A Mary Moment Monday post

I can’t seem to keep a rosary, especially one I love. In early August, at the Catholic Marketing Network show, I found a rosary that was so great, and when I nabbed it for $10, I was pretty sure I had a new favorite rosary. The beads were smooth and small and a beautiful shade of blue, there was a medal of John Paul II, and there were Divine Mercy medals between the decades. There was even a bit of soil from Fatima. It was small and didn’t seem to tangle.

I was so excited to find it! I showed it to everyone that day, and on the drive home, I held it in my hand and prayed on it.

And then I realized: this wasn’t my rosary after all.

This happens to me a lot. I find a rosary that’s perfect, that speaks to me and seems to call me to pray on it. When I pray on it, though, I will sometimes find that someone’s on my heart. I picture my guardian angel whispering (or shouting, since I’m so thick) and encouraging me.

Other times, I find someone who just seems to need a rosary and…all I have is the rosary I dearly love.

Rosaries, it seems, are not meant for me to keep. I break ’em in and pass ’em along.

A few weeks ago, as I was organizing the Marian Novena of Giveaways we hosted last week at CatholicMom.com, I was emailing a gushing thanks to Melanie from Trendy Traditions for her participation, when she offered something I couldn’t believe.

She offered to make me a rosary.

My very own rosary. Made just for me.

I was so excited, but then, I’ll admit, I forgot about it.

Then, last week, she sent me an email, with a picture attached:

One of the things that led me to start making rosaries was my love for meaningful, personalized gifts. When making rosaries, I really want them to “fit” the recipient. This is easy when someone picks out their own but I love the challenge of creating for folks I don’t know well.

All this is to say, for some reason I agonized over yours. I thought about red & black since you like the Buckeyes but you also seem to embrace your femininity and inner-princess so I thought the dark colors might be too much.

Your amazing love and admiration of our Blessed Mother led me to a Mary blue for accents and I ended up using pink as the primary color. Hopefully you will enjoy it and I have attached a picture so you can take a peek. The pink beads are dyed stone and the blue are glass.

And then I opened the picture to see this:

When it came, I still found myself marveling over it. For one thing, it’s a lot larger than it looked in that picture. For another, it has a weight and a feel to it that’s just right. I can’t explain it better, except to say, wow!

Melanie is a wife and mom who does this because, as she told me in an email, it’s her “lot in life to give away rosaries.” She sells them through Trendy Traditions (which also has a Facebook page).

These are rosaries that are made to endure the curious pulling and tugging of a toddler, the dropping and shuffling of a busy mom, and the general heave-ho a rosary has to endure when it’s mine for the long haul.

From the bio Melanie submitted for CatholicMom.com:

When she rediscovered the rosary as an adult after years of spiritual wandering, Melanie became passionate about creating rosary designs that appeal to younger generations in the hope that her unique designs would assist them to keep devotion to the rosary alive. As a lover of meaningful gift giving, personalized custom rosaries are her specialties. She uses high-gauge stainless steel wire to craft her rosaries, making them unlikely to break or need repair.

I think I’ve found one of my new favorite gifts (to give and to receive), though this rosary will probably be mine for quite a while! (Until, that is, I find another Sarah who needs a rosary…)

(Though I did receive a rosary, Melanie did NOT send it to me in exchange for this post. I’m just raving about it because I love her work!)