My World and Welcome to It!

These are my thoughts and opinions about life in general. I also get daily prompts from DSP which inspire me to write. If I throw in some scrapbook pages I've done, photos I've taken, and stories about me, you will have an idea about my loony life!

Monday, March 01, 2010

The Prayer Shawl

BrightShawl For about a year, I have been knitting and donating prayer shawls to our Loving Threads group at church. I’ve really enjoyed knitting these and many people have even donated yarn to me for this project. Some of the yarn has been pretty bright and colorful so my shawls have been bright and colorful.

When I was a teenager, I remember having a ski jacket that was purple, pink, orange and yellow. It was so bright that it always put me in a good mood. I don’t know why but I suddenly had this urge to make a shawl with these bright colors. I usually go through my yarn stash and wait for certain color combinations to jump out at me and urge me to make into a shawl. For some reason, as much as I tried not to pick these colors, they kept standing out among the others. Even though people looked at me with raised eyebrows, I just felt compelled to make this shawl. In fact, at times, I even wondered if this shawl wasn’t just a little too bright but I continued until it was complete. My husband told me that we could only hope that maybe someone with cataracts got it and it wouldn’t be too overwhelming.

When I turned it in, everyone agreed that it was pretty bright. I didn’t find out until later that our group leader was a little worried about who would want this bright shawl.

This past Sunday when we met again, the leader told me the story about the shawl. Apparently a woman came and asked for a prayer shawl to give to a young girl just diagnosed with cancer. They went to the box where the shawls are and there on the top was my bright shawl. Immediately the woman saw it and said that was the perfect one. That was the shawl that would brighten this young girl’s life.

Maybe sometimes we need to trust that there is a reason in life for us doing certain things. Maybe that is how God sends messages to us. I see now that God knew this girl would need this shawl and knew that I was the one who needed to make it. I hope it brings her hope and comfort as well as brightness in her life.

And the next time, this feeling hits me, I hope that I have the courage to stick with it, no matter what others say! Someone may need what I need to make.

4 comments:

diane said...

That's a wonderful story, Pat. I like to picture that young woman wearing your shawl, wrapped in love and compassion.

lisbonlioness said...

Pat,
you don't strike me as the kind of person who gives a heck what others think.
You brightened somebody's life, what else could one ask for?
You sure as heck brightened mine, and even though that rainbow scarf went to somebody else, I still feel wrapped up, looked after, catered for and understood when I read your posts.
And who is "everybody else" anyway?
Thanks for being there, Pat. Maybe, one day, crossing oceans, time zones and god knows what other obstacles to be put aside, I will wear one of your ridiculously coloured scarves. I can't wait.

SCCC Garden Club said...

I loved the colors and you made the perfect color choices. Yup, our inner feelings tell us more than someone elses feelings.

Tammy said...

Pat, that is my post above. I was logged into the Garden Clubs blog posting and forgot to change over to my other username. Sorry about that.