The creation of a prayer shawl is, at its core, an act of faith. We spend hours knitting or crocheting, often with no idea who will receive it, no idea why it is needed, no idea what God has planned for it. We work the yarn, pray, and leave the rest to God. We may hear about it after it’s been given, often in the form of a thank you note. We don’t usually see the impact a shawl has the person who received it. Regardless, we knit and pray on, trusting God to deliver each shawl into the right hands at the right moment in time.
Sometimes, though, we catch a glimpse of a prayer shawl at work. Mary Flynn, a prayer shawl maker in Gales Ferry, Connecticut, recently shared a prayer shawl story with me that took my breath away. One of her friends worked in a nursing home and often spoke about residents who had very few visitors. Mary shared her friend’s concern, so she took some shawls from her prayer shawl ministry over to the nursing home. She visited with residents her friend picked out, ones who rarely had company, giving each one a shawl. One woman made a particularly deep impression on Mary:
“As I gave her the shawl and explained about it, she started to cry and said, ‘I thought God had forgotten about me.'”

Such a simple thing, a visit to a person in a nursing home. Such a simple thing, the gift of a prayer shawl. Yet these two gifts brought a sense of the loving presence of God to a lonely heart that had despaired of mattering to Him.

Keep making those shawls. Keep pouring the love of God into your work as you stitch and pray. Keep sending shawls out into the world. Trust that God knows what He wants to do with each and every one of your creations: something good and kind, something strong and loving, that will bring a sense of His presence near to help someone keep going, because prayer shawl ministry is the place where courage and kindness meet.