By: Sharon Mondragón
Libby ebook 26 chapters plus acknowledgements
Published: 2021
Genre: Christian realistic fiction
I so enjoyed our book club book by this author that I got this book. Initially, I wasn't a huge fan. Mrs. Benson seemed to be that stereotypically nasty church lady. Also, I'm not a knitter. However, I'm so glad I read this book! I loved it! I have a third book by her on hold at the library . . .
I made SO many highlights that I think I will need to skip some of them. Dude. I seriously enjoyed this book!
Chapter 1: "Margaret's stomach clenched. 'You mean knit together in public? You mean talk to strangers about church?'"
This is part of what I meant about stereotyping. It honestly isn't that crazy, though. A lot of Christians like to keep their faith separate from life "out there" in the world . . . which is completely opposite of what Jesus teaches. We are to go and proclaim the Good News.
Chapter 1: "His voice was disconcertingly steady, just like his eyes. 'People aren't coming. They don't know they can find peace and love and hope here. They want those things, but many of them think there's mostly judgment and hypocrisy inside church walls. Sadly, in some cases, they're right. The point is they're not coming to us. We have to go to them.'"
This pastor is talking the truth, but Margaret Benson doesn't want to hear it.
Chapter 2: "Rosalie, confident that she knew what was best for everybody, tended to steamroll her way through life and the lives of those she loved."
Ouch! Rose was my absolutely favorite character, but I think I'm more like her daughter Rosalie than I'd like to admit. I know a lot of people like Rosalie, thinking they knew best for everyone. God's grace - I need it and I appreciate it!
Chapter 2: "Laura chuckled. 'Believe me. Where there are tests there will always be prayer.'"
In Rose's nursing home, her "friends" are more like irritating acquaintances. I love how she shares about knitting at the mall and they are drawn in by her stories of interacting with people they meet and praying for them. Prayer matters!
Chapter 2: "What upsets me, she thought, is how those people downstairs think there's nothing they can do anymore about the state of the world. I may not be able to live alone now or drive a car - safely, anyway - but I can pray. I can pray and knit those prayers into a shawl."
I love Rose! I love her determination to make the best of her situation and make a difference. I love how the next paragraph delves into her prayers and the way she thinks of others and turns her concerns to the Lord.
Chapter 3: "Fran dug around in her purse for the packet of tissues widows learn to keep handy."
This made me stop. I almost always have tissues handy, but I thought it was a mom thing / allergy sufferer thing. I'm so thankful I'm not a widow!
Chapter 5: "'Or maybe some of them are starting to wonder if there's something to this prayer business,' Rose told her. 'And realizing they need God's help.'"
Rose is constantly acting as a counterpoint to Margaret's negativity. Later in this chapter, she interrupts Margaret when Kineasha asks to learn how to knit. "Rose was getting good at heading Margaret off at the pass." Go, Rose!
Chapter 7: "'Oh, you know we're knitting and not crocheting?' Margaret looked at him over her reading glasses. 'Most people don't.'"
I've never understood the passion that people feel about distinguishing between the two . . . but I guess that's because I neither knit nor crochet!
Chapter 7: "'A lot of knitters call this tinking,' Rose told them. 'Tink is the word knit spelled backward. When we tink, we're undoing the stitches, going backward. Tinking is good for when you do the wrong stitch and need to get back to that point to do it over or when you've dropped a stitch and need to pick it up.'"
I love learning new things! I've never heard this term before. Rose explains it beautifully.
Chapter 12: "'Luck is random. Blessing is from God.' Someone had to correct the man."
Margaret is so self-righteous, rigid, and critical that it's embarrassing to think that some people view ALL Christians like this. She's believable as a character, but so darn dislikeable. . . until the end of the story. She is so awful to Howard, but I like how he and Fran (both widowed) connected and became friends.
Chapter 13: "Mishaps like these made the pageant memorable from year to year."
Oh my! One of the things I love best about the children's Christmas pageant every year is seeing what goes "wrong" - it's usually the best part of the show! Fran is remembering the year that the girl playing Mary sneezed so violently that the baby Jesus doll went flying into the air, "caught handily by a surprised but quick-thinking shepherd." I love how her son Eddy asked about her well-being. He missed his dad and knew that his mom missed him, too.
Chapter 13: "But what if we didn't blow out our candles? Jane wondered. What if we took them out of the church with us, carried them home, carried them wherever we went? In her mind's eye, she saw the lights dispersing, spreading wide throughout the darkened city. She saw them shining on the dashboards of cars, in the windows of homes, flickering pinpoints of light in the darkness."
