For Everything A Season: 75 Blessings for Life's Milestones

This compilation of 75 Christian ritual blessings helps deepen and make sacred ordinary and out of the ordinary life moments. It offers three simple blessings for the seasons of the day; thirteen for the seasons of the year (holidays we celebrate from New Year's Eve to Thanksgiving); twenty-five blessings for seasons of our lives--event such as getting a driver's license, leaving home, getting a pet; seventeen blessings for seasons of our relationships; eleven for seasons of the Christian life; and six for the seasons of the church year. Each ritual has a welcome, prayer, time for reflection, suggested ritual action such as lighting a candle or passing a blessing cup, and a closing blessing. Families or other groups can share these blessings or they can be experienced by someone alone. These accessible blessings help to transform ordinary moments in time and space into holy moments of timeless grace. “To tend the journey of faith from pre-birth to the grave and to pass on the faith from generation to generation, families need tools that will help them look for God in all of life’s milestones—from sending a child off to kindergarten to sending that child off with a new driver’s license, from rejoicing over a birth to caring for the dying, from celebrating national holidays to observing Christian holy days. For Everything A Season, conceived and written from the heart of the Nilsen family, wonderfully helps families connect with God during 75 different milestone moments.” Rev. Dr. David W. Anderson, Milestones Ministry, LLC “As a parent and a leader in the church, I am continually looking for tools to help both my family and other families take the moments of our daily lives and connect them with our spiritual journey. For Everything A Season is an answer to prayer for those who join me in this search. The Nilsen family has crafted 75 blessing rituals for transforming ordinary events into sacred time. This resource is a must for pastors, lay leaders and parents of all ages.” Dr. Terri Elton, Associate Professor of Children, Youth, and Family Ministry, Luther Seminary In 1998, Mary Ylvisaker Nilsen of Zion Publishing broached an idea to her family, a family who, over the years, had discovered the power of blessing rituals. Within a year, For Everything A Season: 75 Blessings for Daily Life was in print, ready to begin enriching the lives of individuals and families. Six years later the then Youth and Family Institute bought the copyright, produced the second edition, and distributed it to thousands of families and congregations across the country. In 2014, Zion Publishing re-acquired the copyright and produced this edition: For Everything A Season: 75 Blessings for Life’s Milestones. Our hope and prayer is that this tool will help you discover the profound joy and hope in this God who can bring calm in the midst of chaos, turn our mourning into dancing, and transform our everyday interactions in time and place into holy moments of timeless grace.