The Prayer Shawl

This is the latest prayer shawl I made. I know I made it a few weeks ago, but I don't remember exactly when. Chances are good this prayer shawl will go to the next of kin of a fallen soldier.

I've done post regarding Prayer Shawls 4 Fallen Soldiers before and this amazing project continues to provide blessings in ways I never imagined.

I recently sent out seven letters to families telling them a shawl has been created in memory of a loved one. The last mailing we did, we received a wonderful letter from a mother you can read about here. We send letters out before we send the shawls to make sure the letters get to the right place, to make sure the family is somehow offended or doesn't want the shawl, or if we need to send the shawl to someone or someplace else. We give those letters a few weeks to get there and come back and then we send out the shawls. The letter includes names, addresses, email and phone numbers so family members can verify we are not capitalizing on their grief. We train ourselves never to expect contact.

I received a phone message from a mother who was so moved by the project (even though the shawl has not yet been sent) that she wants to donate cash/yarn to further the goal. I left a message back for her that said we would accept her donation and we promise to use the yarn to create a shawl that will be sent to another family and in the note we would specify the shawl came through the generosity of a soldier's family who wanted to move it forward.

Blessings are like ripples: they go forth, hit the shore and then come back and they stop at so many places between.