In the last 50 years as I’ve given blessings to the sick and set people apart in their callings, I have given hundreds, and probably a thousand or more priesthood blessings.  In every instance I’ve approached the duty or the request with feelings of trepidation, anxiety, and questions about my ability to be a mouthpiece for the Spirit.  In each case I’ve asked a prayer for help, tried to put aside my fears, and went forward to do that which was asked of me.

In every case but one I’ve come away from the experience feeling happy, satisfied, and blessed.  That one exception was an important learning experience.

I had received a phone call from an active member of the Church asking me to give a priesthood blessing to her mother who lay comatose in the hospital.  I enlisted the help of the full-time missionaries, and together we went to give the blessing.  One elder anointed, and then it was my privilege to seal the anointing.  I found myself stuttering, stammering, struggling, sweating, and searching for words to say—anything—that would make coherent sense.  It was awful.  It was embarrassing.  It was humiliating.  I felt terrible.  I felt even worse at the end of the blessing when the daughter looked at me and said, rather than asked, “So what did that mean?”

All I could say was, “I don’t know,” and left.

As I drove away from the hospital I was sick.  What was wrong with me?  Wasn’t I worthy?  Why couldn’t I at least have been able to say something nice that would have been a comfort to the daughter?

I was approaching the intersection of Chico Road and Highway 30 outside Baker, Oregon when the revelation came.  It was a voice that came into my mind.  The voice said, “I have no blessing for that woman.”

My immediate reaction was relief in knowing that I wasn’t to blame for my poor performance.  Coupled with that was a profound sadness for the case of that poor, comatose woman.  I knew something of her history.  She was negative, apostate, railed against her leaders, the Church, and her neighbors, and had succeeded through her negativity in taking her three fine sons out of activity in the Church.  The Lord had no blessing for her, and I had been left without the companionship of the Spirit as I attempted to bless her.

As holders of the Priesthood, we may have questions about our capabilities.  We know that we aren’t eloquent.  We’re very much aware of our imperfections.  There is no way that we could ever feel that we might be proper substitutes for the Savior in anything that we do.  Yet imperfect men are all that God has ever had to work with; and He has blessed those who are willing to serve with authority to act in His name, and He honors that which is said and done by His servants.  This I know.

I know also that He has promised to go before my face, and to be on my right hand and on my left, and to put His Spirit in my heart, and to give me angels round about me to bear me up.  (D&C 84:88).  I can testify that it has been so in every instance when I have exercised my Priesthood.  Even in that one case when I thought that I had been left all alone, the Spirit came afterward to reassure me that the fault was not in me.