GO, MY CHILDREN, WITH MY BLESSING

If you are (or were) a parent of young kids, you know that bedtime can be a challenge. At least I hope you know—I’d hate to think it was just me.

You might be hoping to pack school lunches, get the dishes done, and maybe even have an unhurried conversation with your partner; meanwhile, your kids refuse to brush their teeth, need a glass of water, and forget—again—that they left their favorite stuffy in a different room. Sometimes the stress builds up in your body and you don’t know how you are going to get through the night peacefully, let alone with the energy to do all of the tasks that have to be completed to have a functioning household in the morning.

Part of how I make it through is knowing there is a calm, quiet peace on the other side of all the frenetic energy of winding down. Once the kids are finally situated and under the covers, I get to sing.

For as long as I can remember, at the end of the night I’ve done a modified examen with my three kids: What was your favorite part of the day? What was your sad part of the day? Is there anything else you want to say? Is there anything you want to ask about? They usually just ask if I’ll pray for them to have no bad dreams, and so I do: “Dear God, please help Squishy Bear to have no bad dreams—0%. Help him fall asleep quickly and easily. Help him to sleep peacefully all night long. Help him know how much you love him, that you’re always with him, and that you’ll protect him. Amen.”

Then I start to sing. My oldest son is eleven; I would guess that, conservatively, he’s heard me sing “Jesus Loves Me” upwards of 4000 times. During Christmas I throw in some carols; during Eastertide, I can’t resist singing all the verses to Christ The Lord Is Risen Today. I have a whole list of hymns that I sing to him when he has trouble sleeping, and with dual ADHD and autism diagnoses there have been seasons where that takes quite a while (praise the Lord for melatonin gummies!). One time, when he was only one year old, we were stuck in miserable traffic in an Oklahoma summer. His mom was driving, and he was inconsolable. So, as much for my own sake as for his, I started singing every verse to every hymn I could think of… a full hour in, and I hadn’t repeated anything. It didn’t ever get him to sleep that afternoon, but it rooted us in a spiritual practice. When you can’t sleep—when you’re miserable—sing.

I’ve gone through a cycle of what hymn to start with at bedtime. At first, I would begin with “This Is My Father’s World,” a favorite of mine that I remember my mom mouthing all the words to when we sang it in 8th grade choir. During my separation and eventual divorce, I began to start with “Be Thou My Vision” as we were all trying to see our way into a new future.

 Four years ago, I started a new job as the Youth and Family Minister at a Lutheran church. In many ways, it felt providential: a church hiring a full-time youth director during the tail end of Covid; a senior pastor that I trusted right away; a church whose tagline was “Inclusive Grace, Contagious Love.” It didn’t take long before I started feeling like I needed a new but still classic hymn to sing to my kids.

A couple of months in, we sang “Go My Children, With My Blessing” as our sending song. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it—a Lutheran pastor turned Episcopal priest at the parish where my oldest was born was fond of it—but it settled over me and into my spirit that day. For the last three years, it’s the song that starts my kids’ journey into peaceful sleep.

“Go, my children, with my blessing, never alone.
Waking, sleeping, I am with you, you are my own.
In my love’s baptismal river
I have made you mine forever.
Go, my children, with my blessing, you are my own.

 I’ve always been a sucker for songs written from God’s perspective. Singing “Go, my children, with my blessing” is truly praying twice, because it is God and I both singing these words over my children. I know, of course, that to say they will never be alone is a promise that only God can ultimately fulfill, but it’s one I strive to keep for them each day I get to spend with them. Waking, sleeping—whether at my house or at their mom’s - they are mine, and I love them. The baptismal river obviously isn’t mine to claim, but singing those words puts us all in the same boat: I, along with them, belong to God, claimed forever as a beloved child.

“Go, my children, sins forgiven, at peace and pure.
Here you learned how much I love you, what I can cure.
Here you heard my dear Son’s story,
here you touched him, saw his glory.
Go, my children, sins forgiven, at peace and pure.

 And I’m so glad that I am in the same boat with them! Especially at bedtime, I know that I’m a little too uptight and stressed out. I’m not perfect. I fail them all the time—too attached to my phone, not always ready to play when they are, a little too harsh when they hurt each other. I need the words of forgiveness as much as they do, the promise that God does forgive me and make me pure. I need to know that Jesus looks on my failures as a parent and redeems them. The same way that God sees me, imperfect and always needing to come back (to communion), my kids need me always to be forgiving and kind when they are ready to come back for love. 

“Go, my children, fed and nourished, closer to me.
Grow in love and love by serving, joyful and free.
Here my Spirit’s power filled you,
here his tender comfort stilled you.
Go, my children, fed and nourished, joyful and free.

 The third verse chokes me up. I’m the oldest of four kids, and I’m the black sheep who sort of fled my family and didn’t return. I worry—will my own kids also need to move far away from me? But I trust in the gift and curse of parenting: ultimately, I have to surrender them to God. I’m doing the best I can to raise my children, but someday the Spirit will guide them on their own path. I’ll have to trust them to the Spirit’s power and comfort, trust in God that they will be fed and nourished, trust and pray for them, wherever they are, to be joyful and free.

“I the Lord will bless and keep you, and give you peace.
I the Lord will smile upon you, and give you peace.
I the Lord will be your Father,
Savior, Comforter and Brother.
Go, my children, I will keep you, and give you peace.”

I long to feel God smile on me; and like Bonhoeffer says in Life Together, no matter how often I hear that truth in church on Sunday, I always end up forgetting it. I hope that no matter my own faults and failings, I’m leading them to the one who always does smile on them. I’m singing for them, and also for myself.

My kids are vocal about not always loving church. They say it’s boring, and we talk  about how it’s never going to compete with YouTube. But once we are finally tucked in and the lights are off, all three still ask me for bedtime prayers. And if I have to finish a project for work, they beg me to sing at least a little bit before I leave. I pray that the seeds I’m sowing in these hymns bear fruit, and that they someday find their own deep faith in the one who is their Savior, Comforter, Brother, and will be their true and lasting peace.

 Maybe, someday, they’ll even sing that faith over their own kids.