Women at Risk

These beautiful scarves were for sale at "Women at Risk International" in Grandville, Michigan.  Women from all over the world support their families by making jewelry and crafts.  Many have been rescued from abuse and prostitution.  

The most interesting thing for me besides all the beautiful items was overhearing one of the staff having a discussion with someone about how working with our hands has always been a way that women have dealt with crisis.  I started thinking about my own life and I found that statement to be true.  I baked  bread when my son died, so much so that a friend dubbed me "the good grief bakery". I took up photography when I went thru a divorce, as evidenced by my taking my camera to the Women at Risk shop the other day.  Lately I have been drawn to sewing which is helping me thru a break-up.  I see this pattern in my own mom also.  She has taken up knitting  again while she adjusts to my father's passing.  

It is so satisfying to start and complete a project.  Life on the other hand is full of starts and stops and not completing.  Making something of beauty is gratifying.  Making something beautiful out of one's life is complicated.  Things often don't turn out quite as beautiful as one would hope.  So as we try and make something out of our messy lives it is a gift to hold something of beauty that we have created in our hands.