If you’re from the South, you’ve said it, like at least a thousand times: “Why, bless their heart.”
Although it’s often meant as a “poor thing” type of statement, speaking blessings into and over someone’s life is love, is right, and is biblical! Moses blessed the twelve tribes, specifically and individually, before he died and they crossed into the Promised Land. Jesus blessed young children who surrounded Him.
When both my daughter and son were younger, I ran across a book in my local Christian bookstore, The Gift of the Blessing, by Dr. Gary Smalley. There was another book displayed next to it–Faith Training: Raising Kids Who Love the Lord, by Joe White. As a young mom, I wanted (and needed) all the help I could get, so I purchased them both based solely on their titles!
It turned out that God used them as incredible tools of blessing and sources of godly guidance in my family’s life. I read The Gift first, and in it Smalley referenced his own children’s summers spent at an incredible Christian camp in Branson, MO. Turns out that that camp was the other author’s–Joe White–family’s ministry—Kanakuk Kamps. Both of my children attended camp there for many years and eventually both worked there. A coincidence? I think not.
But, back to my main point. In The Gift, Smalley talked about the act of blessing his own children, just as Moses had done for the tribes, and I was inspired to do the same for mine. I didn’t do it every night; I didn’t even always do it weekly. But from time to time, when I tucked my children into their beds, I laid my hands on their heads and blessed them. I spoke words of encouragement to them and spoke specifically as it regarded to their maturity level, individual gifts, and current circumstances.
WOW! What a powerful act and not just for them, but for me, as well.
One night, as I turned out the light and prepared to walk downstairs, my daughter asked, “Mom, will you bless me? You haven’t blessed me in a while.”
The ache in my heart to hear those words! I immediately thought of Esau after he realized his brother, Jacob, had schemed away his birthright. Esau cried out to his father, Isaac, “Oh, Father, don’t you have a blessing for me, too?” (Genesis 27:34-36).
I realized then the impact of that small act. Our words are packed with immense power, and they can be life-giving. They can also have the opposite effect. Oh, that we might speak that type of love and favor into our children’s lives!
As they grew, I no longer physically laid my hands on them, but have continued to speak and pray blessings over them as they have grown into the young adults they are now. And God has been more than faithful with my and my husband’s often meager and feeble efforts. Through our hearts’ desire to raise them both in the “fear and admonition of the Lord,” He has matured both my daughter and my son into faithful followers of Jesus who “love God first, others second, and themselves third”—the Kanakuk Kamp motto.
And to Jesus alone be all the glory!
Vivan Penuel