Have you blessed her each month? 

The power of a verbal blessing is something that you cannot begin to understand until you've experienced it. In the article on this site about note writing, we highlighted the importance of a written note. Now I want to focus on a verbal blessing.

I was tucked into bed. My bed was high up above the door. We lived in a 70 year old Villa, with 10 foot ceilings and there was room above the door to put a bed. Dad would come up the ladder and give me a kiss, and he'd always say, "God bless you and keep you."

Those words were very short and simple. But they remain with me for my life, as long as I am able to remember things.

There have been two important books written in recent times on the topic of verbal blessings. One is Dr John Trent, PhD and Gary Smalley's "The Blessing" and the other is "The Power of Spoken Blessings" by Dr Bill Gothard, PhD.

These men may have high profiles and lots of letters after their names, but they have written some easy to read, and easier to impliment words for the likes of you and me.

One of the main things I got from John Trent and Gary Smalley's book is the need to take a moment and enjoy your daughter, and tell her so.

How do I do that? Well I grab one of them and a time, and usually at different times, and tell them how pleased I am with them. I tell them I love them, and one of them like to squirm and try to avoid the prickly kiss that is about to land on their cheek.

Sometimes I try to think about those kisses from my daughter's perspective. I guess it is a bit like it was for political persons being greeted with a kiss by Yassa Arafat. He always seemed to have a week's wiskers on his face. I guess that was the way they did things over there.

Back to the point of a verbal blessing. I say things like, "Did you know I am very pleased with you (NAME)?" Do you know what? They always say no, or nothing. I've never had a time when they said, "Yes, I saw you smiling and I thought you were pleased". Does this mean that they were surprised? Perhaps it does on some occassions.

A word of warning from the great Jim Sammons, author of the "Financial Freedom Seminar" which he describes as a few lessons from his hall of shame, "Don't sandwich blame with praise. Don't do what they say in business school = praise, blame, praise."

Come to think of it, a lot of what I've learnt on parenting was contained in Jim Sammons videos - those one included. Here is a link to Jim Sammons sample video clips (requires quicktime software).

I'd suggest you have a look at this other site, it has some excellent short testimonies on the power of a spoken blessing. The first one is from Janny Moore.
View testimonials on father daughter blessings.