While we’ve all been sheltering in place, trying to slow the spread of COVID-19, I’ve been travelling. No, I haven’t been taking my life and the lives of others into my hands, but I’ve let my fingers do the walking to prayer shawl groups all over the country. If you’ve been following my blog, you know that lately I’ve been visiting prayer shawl groups via their church websites. I love to see the photos of prayer shawl makers at work and the photos of the work of their hands–shawls arrayed along communion rails ready to be blessed or piled on tables with smiling faces peering over the top.
In the course of my travels, I’ve come across some wonderful names for prayer shawl groups. There’s Skeins and Scones (yum!) at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in East Petersburg, Pennsylvania, Angel Hands at The Episcopal Church of the Advent in Lillian, Alabama (I can see their hands moving like angel wings as they work), and Knit Unto Others at Christ Episcopal Church in Winchester, Virginia. And little did I know when I began to write my prayer shawl novel, The Heavenly Hugs Prayer Shawl Ministry back in 2014 that there is a real Heavenly Hugs Prayer Shawl Ministry at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in South Windsor, Connecticut!
There are several groups named the Knit Wits and if they’re anything like the Knit Wits at North Decatur Presbyterian in Decatur, Georgia, they’re a lot of fun. The Decatur ladies have included me in their quarantine email banter and I appreciate the chance to laugh in the midst of this trying time. As Proverbs 17:22 tells us, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.”
And then there are the Warrior Women of Wesley United Methodist Church in Austin, Texas. I love the image that their name evokes of prayer shawl makers wielding their needles, hooks, and prayers against sickness, sorrow, and despair. Although our ministry looks quite gentle as we sit and stitch, it is also quite a courageous one. We look difficult situations in the face–serious illness, the deep sadness of loss, and heart-wrenching ordeals–and then we pray, stitching our prayers into a reminder that no matter what happens, God is near and He cares.
Hold this truth close to your heart as you stitch and pray through this time. God is near and He cares.