Last February, Betty Estes said a prayer that most would consider odd. She prayed for a sewing machine’s well-being.
Estes is part of the Busy Hands Ministry at First Baptist Church, Hoover, which crafts homemade items like prayer blankets to be given to people who are seriously ill, and started praying for sewing machines that were giving the group a little trouble.
“We prayed the Lord would keep our sewing machines going,” she said.
And He did. The group, which has about 10 members and meets once a month, has made more than 100 prayer blankets, and so far, 40 of the blankets have found a home and touched a person’s life in a time of need.
“Several people have been buried with their blanket,” Estes said. “They mean that much.”
In addition to offering warmth and showing love, these blankets have provided a way to provoke curiosity as to the meaning behind them.
“It just takes one little act of kindness to spur someone’s interest in salvation,” said Barbara Stone, a member of the Busy Hands Ministry. “Something like this could very well be a chess piece in something bigger.”
The group got the idea to make prayer blankets from Mignon Baptist Church, Sylacauga, which has turned the art of making blankets into a science.
“We have a group that cuts; a group that braids; a group that does the serging; a group that uses the plain, straight needle machine; a group that zigzags the tag on the blanket; and a group that folds,” said Jean Persons, who oversees Mignon Baptist’s prayer blanket ministry.
The roughly 20 members of the ministry meet once or twice a month, and after they finish a blanket, they pray over it before storing it in a prayer blanket closet at the church. Members of the church are then allowed to sign out a blanket to give to anyone who has a prayer need.
“We have a sign-out sheet just so that they are not doubled up and given to the same person,” Persons explained.
The ministry has given away around 900 blankets to church members, community members, people around the state, people in other states and even soldiers in Iraq.
“We prefer to take the blankets to people,” Persons said. “That way, we will have the opportunity to witness to them and pray with them.”
But even when a blanket is mailed to someone, prayer remains a part of the ministry as a written prayer is attached to it.
Like Estes, members of the Mignon ministry have some pretty odd prayer requests. They pray over fabric, workers, sewing machines and the recipients of the blankets. And you even can catch them praying with the women whom they buy fabric from.
On a typical trip to buy fabric, “we will pray when we leave the church, and then we will pray in front of the fabric store. Then we will go in and pray with the sales people at Hancock Fabrics,” Persons said.
“We pray. That is the most important thing about the prayer blanket ministry. The most important thing is that first word — ‘prayer.’”
Persons has seen their prayers continuously answered and the way the simple items touch lives.
“We gave one to a lady who had breast cancer. That lady took her blanket on every chemo trip,” Persons said.
“Then that lady would talk about the prayer blanket to others during her treatments.”
That lady is Mary Anna Hill, a member of Mignon who not only took her prayer blanket to every chemotherapy treatment but also every surgery and every hospital visit while fighting cancer.
“It has brought me so much love, comfort and hope,” she said.
Recognizing that others also saw the blanket as a source of comfort, Hill took three blankets to women who were also being treated for breast cancer. All three called Hill later to tell her how special their blanket was to them and that they had it on their favorite chair or bed. “They loved to tell people about it and what it meant to them,” she said.
Persons’ attachment to the blankets hit a little closer to home when she received one after a car accident.
“The accident caused a lot of problems, and I used my prayer blanket for almost a year and a half nonstop,” Persons said.
She has continued using it. When Persons went into the hospital twice this year, she always brought it along.
“When the prayer blanket is laying across your bed, people come in and they start asking questions,” Persons said.
“It is a whole different avenue to be able to witness to someone. It is a witnessing tool.”
Stone said the blankets touch more than just the lives of the people who receive them though — they touch the hearts of the people who give them, too.
“The satisfaction of knowing that maybe we made a difference in someone’s life — maybe at the end of their life — it is just a wonderful feeling we are rewarded with by being part of this ministry,” she said.
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