The Blessing

The Mom Weekly Volume 106: August 19, 2025

You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

Notes: 

Even though this was scheduled—because I knew I will be tired (and probably still a little emotional) on this particular Tuesday!–I opened up this again to comment a few things.

What a wonderful family time! I am just in awe of how much fun it is to get together and see family members and friends in person. I am so grateful to have so many relatives and friends that want to share in our joy.

This particular Mom Weekly is based on the very brief (under 2.5 minutes) remarks that I gave at the rehearsal dinner. I was pretty sure that I might not get through it without crying, but other than a few brief pauses, I got through every word!

Remember how much I love all of you,

Mom

The Blessing

When I was beginning to look at songs to consider for the mother-son dance at the wedding, I queued up a couple of songs on Spotify. As I drove to and from a haircut, I promptly started crying. Happy tears of course, but there are a lot of emotions that go along with transitions like this . . .  

A memory came back to me of driving to Matthiessen State Park for hiking with my youngest during his spring break—this was the first spring of the pandemic. 

It happened to be just the two of us, and he was driving. As a result, I was able to play various songs on Spotify. I recall that I played the worship song The Blessing by Kari Jobe, a relatively new song at the time, probably about 50 times. That is an exaggeration, but not by much! I was slightly obsessed with that song.

Once I played it in recent weeks, I realized that it wouldn’t work as a dance song for a lot of reasons. It ranges from 7-9 minutes long, depending on the version, making it even more unsuitable as a mother-son dance song. And yet, it’s a wonderful song!

So I would like to encourage all of you to listen. Even 50 times!

We all want to bless Clara and Joseph this weekend with our presence, and with God’s presence, and we want to bless all of our extended families and friends who are here with us, and those who cannot be here with us.

It’s based on Numbers 6:24-26. It is known at the “Priestly Blessing.” I’m going to embed the song in this post, but also the words. I’ve shortened it down a little, because the song repeats the stanzas multiple times, and I will just put them once.

The Lord bless you and keep you

Make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you

The Lord turn His face toward you

And give you peace

Amen, amen, amen

May His favor be upon you

And a thousand generations

And your family and your children

And their children, and their children

May His presence go before you

And behind you, and beside you

All around you, and within you

He is with you, he is with you

In the morning, in the evening

In your coming, and your going

In your weeping, and rejoicing

He is for you, he is for you

He is, He is

Amen, amen, amen