The blessings of baby blessings

Baby blessings are one of those things that would be a nice tradition even without the power of the priesthood. It's nice to have an occasion to mark a baby's birth; a time when you can get together with people and celebrate this new family member. It's nice to officially recognize the baby's name; it's nice for the parents to reflect on their hopes and wishes for the baby's life. It's nice to have a ceremonial sort of bestowing of those hopes for a good life onto the baby. It's nice to have an excuse for a special meal or party.

But even though all those things are nice, we have access to so much more. I realized that again last week as Sam and I were reading through and remembering the baby blessings of all the other children. Here's how we've always done it: a few days before the blessing, Sam and I talk about some of our hopes for the new baby. We talk about things we've noticed about him or her; personality traits he may already have, or attributes we hope she'll develop. Sam prays about it and writes down several thoughts and blessings he feels inspired to give, and I read what he's written and see if I feel like it's missing anything. And then he goes into the blessing day with all those things in mind.

When Sam and the other priesthood holders stand together in sacrament meeting, baby in their arms, to give the blessing, often Sam has had other thoughts come to his mind that he should bless the baby with. We've added those in later so they're part of the written blessing as well.

The interesting part of it all is that we know priesthood power isn't magic. It's not like the fairy godmothers bestowing gifts on Sleeping Beauty. Heavenly Father won't override our children's agency or bless them with things they aren't supposed to have. So I used to wonder what the point of baby blessings even was. Just to express nice sentiments? Just to give the parents some comforting illusion of control? Of course these questions could apply to any priesthood blessing, but baby blessings seem especially confusing because how can the baby have faith to act or deserve the promises given? 

I still don't know. But what I do know is that as we were reading through the other children's blessings, I noticed so many promises already being fulfilled. It was amazing how often those short few phrases of the blessing were like a miniature portrait of the child. Not in every particular! There were some things that seemed very far from true, and some that seemed like they might be accurate later, but weren't yet. But over all of the blessings was a feeling of truth and applicability, giving me the strong sense that there was a power in them beyond what I had previously known.

I'm not sure if the promises of a baby blessing are fulfilled because God gives us glimpses of who our children already have the potential to become, or if He is simply honoring our faith by steering the children toward some of the things we hope for them. But I'm so grateful for the power of the priesthood! The older I get, the more grateful I am that God trusts us with such power! There are so many good things in our lives because of it.

We had a lovely Sunday last week blessing Baby Gus. (And I'm glad we got to do it before church meetings were cancelled for the coronavirus—though, I have been to lovely baby blessings at people's homes too, so I'm sure it would have been fine.) He wore this handsome little white gown.  Here is Ziggy on his blessing day, wearing the same gown. Teddy, on the other hand, wore this little white suit that all the rest of his big brothers wore! My mom made both the suit and the gown, of course. And if you'd like to see blessing day pictures of the three girls (and their beautiful dress), here they are!

Oldest and youngest

A picture of the whole family. Isn't it nice that we could all be there for it?

The women. It was International Women's Day, after all.

My beautiful mother with Baby Gus

And Junie

With Grandma and Grandpa Nielson

And we'll end with this picture of Ziggy being utterly distracted by a car driving by.