A prayer shawl for Archbishop Sarah
God move sin mysterious ways. And so, too, does the Royal Mail
In March Rev Jane and the congregation of COGS blessed one of our Prayer shawls for Archbishop Sarah who was to be consecrated as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury the following week. We have just received this beautiful personal thank you letter from her which brought us great joy as we thought the parcel had been lost by Royal Mail. Sadly, the ”trackied, to be signed for” service for which we had paid had not worked. Sealed in a purpose made bag purchased at the post office, correctly addressed to Lambeth Palace with my address on the back it was posted on the 24th March.
A few days later when I went online to track the parcel it said “Returned to Sender, Sorry we were unable to deliver this item on 26-03-2026 as the recipient is no longer at that address. We’re returning the item to the sender”! As I had not received the parcel by the 11th April I went online again to track it and this is the message I received. “Your item was delivered back to the sender on 30-03-2026”!
I tried to contact Royal Mail by phone and on their website unsuccessfully, none of the options on the automated systems were relevant and there was no opportunity to leave a message or speak to a real human. Then I visited the Shoreham by Sea sorting Office and a very helpful lady looked into the problem. She discovered that the parcel had been returned not to me but to an address in Lambeth (not Lambeth Palace) and had been signed for and there was a photo of a kitchen door. She advised me to try telephoning once more which I did, again without success. Putting a message on Royal Mail FB page only attracted a scammer.
Believing the parcel to be lost and our prayers for its safe delivery had not been answered I was just about to claim for compensation when this wonderful letter arrived teaching me a lesson about prayer! God does not always answer in the way we think but when the time is right, we just need to persevere. How the shawl eventually found its way to Archbishop Sarah will always remain a mystery.
