a valentine blessing for all our loves

O God, we need love.
Love in all its forms.
Love that can carry us through this.  

O God of love,
could You pray a loving blessing
in us and through us, right now,
and all the days of our lives?

God have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Spirit have mercy.

Bless our kids and grandkids.
Children here and those gone.
Bless the people who quicken our hearts,
now and years past.
Bless our parents and grandparents,
strengthen our roots and our branches.
Bless our pets and your creation,
and the comfort it brings.
Bless our friends and our chosen families,
all the bonds that hold us.
Thank you for this love,
this absurd and wonderful love.  

God have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Spirit have mercy.

O satisfy us with Your loving kindness in the morning
[now, before we grow older],
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Psalm 90:14 AMP

O God of Love, blessed are we,
bearing in our hearts a deep desire to love,
understanding full well how we fall short.
love is the fuel.
love is food we ourselves need.
here at the still point
of awareness of our tiresome insufficiency,
blessed are we, who say God,
come and meet us
in this nexus of need and desire,
that we might not only pray a blessing,
but live it.

God pour down Your blessing
on all our loves, all whom we cherish,
some still here and some now gone.

Bless the memories we hold
of those who have died,
and release in us the fullness of being able
to love them as they were in this life,
and as they are now as You see them
in the mystery that is beyond our sight.
blessed are we who open our hands
to receive grace for the love
we both need and desire,
love that flows back and forth freely
with forgiveness and peace beyond understanding.

And God, bless the ones who share
this present time and space with us here,
whose lives are yet an unwritten book,
just like ours.
come and write Your love poem into all
that we speak – in our words and our actions –
that we might love so genuinely, so truly,
that Your heart would rejoice to see it
because You are in it.
For it is Your face that we see
in the eyes of another.

God have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Spirit have mercy.
 
Go your way.
Notice where you can bless.
And follow the love.
 
Whoever brings blessing
will be enriched,
and one who waters
will himself be watered
Proverbs 11:25