songs of blessing~

During our worship at church this morning, I was doing something I often do, and I thought, "I should write about that..."


So, as it's Sunday afternoon and a certain little guy would rather be swinging than sleeping, I was reminded of that...


To give credit where credit is due, I will say that I got this idea from Vange. I just saw her doing it in church one day, and thought..."What a wonderful idea!"


So, what I do, is if we are singing a song where it would be appropriate, instead of singing it about myself (I'll give an example here in a minute), I sing it over my children.


This morning, it looked like this...

"May they give you their hearts,
May they give You their souls,
May they live for You alone.
Every breath that they take,
Every moment they're awake,
Lord, have Your way in them."

My children are exceptionally cuddly with me during worship at church, probably because I'm sitting still and not bossing everyone around :o) so it's usually pretty easy to just cuddle with them, hug on them, touch them, etc. while I sing blessings over them. My heart's desire for them, above anything else, is that my children would know the Lord and love Him with their whole hearts from a very young age, so I love singing blessings over my children. I used to lay in bed with Anna at night (did I really used to just have one child?) and just sing and sing. I did it some with Caleb and Ethan, too, and then with the others when they were small and still nursing, but Anna really got it the most.


Another thing I've always done is pray the Hebrew blessing over my children at night when they are babies and I'm still laying them down in their bed in our room. With some modification...

"May the Lord bless you and keep you,
May the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you,
May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace,
And may you always love Jesus first...above all else."

That has always been one of my favorite and sweetest memories of laying down my babies at night.


So, the next time you are worshipping or just whenever you think about it, take a minute to sing blessings over your children...

"Jesus, be their Center,

Be their Source, be their Light, Jesus..."

"Jesus, be their Center,

Be their Hope, be their Song, Jesus..."

"Be the fire in their hearts,

Be the wind in their sails,

Be the reason that they live,

Jesus, Jesus..."

"Jesus, be their Vision,

Be their Path, be their Guide,

Jesus, Jesus..."