What is a Blessing?

Posted by Ginger

What is a Blessing?
To bless a person is to say "I see God's goodness in you."  To bless another is to speak and transfer that divine goodness which encourages the other to see it too.  We all need encouragement.
A blessing is a prayer from one to another that encourages. Think of a blessing as a gentle healing voice of our Heavenly Father speaking His unconditional love for us straight to our heart.  Blessings touch those deep areas of our hearts where there is wound or fatigue and replace it with God's healing love.  Blessings release life within us and give us a sense of enabling grace which ignites within us the courage and strength to move forward and persevere.  When we bless others, we too become blessed.  
In Proverbs 11:25 it states, "... He who refreshes others, will himself be refreshed."
Our potential as Christians is enhanced when we see the goodness of God in one another. When we bless one another we heal hearts with the love that God has given us first. 

What does the word blessing mean?
The word blessing is like the word love. A word in which we use all the time and in many contexts, but the full meaning of the word is not all there...at least for me it wasn't....Until I read this little book by Linda Schubert called the Healing Power of a Father's Blessing.  
It is an easy read and is currently on sale for $1.99 at this website:  http://lindaschubert.org

What does it mean to bless another?
I also began to more deeply understand what it means to bless someone you love when I went on a couples retreat and one of the exercises taught to us was how to bless our children and one another as husband and wife. Each couple was given the opportunity to stand before the Blessed Sacrament and make a small sign of the cross on each others forehead. It was so simple yet so intimate. Then testimonies were given by other couples who had been doing it for awhile and they shared what a difference it made in their coming and goings of daily life. One Testimony stood out for me that made an impressed me on the effectiveness of a blessing. And so now, my husband and I as awkward as we are - bless each-other before we leave for the day. So for me, the word blessing now holds a new meaning that echoes simplicity and power....and that is God!