My Prayer Shawl

Yesterday, I was overjoyed that all my children would be home that very night. The house was cleaned and decorated for Christmas, the refrigerator stocked with favorite foods, cookies and homemade pies on the counter, bathrooms sparkling, towels all laid neatly on the freshly made beds. I was preparing to leave to go pick up Anders, my oldest, from the airport, and Matt and his lovely wife Karissa were due in at any time. I was filled with joy and anticipation...but I must admit, there was a deep sadness as well. Sadness for the children and families of Newtown, sadness for the death of my friends Comer and Evelyn in the past two weeks, sadness for my hands and the strange growing lumps, sadness for the difficulties in our job situation...It has not been the easiest month. Still, I could not wait for my dear boys and daughter-in-law, and to to have us all together for a whole week under one roof.

I was racing out the door, a little late to leave for the airport, when I saw a strange car in the driveway.
"Oh oh," I thought, "Jehovah's witnesses...and I really have to go now!"
But it wasn't Jehovah's witnesses. It was a friend who I rarely see, but she went to our old church.
"Hi Pat," I said, "I am so sorry, but I am flying out the door to leave for the airport."
"I didn't come to stay," she said, "I just came to drop this off."
She handed me a gift bag.
Pat is a Facebook friend too, follows my blog, and lives near. However, I would never have expected a gift from her.
I guess I had a surprised expression on my face, as I took the bag, because she explained, "It is a prayer shawl. I had the sense you needed it."
My eyes welled with tears, I hugged and thanked her, and she returned to her car and drove away.

As I sat in the cell phone lot waiting for Anders' plane to land, I read the card she had enclosed. She, and a group of lovely ladies from the church, gather regularly and pray over these shawls as they knit them. They pray for the peace and love of God that surpasses all understanding to bathe the person who wraps that shawl around their shoulders. I wrapped the shawl around my shoulders, crying, and wondered how she knew how much I needed it. And how could such a soft and gentle thing as a homemade shawl bring so much comfort?

I think the funeral for one of the children in my Newtown cousin's church gets buried today. I have been drawing pictures of my thoughts of Newtown. I can't knit, so my art is my prayer shawl for my cousin, for Newtown, for our country, for my own troubled heart. God is wrapping his arms around children that will never again feel pain. And His emissaries are wrapping their prayer shawls, whatever form that offering takes, around His hurting people here on Earth.

Jeremiah 8:18 (NIV)
You who are my Comforter in sorrow, my heart is faint within me.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5 (NIV)
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, [4] who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. [5] For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.






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