Baby Blessings
Spiritual
Nurture is Needed
Obviously, a
new baby needs food, shelter, safety, and lots of love. No
one I know would argue that. What is not so obvious is the
need for spiritual nurture: the nurture of their spirits.
In our busy goal-oriented world, a baby is seen as a
project, a new responsibility. Rarely are babies seen as
people. Many adults don’t truly interact with
children until they are four or five years old and have
some well-developed social skills.
What a pity!
Even in the womb, a baby is a human being with a spirit
that hungers for spiritual contact and nurture. Just
because these little ones have a lot of physical and social
development ahead of them, doesn’t mean that they
have no clue about the spirit realm. Au contraire!
Remember John the Baptist leaping for joy in his
mother’s womb at Mary’s approach? Some
commentators believe that John was baptized in the Holy
Spirit at this point. Certainly something happened! The
spirit of this unborn child recognized the presence of
holiness and kicked up a storm.
So
how do you nurture the spirit of your infant or unborn
child?
It’s easy! But you need to be intentional and
consistent for best results:
•
Expose them to
prayer, Scripture, worship music, lots of it!
•
Do
your praying and Scripture reading aloud so baby can hear.
•
Play worship
music as soft background, even through the night. Many
fussy babies will sleep more soundly this way.
Parents are playing Baby Einstein videos for infants,
confident that the children’s intelligence is being
enhanced by the programming. Baby Einstein is good.
I’m not knocking them. But, how much more benefit
will those babies get from exposure to the things of the
Kingdom as well? Encouraging the development of
intelligence is a good thing. Encouraging spiritual
development is even greater.
A selling point for the Baby Einstein videos is that you
just buy them and stick them in a machine to play while you
are busy with chores that never end.
Guess what?
Here are some CDs that you can put on to play that will
bless and nourish your baby’s spirit.
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Baby
Blessings: Joy - Baby Blessings: Peace
The
author,
Arthur
Burk, started by
praying for babies in the womb: at risk pregnancies. He
would call at a set time each week. Mama would put the
phone on her tummy and Arthur would speak blessings to
the child. As the requests for such ministry became more
than he could fulfill, Arthur recorded the blessings to
be available to all.
The original intent was to encourage those babies to live,
to fight for life. And live, they did! As years have
passed, it’s been interesting to see the
characteristics of these children that set them apart. They
are
•
bright,
•
confident,
•
strong-willed,
•
and
sensitive to spiritual things.
For
Example
I live with one
of those children: my grandson, Frederick. He had
Baby Blessings played for him
before and for a couple of years after birth.
His first month was difficult. His jaw was displaced during
a c-section, but not detected. For four weeks this little
guy could hardly eat. He would start to yawn (I had always
loved to watch a newborn yawn!) and scream for several
minutes. As the days dragged by, his screaming led to a
scrotal hernia (more pain).
One night as I walked Frederick and sang to him (He was
singing, too, but a different tune.) the phone rang. Arthur
had a quick question for me. Before he hung up, I said,
“Arthur, you need to talk to Frederick.” I put
the phone to Frederick’s ear and said,
“Sweetie, this is Uncle Arthur.”
Frederick knew Arthur’s voice from several months of
recordings, but I was not ready for what happened. Arthur
spoke blessings to Frederick who immediately stopped
screaming, straightened up like he was coming to attention,
his head held high and his eyes large. He was intent and
focused…silent! I’ve worked in child
development. I knew that what I was seeing defied the
textbook description of newborn behavior. Ten or fifteen
minutes later Frederick drifted peacefully to sleep and
stayed that way longer than usual.
By the end of the first month the jaw problem was
identified, fixed, and life with Frederick became a bit
more normal. You can read a detailed account of this in his
mother’s book Rebuild From Depression.
By the time Frederick was six months old, we realized that
he was a Geiger counter for identifying places that were
spiritually defiled. He went off like a siren and wanted
nothing to do with them. At times this was unhandy: like
when that place happened to be the restroom at the zoo.
On the other hand, he loved some old churches. We took him
into the mission at San Louis Obispo where he kicked and
waved and made his very loud sounds of delight. For being
small, he was VERY loud. He did the same thing in a number
of other churches. Not all of them!
As he learned to talk, Frederick spoke very comfortably
about God and Jesus. It took us a while to figure out about
Jesus because that sounded more like “Duduts”.
He was playing dress-up one day and wanted me to robe him
like Duduts. “Who?” “Duduts, God’s
Son!” “Oh, right! Duduts it is.”
At three and a half Frederick was listening intently to
some Christmas music when he asked me about this Baby all
the shepherds were going to see. (He continues to love
worship music, especially if there are children’s
voices.) “Jesus”, I told him. A shocked look
came over his face. “Jesus was a BABY!”
“Yes, Honey, that’s how he started out here on
earth after he left Heaven.” “Oh.” He was
silent for sometime with that faraway look he gets when
thinking deeply.
Just having turned five, Frederick is very comfortable with
the idea that he was with God before he came here and when
he dies, he will return to Heaven. We had some helium
balloons for his birthday party. He asked me to draw faces
and clothes on them. He gave them each a name. A day later
the gas was waning, especially from one. Frederick handled
it and the balloon went almost completely flat.
“Looks like this one is on its way back to
Heaven.” “Yes indeed, Frederick, I can see
that.”
So this is Frederick who does seem to stand out from his
peers, not just for his spiritual sensitivity, but for his
independence, confidence, ability to focus and stay
focused, sensitivity to others and their needs, a sense of
justice way beyond his years.
His mother and I were burning brush this winter as part of
the fuel reduction program in our mountains. Frederick was
enjoying watching the process until he looked up and asked,
“Is that smoke? Is it making the earth sick?”
Amanda and I looked at each other. We now have to find
another way to deal with our prunings. In the meantime, we
hope Frederick does not call Al Gore to tattle on us.
Watching this little guy develop continues to be a delight.
How much of who he is can be traced to
Baby Blessings? We are
convinced that it is a significant part. That is why
I’ve let you into this special part of our life.
Get Baby Blessings
•
for
your own infant,
•
for
the infants of anyone who can hear the need for blessing
•
especially for
high risk pregnancies (Speak blessing and life over those
little ones!),
•
as
a baby shower gift,
•
to
keep on hand for those unexpected situations where Baby
Blessings will be the answer to the problem.
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Further
Resources:
Blessing Prayers
from Scripture:
informative and motivational article
Book of Blessing
Prayers:
Blessing Your Spirit by Arthur Burk
and Sylvia Gunter