Today is November 5th. I don’t know who our next president will be, nor have I heard any positive news on COVID-19. But my L.L. Bean Christmas Catalog arrived in today’s mail. It must time to write my Little Story for the December Grapevine. I thought about it during the last couple of nights as I suffered post election stress disorder. What should I say? I found my inspiration from yesterday’s devotion in Portals of Prayer. Titled, ‘A Parent’s Blessing’, it is based on the 49th chapter of Genesis and the 115th Psalm. The gift a parent can give his/her children. It tells of Jacob’s blessing of his twelve sons. What a bunch they were! Makes me thankful for my children. November’s devotions were written by Ed T. Harkey, pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church and School, Keene, New Hampshire. His little biographical sketch in Portals, says that he formerly served an LCMS reconciler and as a fire chaplain. (Both badly needed these days!) When I called Pastor Harkey to get his permission to use his devotion as the basis for my December story, he was in chapel with the school’s children. He called me back and I learned his dad was military, and that he spent his early years at Fort Hood! He named many of the LCMS churches in this area. That was before Faith, but he knew Zion. Another reminder of the smallness of the Lutheran world. You always know someone who knows someone.
Pastor Harkey writes of a reunion his wife’s family had in a beautiful, remote setting in Colorado. Much as Jacob did, her parents laid their hands on and blessed their children, family by family. What a loving gift! What a difference it would make in our lives if all parents did the same. Imagine that for a moment.
Most of us were/are blessed by the lives our parents. I can’t hear Amazing Grace or the Eighth Chapter of Romans without thinking of my dad. Little sayings, such as, ‘A soft answer turns away wrath’ remind me of my mother. I see my grandmother holding the Bible she read through every year. Blessings, not in the laying on of hands, but in everyday witnessing to the love of God. My parents blessing to me! I am blessed by pastors who lead, admonish, teach, guide, counsel and comfort me in good times and bad. For years, I saw them as ‘father’, now I see them as my little brothers in Christ. They lay their hands on me and bless me through the sacraments.
In my eighty-eighth year, and widowed, I reflect on the ‘Parent’s Blessing’ Frank and I share with our children. Certainly they know they are loved and cherished. They are God’s gift to us. If we could lay our hands on them and bless them, what would we say?
Would it be, ‘May the Lord bless you and keep you. May He make His face shine upon you. And give you peace.’ Let it be, Dear Lord, let it be. His gift to me. My gift to you.
Thank you for your gift, Pastor Harkey. Tess Todd
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