What happens when you listen...

Okay, so the other day I was gripped with a compulsion to knit a lace shawl. I didn't have a particular one in mind, just a basic shape. I searched through the extensive database on knittingpatterncentral.com, but didn't find any that spoke to me. Then I looked in my own computer, for patterns I had downloaded and saved already. I found "Leaf Lace Scarf" by Janet Russell of twistedknitter.com. I love the lace pattern, but I didn't want a 6 inch wide scarf. And I didn't have any laceweight malabrigo anyway. So I grabbed my fingering weight recycled cotton(it used to be an enormous ribbed sweater) and my size 7 circular and started casting on. I decided to do 7 repeats of the lace pattern instead of 3, and I think I guessed right; it's over 24 inches wide. Perfect. And since I'm using size 7 needles, it's turning out very airy and drapey. I've gotten about 6 inches done.

Yesterday, as I was knitting, God brought to my mind my sister who is pregnant. She called me last week, telling me she had had some pre-term labor (27 weeks). With her previous pregnancy, she was in labor, off and on, for 6 weeks. This time it's started even earlier. She wanted to keep the news quiet for now, so her family wouldn't worry about her, but she told me because I was her prayer warrior last time. (Nobody I know in real life reads this blog yet, so it won't be an issue, me mentioning it here.) So I promised I would pray for her again this time. And God reminded me of that as I was knitting my lace shawl. So I prayed as I knitted. And it seemed as though He told me (not audibly, but it might as well have been) "This shawl is for her." So I'm knitting a shawl for my sister. And praying as I knit. I'm praying for a happy, uneventful pregnancy for her and a beautiful, healthy, full-term baby girl. Hopefully, I'll get the shawl done before June, so I can send it to her as a baby gift; I think it would make a lovely nursing cover-up.

And now I know that knitting this lace shawl (a type of project I had never even considered before) was not my idea at all. It's amazing what happens when we allow ourselves to listen to the inaudible voice of the Lord.