As a biracial family I love taking some of the beautiful things from my Mexican heritage and adapting it to our multicultural family. One of those things is speaking a blessing over our children.
In Latin America, the word “bendiciones” is regularly heard amongst families as the children leave their home to go about their day. This word means “blessings”. Parents give a “blessing” to their children and kids ask for it if parents forget that consist of a prayer, verse, or words of wisdom. What makes this ritual so powerful it is spoken on a daily basis.
I grew up hearing a “blessing” from my mom every night before we headed off to sleep. This simple ritual was one that still echoes in my heart. She would come into our room to check on us and then she’d say “Sueña con los anjelitos.” as she headed out. It was a part of our night time ritual.
I have taken this Hispanic ritual and adapted to fit our family. As we try to live out a Christ-centered home I strongly believe in speaking scriptural affirmations over my children. I haven’t always done this, I mostly just prayed for my kids when they were babies.
Praying Scripture
But years ago, I started praying scripture over them, I would do this in the privacy of my time with God. This was good but I wanted it to carry over to affirmations they could hear me say and hold onto in their day but alas the crazy demands of mothering in the morning took over and I was doing everything but that.
Our mornings challenges became more frequent so after a series of lots of negative and frustrating mornings I new somethings had to change. I began sharing the responsibility of morning tasks with my family instead of trying to do it all. This helped ease the morning stress for me and my kids were no longer leaving our home with my last words being a reprimand and my frustrated mom face.
Scriptural Affirmations & Blessings
That’s when I started my morning blessing and speaking scriptural affirmations over my children. Through the years I have learned what works best for our family and my personality. I’m going to share with you what works for me so you may find that this “format” doesn’t fit your family and that’s fine. But don’t let the format keep you from doing what’s really important and that’s speaking scriptural affirmations over your children.
On our ride home I pray with them just before we turn the corner to the street their school is on. I like to pray scripture over them. So this is what the scriptural affirmation of Mark 12:30 may sound like, “Heavenly Father, May Ethan, Aiden and Mateo love you with all their heart, soul, mind and strength as they go about their day, walk the halls and enter their classrooms, when no one is looking, when they are center stage…”
As each child gets out of the car each of them give me a kiss on the cheek and they get their blessing. I took one of my favorite passages in Isaiah 43: 1-5 for their blessing. This is what I always start off with, “You are loved. You are known. You are precious in God’s sight. I love you!” If I forget they remind me. They know it by heart. My prayer is that when they get older they will hear God’s word echo in their heart and sing over them when they need to remember.
I can attest to the fruit from the many seeds of God’s word that were planted in my heart at a young age. It’s been absolutely amazing to find myself in a hard place and have the Holy Spirit awaken my soul with songs of truth from His word.
God’s word that was planted in my heart from my childhood to this very day.
Scriptural affirmations remind our children who God is and who they belong to. They speak truth from God’s word about who they are and what you hope for them to become as men of Christ. If you want to do the scripture affirmation and blessing all at once you can combine it. The biggest difference between a blessing and scriptural affirmation is a blessing can be based on scripture but it doesn’t have to be and it’s the same phrase repeated over. A scriptural affirmation has to be scripture and it affirms who they are in Christ and who God is. And it can be a different verse each time.
Construct Your Own Scriptural Affirmations
Here are some verses you can use to construct your own scriptural affirmation and blessings.
You will give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, His love endures forever. Psalm 107:1
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Mark 12:30
He will equip you with all you need for doing his will.
He will produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ,
every good thing that is pleasing to him. Hebrews 13:20-21
Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. Ephesians 3:17
The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me? Psalm 118:6
And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. Eph 3:18
I will walk in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Galatians 5:22-23
May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Ephesians 3:19
I rejoice in the Lord always even if my circumstances are good or bad. Philippians 4:4
But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater (stronger) than the spirit who lives in the world. 1 John 4:4
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. Psalm 23:1
How to do it
Choose if you want to speak a blessing or scriptural affirmation over your child or you can do both. I change it up just depends on how awake I am because I do this in the morning. Choose a time that works best for you but keep it consistent and daily. You can do it on the way to drop them off in the car that’s when it works best for us. At breakfast, while they are in bed as you wake them up or at night.
My kids can count on me speaking the same blessing over them each morning. But If I’m fully awake I add a scriptural affirmation prayer or combine it. See how I do this using 2 Tim. 1:7
- The blessing by itself (come up with your own)—> “You are loved. You are known. You are precious in God’s sight.”
- Combined blessing & scriptural affirmation —> “You are loved. You are known. You are precious in God’s sight.
Ethan, You are a child of God. He has not given you a spirit of fear but of power, love and self control. ” <— the scriptural affirmation starts with “Ethan” - Scripture affirmation prayer on its own—> “Heavenly Father, Ethan, Aiden and Mateo are your children. You have not given them a spirit of fear but of power, love and self control. Holy Spirit remind them of this as they go about their day, walk the halls and enter their classrooms, when no one is looking, and in the quietness of their thoughts. In your name, amen.
- Scripture affirmation spoken directly to your child—> You Ethan are a child of God. He has not given you a spirit of fear but of power, love and self control.
I would encourage you to take it a step further and have your children memorize some of these scriptural affirmations so His word is in their hearts.
I’m thankful I can share my cultural roots of “bendiciones” with my children through God’s word. Though I need to get better and help them make the connections between our rituals and our faith and culture.
