For my wife and I, it has been our great joy to have the opportunity to have two children and see them grow from tiny newborns to college age. We have experienced the pleasure, the pain, and the responsibilty of protecting them, nurturing them, and helping them to become adults who may, in turn, take the love we’ve shown them and someday raise the next generation.

In the past couple of years I’ve enjoyed taking out old photos and scanning them, to make them more available to view than it has ever been possible in the past. And as I do this, and relive my own life growing up in a loving family, I look at my own family, and hope we communicated to these two wonderful kids the deep love that we felt for them.

Kodak aired this commercial back in the 1960s:

Ever since I saw them, I’ve been a sucker for a story that talks about life and the inevitible changes that it brings. And one of the best of those types of songs in the era of Jesus music is Goodnight Kiss from Steve & Annie Chapmnan’s 1984 album Circle Of Two.

I count it as a privilege
I count it cause for praise
To kiss my children goodnight
At the close of every day

For I know too soon
They’re up and gone
And walking out the door
And I’ll never have a child to kiss
Goodnight anymore

It’s very strange how times have changed
From the present to the past
When did they grow so quickly
The time has flown so fast

For it seems that only yesterday
I helped him with his shirt
Or pat my baby on the back
Kissed away a hurt

Tell a story, read a book
Wipe a nose, or tie a shoe
They never ask me to rub their back
The way they used to do

Once it was a bother
Just a troublesome kind of chore
But now I would give anything
To do it just once more

Mommy, bounce me on your knee
Daddy, flip me in the air
Throw a rubber ball to me
And help me comb my hair

Mommy, tickle my tummy
Daddy, hold me tight
Let’s go outside for a while
Or make a kite to fly

I count it as a privilege
I count it cause for praise
To kiss my children goodnight
At the close of every day

For I know too soon
They’re up and gone
And walking out the door
And I’ll never have a child to kiss
Goodnight anymore

And I’ll never have a child to kiss
Goodnight
Anymore

Although I cannot find a link to the song to download, here is a link to their website, where you can purchase the CD An Evening Together, which contains this song.