One of the most significant and defining events in our children's lives occurred every night at bedtime. My husband would take Sarah and Jacob aside and have a time of prayer with them. At the end of the prayer time, he would lay a hand on each bowed head and pray a "blessing" over them. Throughout the years, on good days and bad days, each day ended with a tired father calling out to God to bless his children. It was amazing to see how that blessing time served to calm troubled hearts and reconcile broken relationships. The impact on both father and children is immeasurable. Our children treasured that special time with their dad. Just imagine starting a bedtime blessing routine when your children are born and continuing until they are 18 years old. That's approximately 6,570 blessings! Just imagine what God might do through the short but earnest pleas of a father, calling on the Heavenly Father to do in the lives of his children what only He can do! So it was a bittersweet day when my husband pronounced his last "official" nighttime blessing over our daughter. It was her wedding day. After she and her new husband said their vows, my husband went up and placed his hand on her bowed head one more time and spoke the words of blessing that she had heard and memorized since she was a little girl. It was a beautiful moment! But the story doesn't end there, because now there is a little boy named David—our grandson. And every night before he goes to bed, his daddy lays his hand on David’s sleepy head and prays a blessing over him... The excellent resource that my husband used to guide his blessings is A Father's Guide to Blessing His Children by Pastor David Michael, available here.
