“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.
A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.
So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.
Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him.The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper.
‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
Jesus asked them ,
“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
I think the parable also answers the question “Who gives health care?”
The story doesn’t mention doctors, nurses, or other medical professionals but many health care facilities and charitable organizations use the name “good Samaritan” .
Health care includes a variety of acts that contribute to health and well being such as
donate food to a local food bank
deliver meals to housebound persons
coach sports teams
donate clothes, blankets and toiletries to a homeless shelter
take an animal to visit residents of a nursing home
help with clean up after a natural disaster
learning and using CPR
teaching a child to ride a bicycle or swim
helping a special needs child ride a horse
taking soup to a sick friend
driving a disabled person to a medical appointment
In a sermon about the good Samaritan,
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said,
“I imagine that the first question the priest and Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But by the very nature of his concern, the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
Health care, whether done by professionals or laypersons, asks the same question-
“What will happen if I don’t stop to help?”
Learn more about the work of Samaritan’s Purse and consider what you might do to help support its work.
Thanks for visiting and exploring the HEART of health with me through words of faith, hope, and love and join me in sharing the HEART of health.
In this post I remember how smoking has changed since I was a child. The health risk was minimized or even ignored. But that changed. Even so, it remains a leading cause of preventable illness. Here are resources for quitting .
updated July 2, 2025
One of my favorite vacation spots has been Colorado, even more so now that some of my grandchildren live them. On one trip to the Colorado Springs area, I enjoyed walking through Seven Falls.
Seven Falls is a series of seven cascading waterfalls of South Cheyenne Creek in South Cheyenne Cañon. To get to the falls, you walk a one-mile scenic path through the canyon, passing trees, towering cliffs, and a winding stream. Along the way, I passed more “no smoking” signs than I have seen anywhere.
On the path to the Seven Falls, Colorado
Smoking Then and Now
I grew up when smoking was socially acceptable and widely practiced, and no one worried about the health effects. My mother and her friends smoked, even in our house.
She would drive us to the grocery store, stay in the car, and send me inside with 50 cents to purchase a pack of cigarettes for her. She told me, “Tell the clerk it’s for your mother.” In today’s world, she could be charged with child neglect for doing that.
When I was an adult, she quit the habit but unfortunately not before smoking had caused atherosclerosis (hardening) of her leg arteries, limiting blood flow and making walking painful. Surgery corrected this, but the arteries in her brain were also affected, leading to dementia in late life.
Cigarette advertising was everywhere; billboards, television, magazines. Even JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, had cigarette ads. I went to medical conferences where, during the breaks, physicians would go into the lobby and light up cigarettes. After just listening to a lecture on heart disease!
Hazardous to Your Health
All that changed when tobacco companies admitted the harmful effects of smoking, which had been known but was covered up. The Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 required the following health warning, prescribed by Congress, to be placed on all cigarette packages sold in the United States:
CAUTION: CIGARETTE SMOKING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH.
the Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act
Gradually, almost all public places in the United States have been made smoke-free. But even though the smoking rate has steadily declined, smoking is still the leading cause of death and preventable illness in this country and much of the world.
Most people know that cigarette smoking harms our health, being directly linked to heart attacks, strokes, lung and other cancers, and emphysema.
But you may not know about some other conditions that smoking causes or aggravates.
Smoking Harms Pregnancy and Babies
Smoking affects fertility, pregnancy, and infants. Smoking can make it harder for a woman to become pregnant and can affect a man’s sperm. Smoking increases risks for:
Preterm (early) delivery
Miscarriage
Stillbirth (death of the baby before birth)
Low birth weight
Sudden infant death syndrome (known as SIDS or crib death)
Ectopic (outside the uterus) pregnancy
Cleft lip in infants
Smoking and Diabetes
Smoking is a cause of type 2 diabetes mellitus and can impair control of blood glucose (sugar). The risk of developing diabetes is 30–40% higher for active smokers than nonsmokers. Diabetes is a major cause of atherosclerosis, hardening of the arteries in the heart, kidney, legs, which is also aggravated by smoking.
Smoking and Bones
Smoking can affect bone health, leading to osteoporosis. Women past childbearing years who smoke have weaker bones than women who never smoked, and are at greater risk for broken bones.
Smokers tend to hurt more than non-smokers and narcotic-type pain meds don’t relieve pain as well as in non-smokers.
Smoking and Teeth
Smoking affects the health of your teeth and gums and can cause tooth loss. It yellows the teeth as tar builds up in the enamel, also leading to bad breath.
Smoking and Eyes
Smoking can harm your eyesight. It increases your risk for
cataracts (clouding of the eye’s lens that makes it hard to see) and
age-related macular degeneration (damage to a small spot near the center of the retina, the part of the eye needed for central vision).
Smoking and Inflammation
Smoking aggravates and may even cause several chronic inflammatory diseases, including
Rheumatoid arthritis
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus- SLE or lupus
Multiple sclerosis
Smoking and Skin
And, it affects your appearance.
By decreasing circulation, smoking causes the skin to weaken and be more susceptible to infection, wrinkles and acne.
And it increases the risk for grey hair and baldness.
This is the bad news. Fortunately, the good news is that there are many resources available to help you quit smoking. The link at the bottom will lead you to help. Of course, you should ask your own physician for advice.
This post reviews Say Goodby for Now. Dr. Lucy lives alone except for the menagerie of injured animals she has doctored back to life. She likes her life the way it is, until she opens her home to three unexpected and unlikely guests. The book references important historical events.
I snapped all the photos in this post, including the cover photo.
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