I love the Christmas Eve service when we do the candle thing, but I really love Jane's thoughts about the significance of the moment. Shine for Jesus!
Chapter 16: "With a sense of subversive glee, she settled into praying, asking God to help Margaret Benson work through whatever was making her miserable."
This is a good reminder! "Pray for those who persecute you." I'm not persecuted, but I definitely have people I don't like to be around. I need to pray for them! God's got this. Jane remembers how much she valued and needed compassion when her son Kenny went to jail. She wants to treat Margaret with God's love.
Chapter 17: "'I remember those days.' Jane watched Amy and Kineasha disappear from view. 'When I was young and every setback seemed like a disaster.'"
One of the best things about aging is gaining perspective!
Chapter 17: "'We've attracted people at the mall who need our prayers, need us to be there praying. Some of them have never asked for prayer before in their lives. Being out there among all those people has opened my eyes.'"
Jane is having a conversation with Father Pete about continuing to knit and pray in the mall rather than returning to the Prayer Chapel. It can be hard to move out of our comfort zones / routines, but God's way is always better than our own way!
Chapter 17: "That's what she'd do and not even go to church. Let's see how he likes that! She thought with a lift of her chin."
I loved the confrontation between God and Margaret. I've never actually heard God speak to me, but when I'm truly focused on Him in prayer, He definitely guides my thoughts. Margaret trying to "show" God how upset she was and then having Him "talk" to her was fun to read.
Chapter 18 finally shows us why Margaret is the way she is. Her mom had cancer and Margaret refused to have the hard conversations and accept the severity of her illness. Her mom died when Margaret was only twenty-five years old. That loss affected her entire life and the way she parented her children. "Phrases like stage mother and smother mother drifted back to her on the winds of gossip." I love how the author shows us Margaret's heart in these reminiscences, her knitting, and her personal prayer time with God.
Chapter 19: "She smiled and sent up a silent prayer. Radical knitter here, at your service. Any other surprises?"
Rose is a rock star! The other gals at the nursing home are asking her for help with knitting prayer shawls!
Chapter 20: "How could she keep bad things from happening if she wasn't in charge? She gave herself a mental shake. She was getting off track. She was supposed to be praying for Celeste and her mother."
This author doesn't just have Margaret make a 180. She struggles, realizes, grows, changes. I really, really liked how she wrote this. Wanting to be in control is very relatable. Later in the chapter, ". . . she took solace in the whisper and click of her bamboo needles and the way one stitch followed another, row after orderly row. At least she had control of something."
Chapter 21 has Jane realizing that her unresolved anger toward Kenny is preventing her from healing. "Life is short and fragile, she reflected." Yes! And her cleaning frenzy is likened to a child adding more and more people to "bless you" bedtime prayers to stall going to sleep. This is really well-written!
Chapter 21: "Much as she would like to batter him with words so he might feel even an inkling of the pain he'd caused her, she knew these should not be the last words he ever heard from her. If what she was about to write were truly the last words he might ever have from her, what did she truly want them to be?"
I am too good at procrastinating and thinking there will always be time later to deal with relationships, conversations, etc. I'm trying to be better about appreciating each day and the people in my life, but life IS short and precious.
Chapter 21: "Kenny's childhood was over. No amount of hope or regret would bring it back. She couldn't tink his life back to where it went wrong and then knit it back with no mistakes."
We can't go back in time and change our past! As parents, we make mistakes that impact our children. We can't go back and change that, either.
Chapter 23: "Celeste sat back in her chair. 'I'm amazed. You're a . . . You're a dragon whisperer!'"
I loved that the title seemed to imply Margaret as the dragon from the get-go. But to find that Barbara Wentworth was known by her bookstore employees as the "Dragon lady" was very interesting! The expression "it takes one to know one" came to mind.
Chapter 23: "This seems like a strange way to make things better. But please, whatever you do, make things better."
Margaret's prayers help her to relax and turn both her knitting and praying over to God.
Chapter 26: "For a brief moment, she wondered if what she'd been doing there all those years had been praying at all. Compared to what had been going on in her craft room lately, it seemed like she'd been mostly laying down the law inside her own head."
Yes! God got through to Margaret! Perhaps I should examine my prayer life . . .
I actually did skip some of my highlights . . . I really like this author. I hope she keeps writing!
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