I love being a writer. Most days, anyway. Sometimes, when paychecks are few and far between, or too small, it’s not easy.
But today, I see my kids off to school, then make that long commute up the stairs to my office, still in my pajamas, to write this. I love that.
This week I was working on a magazine article. While I don’t want to give away all the details here, I did want to give you a little preview.
Some of the articles I write are devotional in nature, like this one in MomSense magazine. Others allow me to be a journalist, to research interesting topics—like this article I wrote on the Chronicles of Narnia movie for Outreach Magazine.
I had my journalist hat on this week, writing an article about what has become an international phenomenon, the Prayer Shawl Ministry. And while I’m just reporting on an interesting group, their story inspired me. It made me want to take steps toward following my dreams, and it made me want to wrap those I love with the loving embrace of prayer.
Here’s what I wrote about: Groups of women all over the world are gathering to knit or crochet large shawls, and as they knit, they pray. Often their knitting circles become a sort of worship service, with prayer, singing and fellowship.

The finished shawls are blessed, then given away, as God leads. Often, they’re given to people who are going through a difficulties, but also, to commemorate positive milestones, such as weddings, births or baptisms.
The Shawl Ministry has sprung up in churches all over the world, but it was first started by two Boomer women with a dream.
Founders Janet Briscow and Victoria Galo met in a 1998 at the Women’s Leadership Institute, a program of applied feminist spirituality, at Hartford Seminary. The instructor of their class challenged them to do something tangible with what they had learned, and the two women decided to start making shawls for people that they knew.
As they knit for friends and family, people would ask what they were doing, and they’d share the pattern, share their idea. If you want a dream to grow, sometimes you have to give it away, and that’s what these two Boomer women did—they gave away their idea, shared not only the shawls but also information on how to make them. Their little idea has grown and blessed others all around the world.
Many of the groups are Christian and meet in churches, but Briscow told me that there are Jewish groups, and even a Zen Buddist group in Paris that makes the shawls. And the groups are not just women, but also there are some men’s groups as well.
The women say knitting a shawl to give away is a spiritual practice that connects them with the “maternal, soothing, gentle side of God.”
You can read more in my article, which is scheduled to be published in a future issue of Today’s Christian Woman. But I did want to tell you a bit about it. And to challenge you—what dream can you take a small step toward realizing today? What can you freely give to others to bless them, because in the process, you’ll be blessed? And how can you wrap love around those who need to feel the comfort of a kind word, a gentle hug, or a whispered prayer?

Keri

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