The prayer stone included in this bereavement packet was
lovingly donated by Paula Hedrick of London, Kentucky. Paula shared the story of how she was led to
contact me to offer her supportive gift.
Paula is a sales representative of the Ganz company. Her territory in Kentucky encompasses the
area where our retail pharmacies are located.
She had made several calls and visits to our stores without getting an
appointment with me or Juanita Tackett, our retail sales manager. One week, each of her Thursday appointments
cancelled one after the other leaving Paula with few prospects on the
horizon. On a whim, she placed a call
to Juanita Tackett at our Owsley Prescription Center store and they made an
appointment on her recently cleared Thursday.
She told me she feels that God cleared the way for her meeting with
Juanita that day.
Paula and Juanita began both a business and personal
relationship that day as our company opened an account with Ganz and began
selling many of their gift products at our stores. I did not meet Paula until January 11, 2006 when Paula came to
our corporate office to share her story.
In one of their meetings, Juanita shared my book,
“Children of the Dome” with Paula. It
turned out she had visited the original Dome at the Cumberland Inn in
Williamsburg, KY, and had bought several copies of my book to give to friends
who were bereaved parents. She had no
idea one of the owners of her new account was the author of the book she had
compassionately given to others.
On her drive back to London from Booneville that day,
Paula said she wondered how she could help with our ministry for bereaved
parents. Nothing came to mind until she
was trying to console a friend who had lost a young relative. She gave her an angel prayer stone from her
company to send to the mother of the child.
Paula said she knew in her heart at that moment that God wanted her to
donate angels to our Fellow Travelers ministry.
Since that day, Paula Hedrick has provided angel prayer
stones for each of the bereavement packets I send to parents. I was blessed to finally meet her in person
recently to hear her story about these precious prayer stones.
Rosemary Smith
January 13, 2006