Read Online Love Inspired November 2014 #2 by Allie Pleiter, Lorraine Beatty - Free Book Online Page A

really talented you are.”
    Charlotte reached into her knitting bag and produced a sky-blue shawl of mohair-silk lace. Stitched from a knitting pattern and yarn Mima had brought back from Ireland, Charlotte considered this shawl a personal masterpiece.
    â€œWow. You weren’t kidding, Melba. That’s beautiful!” Tina, one of the older ladies of the group, ran her fingers across the intricate stitch work.
    â€œI told you, she’s talented,” Melba boasted. “Look at that lace work.”
    Charlotte held up the shawl. “It looks hard, but it’s really not that complicated.”
    Violet somehow managed a friendly frown. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you to hush up and accept a compliment? It may be easy for you, but some of us would never make it through the first inch.” The older woman looked around the room to her fellow knitters. “Can you imagine how blessed someone’s going to be when they get even a basic shawl knit with that kind of talent?” The purpose of the group was to make prayer shawls, hand-knitted wraps that were prayed over and given to people in need of healing or comfort. Charlotte had sent supplies from Monarch when Melba first started the group. “Thanks to Charlotte,” Violet continued, “I think we’ve just taken things up a notch around here.”
    Melba looked pleased the group had taken so quickly to Charlotte. “You all remember it was Charlotte who set us up when I began to teach you all how to knit.” Charlotte was pleased, too, feeling right at home in a matter of minutes. She’d always been that way with knitters—she could walk into a yarn shop anywhere in the world and feel as though she was among friends.
    Her new friends all narrowed their eyes, evidently feeling the injustice of Charlotte’s job loss as much as she did. “They shouldn’t have let you go,” Violet said. “It’s a crying shame, that’s what I say, even if Chicago’s loss is our gain. Still, you seem a smart cookie to me. You’ll land on your feet in no time.”
    Charlotte wondered whether she ought to admit she said something similar to herself in the bathroom mirror every morning, pep-talking herself into facing another day of unanswered queries and diminishing funds. Instead, she just quoted something Mima always said, “From your mouth to God’s ears.”
    â€œThat’s right,” another woman, Abby Reed, chimed in. “You’ve got yourself one powerful posse of prayer warriors on your side now. These ladies know how to storm the gates of heaven, I tell you.”
    â€œGood thing,” Charlotte admitted as she began stitching.
Stitch,
she told herself.
Don’t complain or whine, just stitch. Look confident and you’ll be confident.
    â€œI admire you.” Tina turned her knitting to start a new row. “Not too many folks your age would see the value in buying a home and setting down roots while you’re still single. Shows confidence, independence, common sense—all those good ‘ence’ words.”
    â€œYou should talk to my Ben.” Abby groaned. “Since he graduated he hasn’t shown any of those words except
nonsense.
You’d think a job was going to land gift-wrapped in his lap the way he lollygags around the house. Frank has threatened to force him onto the fire department in another two weeks if the boy doesn’t step things up.”
    Violet held up the navy blue shawl she was working on, a textured piece with white stripes down the side. Melba had told her Violet was one of the newer knitters, but Charlotte would have never known it by the woman’s work—she was a natural. “Think we could pray some sense into this and give it to him?”
    Abby laughed. “You’d be better off praying some patience into one and wrapping it over my mouth. We keep fighting over this. I was so excited to have