A Blessing Psalm for my Daughter

I’ve made a new website! Praying with the Psalmists is a website with resources and examples to guide you to deepen your prayers and open your heart to God by writing your own psalms.

I’ve been trying to find a publisher for a book with the same name and envisioned a website where folks who read the book could post their own psalms. It finally dawned on me – what was I waiting for? I already have a website and I have already posted example psalms in this Sonderjourneys blog. So I’m making twelve webpages to match the twelve chapters of the book – one for each type of Psalm, one intro page, and a page about memorizing Psalms.

But there is one type of Psalm for which I haven’t yet posted an example, and that’s Blessing Psalms.

These are different from Psalms where you are praying specific requests for people – those are covered in the Laments. Blessing Psalms are more general prayers of goodwill. You’ll find biblical examples in Psalms 20, 67, 128, and 134.

I don’t give a Form or Key Concepts for praying Blessing Psalms. As with all psalms, I’ll try using parallelism to make it sound like Hebrew poetry. The other principle I’ll use is, unlike how I was taught, I’m not going to get specific. I’m not going to tell God what to do, but ask God for general good things for one I love.

And today, the person I want to bless is my transgender daughter, Zephyr.

She’s had a rough month. Had to find a new place to live, and it wasn’t easy. She did find success, and I’m so happy for her. I’m hoping it will mean new beginnings in more ways than one, and so I’m writing my example psalm of blessing for her.

Because Zephyr isn’t exactly a traditionalist, for this example psalm, I’m going to use names for God from Wilda C. Gafney’s A Woman’s Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W.

Blessing for Zephyr:

Ever-living God, Mother of Creation,
hear my prayer
and shine your face on my daughter.
Ever-loving God, Fount of Wisdom,
have mercy on her,
and bless her.

Gracious and Compassionate One,
Send your angels to gently guide her steps,
her plans,
and her decisions.

Mother of the Mountains,
May you make all her plans succeed
and grant her the desires of her heart.

God Who Is Mystery,
May you bring companions to grace her steps,
friends to encourage her heart,
and animals to shower her with love.

Healer and Sustainer,
shower her with love,
sprinkle her days with joys.

Protector and Provider,
give her each day her daily bread,
and keep her from harm.

Strengthener and Mother of Wisdom,
grant her strength to make her way in the world
as the unique and wonderful person you created her to be.

And thank you that you love your daughter
even more than I can as her earthly mother.
Shine on her with that love
as she shines her unique light in the world.

Amen.

Now it’s your turn! Share your blessing psalms in the comments.

God Who is Mystery,
may