by Amy M. Jones, Bicentennial Publicity Committee Member

Remember the joy you felt when you discovered, on Christmas morning, that Santa had gotten you exactly what you wanted most.  Or the comfort you felt when you were sick and snuggled under the cover your grandmother made for you.  Recall that peaceful feeling of satisfaction at the end of a very productive day or the love you felt from a good friend’s hug.  These feelings are some of God’s many blessings.  Did you ever imagine that all those feelings and more could be sewn into a small piece of fabric that you could carry in your pocket?  Well, the members of the Trinity United Methodist Church Prayers and Squares did with the pocket prayer quilt.

The Trinity United Methodist Church Prayers and Squares is part of an international and interfaith outreach organization that combines the gift of prayer with the gift of a hand-tied quilt. Their purpose is to promote prayer through the use of knotted quilts where each knot represents a prayer offered for a person who has asked for prayers.    When given to someone who requested prayer, the finished quilt is a quiet witness to the power of prayer, a true comforter.  The motto of Prayers and Squares is “It’s not about the quilts; it’s about the prayers.”  The members of Trinity’s Chapter 351, formed around 2005, believe strongly in the motto and their service to others through prayer.  The members make the colorful quilts at home and feel God’s presence as they work.  Trinity’s chapter doesn’t know or care how many quilts they’ve made and given free of charge, but it is in the hundreds.  For them, it isn’t about the number of quilts but the prayers and God’s power to comfort, strengthen and heal each quilt generates.

As Trinity’s bicentennial approached the Prayers and Squares Chapter members thought about how they could contribute.  The pocket prayer quilt seemed like the 

perfect extension of the chapter’s prayer ministry.  With the help of the internet, patterns were found.  Each pocket prayer quilt is approximately 2” x 2” with a small cross stitched on the front.  With the “new and improved” version using pinking shears, each pocket prayer quilt takes about 15-20 minutes to make.  The pocket prayer quilts are often made using materials left over from prayer quilts making the members good stewards of the resources God bestowed on them.  The pocket prayer quilt can be hand washed or machine washed if it inadvertently gets left in a pocket.  The chapter members have made hundreds of the pocket prayer quilts and plan to continue making them after the bicentennial is over.

Pocket prayer quilts will be distributed to those who haven’t yet received one at the 9:45 and 11:00 services on May 12. Slipped into your pocket, the pocket prayer quilt is a symbol of God’s work at Trinity for the last 200 hundred years.  As you touch it in your pocket or hold it in your hand, feel God’s comfort, joy, peace, love and grace in each stitch made by grateful hands.