What Every Parent Needs, part 2

When I read my tribute to my mom in front of our whole family, she just cried and smiled. I knew from looking into her eyes that it meant more to her than I ever imagined. A while later I did the same for my dad and read it to him at the family's Thanksgiving table. He, too, was deeply touched, and I felt good about having made my obedience to God's Word "official."

Believe me, whether your relationship has been phenomenal or very difficult, God will use this step of obedience with your parents more than you can imagine.

Here are some practical ideas to get you started:

1. Be honest. Don't say a bunch of slobbery things you don't mean. You don't have to pretend that you approve of everything your parents do or that they are perfect.

2. Be positive. Just focus on the good--whatever it is. If you can't see it, ask the Lord for wisdom, and He will show it to you.

3. Be public. Read what you write in front of your spouse and children, if possible. It is a wonderful teaching moment. God will use it to spread a legacy of honor throughout your family.

4. Be decisive. Don't put it off. The time is now.

You can read my tribute to my mom and dad below. I hope they serve as good examples for how you can step out in obedience to God's Word and write your own. It's your turn.
Let me know how it goes.

A Tribute to May Sherwood MacDonald
Dear Mom:

For several months, no really for years, I have been forming in my mind words of honor and tribute to you, for being such an incredible mother and investing your very best in me. As adults, we see things kids never see. And, that perspective has only heightened my respect of, and gratitude for, the woman God chose to be my mother.

You are far too loyal a person to ever say so, but I know that you overcame many challenges as a child that I never faced. Instead of the support that I received through all of my school years, you had to quit high school to help support your parents. I remember you saying, "Sherwoods know how to work." You sure did, and do. You taught me to love and value hard work. You overcame other obstacles also. Your parents were not as emotive or expressive with their love, as they should have been. God knows why not, but you did not use that as an excuse. You always say that you "knew" that they loved you. But, I have known and heard and felt your love. Your parents needed to labor six days a week to make ends meet, and moved every year. I had the advantage of available parents, long-term friendships, and eighteen years in the same house and church. You were the first to choose Jesus in your family, and then led your parents to salvation. I had parents who told me about Jesus before I could walk. Mom, you are an over-comer in a world of excuse-makers. May I be like you!

Remember the countless Bible clubs on Tuesdays after school? Our basement was jammed with kids waiting to hear about Jesus (the flannel board stories…). You are such a great teacher, and storyteller! Remember the neighbor ladies coming over for coffee, and those you led to Christ? You were doing friendship evangelism years before anyone was talking about it. Remember leading me to Christ? Remember kneeling by my bed with your red Bible, putting your arms around me, and praying for me? Did you cry?

It wasn't all spiritual though was it Mom? I know I often mad you cry. Remember how hard I tried to kill myself or, so it must have seemed: 10 trips to the emergency room, before I was 12, 75 stitches in increments of 7, a broken wrist, a broken collar bone, a broken nose. It's a wonder you didn't break my neck!

Remember when you threw the knife at me at dinner? Remember when you threw the tea at me at dinner? Remember the times you sent me to my room without dinner? It all makes sense now.

Corn chowder, scalloped potatoes, donuts and peanut butter cookies, popcorn balls and apple crisp, paper routes, baseball teams, basketball constantly, youth retreats, school events, and birthday parties with four boys, you did it all. I used to wonder why you slept on Sunday afternoons. Now I know.

Remember how I'd make you laugh, cry, occasionally swear, and always pray? You were never perfect, but always authentic, hating hypocrisy the most. I hope I am like you in that.

You raised me good. You taught me well. You walked your talk. You let me go. But, from a distance, you're still loving, still cheering, still supporting, and still praying.

I honor you Mom! You are a triple double, grand slam, record-setting mother! A success by faith, I hear you saying, "For His glory James," and I say "AMEN!!'

A Tribute to Verne Hubert MacDonald
Dear Dad:

Ephesians 6:4 commands us to: "Honor your Father and Mother." Since the day I wrote that tribute to Mom, I have been forming in my mind similar words of tribute to you, waiting for the right time to share them with you. Today is that day.

Much of what a man is, and becomes, arrives through his dad. And, as I scan the landscape of my heritage, I see beyond you, and before you. I see a grandfather, and a great-grandfather who are at this moment in the presence of the Lord. And, I praise God that I can stand in a line of men who have loved and served God faithfully and found Him to be a shelter in their generation.

Dad my mind is racing as I think of all you have given me:

Thanks for working so hard to provide. Thanks for carrying cases of cokes, buying and selling cars, teaching summer school, getting your Masters degree, and letting Mom be at home with us.

Thanks for giving me a love of history. Thanks for reading historical plaques while we yawned and fidgeted, rummaging through old homesteads in search of antique bottles, loading me down with books about pioneer days, and taking me to Arthur Ford School during the Christmas holidays so I could do my project on James Watt.

Thanks for letting me get C's in school, when you wanted so much more, protecting my will to learn until I was ready to use it. Remember driving me to summer school and going to my teachers to fight for me, when you thought I deserved a break? Remember the day we argued about study halls, "a lawyer in the making" you thought? Remember the night I threw my math books at the wall and cried? Remember how you kept your cool and listened?

Thanks for teaching me to love my wife by loving Mom in front of us, by arguing and yelling then kissing and making up right before our little eyes, by making sure we knew that your love for Mom came first by insisting that we treated her with the same respect that you did? I'll never forget the time that I screamed at Mom and ran from the house. When I came home you sat me down and scolded me. Then you cried, read the Bible to me, and prayed for God to change my heart.

Thanks for stale donuts on Saturday night, wrestling matches with Oriental women at Hudson's, yelling out the window at "RF" drivers, and for teaching us that if you know who you are, you can dress any way you want and not really care. Thanks for camping and convertibles, catch in the back yard, construction projects, cow auctions, the cottage, corporal punishment, caring conversations, calling a spade a spade, and calling us home for supper.

Thanks for leading our family spiritually. Thanks for taking us back to church on Sundays nights and Wednesdays. Thanks for leading singing at Thamesford Baptist Church, being the Sunday School Superintendent, going to church clean-up days, and standing in front of the whole church while Mom trembled to sing "Through it All" and "The King is Coming." Thanks for loving the church.

Dad, I could write all day about the things you have given me, but I have to get home and stuff the turkey. One final word of thanks says it all: Thanks for getting past religion and ritual to a real thing with God. Thanks for loving Jesus Christ in a growing, personal, authentic, faithful, contagious way. Thanks for transmitting that love for Christ to your sons, and now to your grandchildren. I honor you, Dad. You are worthy of double honor. I do not know, nor have I ever met a man I would be more proud to call my Father. And, I pray for the glory of Christ alone, that I can be half the man to my kids that you have been, and are, to me.

Your son,
James

I've written more about this in the double booklet, "How to Bless Your Child"/ "How to Honor Your Parents"