditations started because I couldn’t always find the right message or sentiment in the greeting cards I found. Here are three featured encouragement cards by Treehouse Meditations to get you started:
- To comfort someone who’s grieving: Featuring a beautiful butterfly, Mourn reflects the peace and beauty of the simplest things in our lives and alludes to the idea that butterflies in particular are often considered a sign of hope in a challenging world. This encouragement card references one of the better known Beatitudes: “Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” and serves as a reminder that hope is sometimes the first step in healing.
- To encourage someone on a long journey: How Many Miles features a barren landscape, threatening storm clouds and a seemingly endless road. While the path forward may be a long and often difficult journey, the Lord offers the encouragement we need to persevere toward a future that holds promise of better days ahead.
- To remind someone where to find strength: Featuring a powerful eagle in full flight, Refuge references a passage from Isaiah, comparing our image of that eagle to the strength, resolve and ultimately the refuge the Lord provides. God gives each of us the confidence and determination that our personal renewal is at hand, with His help.
Like all of the cards I have produced, each of the above examples had its origin several years ago. I’ve drawn inspiration from our original images and paired them with Bible verses I hold dear. My hope is that these notes of comfort and support, unified with attention-getting images, resonate with the recipients of these cards.
