By Sherry Burke
When the ladies of our prayer shawl group began looking for a new home church, Grace House accepted us with open arms as part of the ministry.
This ministry that has given more than 300 prayer shawls to individuals who are sick, bereaved, or just needed comfort. We formed in 2008 and reformed in 2015 at Grace House
For years, I'd wanted to learn to knit. The peaceful movement of hands creating something beautiful appealed to me. I asked my mother-in-law, who had knit beautiful sweaters as a young mom, to teach me, but she didn't remember how, and by that time had arthritic hands. So I waited.
I felt impressed to start a small group at the church I attended, teaching preteens and teens how to sew. Being short, I have always had to hem store-bought clothes. Growing up, my mom would sew clothes for me and my two sisters and then hand them off to us for finishing. That's what I wanted to teach the others.
After announcing the class, another woman signed up to help. We started out with eight girls. As it sometimes happens, attendance
began to drop.
During this time, my co-leader mentioned to me that she knitted. My hero! A few other ladies expressed an interest in a knitting group, so we bought #8 knitting needles and yarn and we started knitting scarves.
After visiting a church service where a friend was receiving a prayer shawl, my co-leader shared the idea with us. We did our homework, researching the history, meanings and patterns of prayer shawls. A new ministry was born in 2008, with Psalm 91 as our inspiration.
It was fun listening to the Holy Spirit on colors, patterns and who to present the prayer shawls. They were all covered in prayers. Our prayer shawl group prayed, fellowshipped and celebrated together.
At Christmas time, our co-leader mentioned a charity that provided wool bearing animals to needy villages around the world so the wool could be woven into cloth to clothe the people of the villages. We began contributing to that. One year, we even had fundraisers to raise money to send one of our members on a mission trip. We even made enough money for her to come home again!
Something I learned is that many elderly ladies go through a second “empty nest” when their grandchildren are adults and don't visit as much. I tried to meet this need for our elderly members by continuing to meet and celebrate during the holidays and fill that gap.
Over the years, many members have gone on to heaven and more members have come in. God keeps the thread going, knitting us together, and He's added crocheters, too!
In 2015, the group began meeting at the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library until most of us found a church home at Grace House. Pastor Eddie Lawrence and the staff have truly been gracious in accepting our group. After moving to our current location, we began meeting in my home and that move has brought in several ladies who are looking for a church home. We see a lot of answered prayers and praise testimonies in this group.
Note: The Ladies Needlecraft Small Group meets every Monday at 11 a.m. at the home of leader Sherry Burke. For more information on this group or our other small groups at Grace House, visit www.gracehouse.info.