"When we make a prayer quilt, we're declaring our belief that love for one another as children of God is so strong it can be a force for change. We're saying that God's love and our love are one and the same, and that together they can bring comfort, strength, joy, and healing.
"We also make prayer quilts because they can serve as a powerful vehicle for spiritual growth and renewal — not just for the recipient in crisis, but also for the quilters themselves. Prayer quilts are vessels that hold all the good wishes, thoughts, and hopes — the prayers — of the people who make them. They carry those prayers to people who need them and literally wrap them up in those prayers. Think of that for a minute: What would it feel like to be enveloped in a warmth that's generated not only by layers of fabric and batting, but also by the hundreds of individual prayers that people, usually nameless strangers, made just for you in your specific situation? In times of need, a prayer quilt provides something doctors, nurses, and other caregivers may not be trained or prepared to give. A prayer quilt lets the recipient know that he or she is a part of God's glorious creation and, for that simple reason alone, has worth and merit and is deserving of love.
"The prayer quilt is so much more than a pretty blanket. You can buy one of those anywhere. The prayer quilt is a touchable emblem of human kindness and a link to the source of that kindness — God.
"Because a prayer quilt is a vessel of love and caring, it can be said to embody the universal philosophy that underpins all the world's great religious traditions: that God, called by many names, is about love. When we care for others, especially those we do not know, we are giving life to this immeasurable aspect of the divine. And when we make and give away a prayer quilt, we affirm that all human beings, no matter what name they call God, are united in their love for him and for each other."
