Still I Bless You (by Word from Home, featuring Amy Rutherford)

Still I Bless You
(C)2023 by Amy Rutherford
When I first heard of the tragedy unfolding in Israel on October 7, 2023, my heart broke… for the people God calls His own, for the people my nation loves, for the people I love.
In the following weeks, I was listening to an interview as a hostage’s family walked a reporter through their home, closing with their showing the bedroom of their kidnapped son. At one point, the mother spoke of looking south from their porch on a Friday evening, raising her hands and just screaming to her son…
I thought of the anguish and the righteous anger and the grief, and all the overwhelming emotions that must be flooding the mother’s heart as she looked toward her beloved child…
But then I realized something as she continued speaking.
With her hands outstretched toward the southern sky, what she was calling out was the blessing parents pray over their children every Friday night in Jewish households: “May God bless you and keep you…”
It completely shattered me.
You see, these are the same words of blessing I pray over my own children every night in our home, tucked safely in their beds as I lay my hands over their heads and ask God to be with them… these whom I love more than my very life.
To think of this mother still blessing her son whom her eyes could not see and her hands could not touch… When life had turned unimaginable, still she reached out and blessed.
The more I thought about it, my thoughts turned toward the God I love. When life has turned unimaginable, do I still bless Him? Do I still hold those immutable truths of His character which have so tenderly guided my every step? Do I still trust and know that He is holding me and those I love?
In the second chorus of this song, you’ll hear a current of voices underpinning the melody. These are words of blessing adapted from the “Mourner’s Kaddish,” a text for times of loss… its words still lifting high the name of the One who has held us from beginning to end.
“Be Thou blessed and praised,
Glorified, exalted,
Extolled and honored,
Adored and lauded…”
Even now… Still I bless You.
These were the thoughts behind this song when I composed it in October 2023. This August, while in the process of recording this release, I heard the news I’d hoped to never hear: that mother’s beautiful son had just been killed by his captors. His homeward rescue came not by human hands but in being folded even closer into the embrace of his Father God.
For Hersh Goldberg-Polin
October 2, 2000 - August 2024
For those who loved him…
For those whom he loved…
-Amy Rutherford; October 7, 2024