Baby Quilts as Prayer Shawls

I've taken a lesson that I've learned from the prayer shawl group at church and applied it to one of my favorite hobbies: making baby quilts.

I love to make baby quilts entirely by hand for friends and family who are having babies. Our multi-faith women's group likes to collect items for indigent moms, and I like to make baby quilts for the travelling bassinet that comes around. I like to make small quilts for Kids In Distress, a local group who takes care of abused children.

No matter who will receive the quilt, I've started praying for the child and the family as I stitch. It's not a continuous prayer. I can still socialize with my quilting group. But at least once during each sewing/quilting session, I offer up a prayer.

Unlike prayer shawls, not every quilt is going to a distressed person. Still, I figure it doesn't hurt to pray for babies and children. Before I had a little nephew, I wasn't as aware of all the dangers that seem to lurk everywhere. And I'm not just talking about predator scum who go after kids. When I think about their underdeveloped immune systems, I offer additional prayers. When I think about our financial crisis and the reverberations that will echo through the years and decades, I say a prayer. When I think about all the stresses that families, even solid ones, face, I pray more fiercely.

And then I give the quilt away, and I work on trusting God to hold us all in God's giant quilt of a world.