8 Feb 2013 by Tan Toa Hock-
This article was written by Tan Toa Hock about a friend’s life story. The story was written from a first-person point of view to enable easier reading. Names were also changed to respect the privacy of people in his friend’s life story.
The Ten Commandments say:
Honour your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you (Deuteronomy 5:16).
Our God never says, “Honour only model fathers and model mothers.” The verse above means that we must honour all our fathers and mothers in spite of their different lives.
We were born into a poor farming family in Sungei Bidut in the late 1950s. In order to escape the fierce fighting between the communist terrorists and the security forces, we moved to a slum area in Sibu town. My mother planted some vegetables at the road side and washed clothes for the neighbourhood labourers.
My father was lame from childhood polio and he went to town everyday early in the morning to look for work. Sometimes, he was successful and came back with some ikan bilis and groundnuts. But at many other times he came back with only a few old paperback English books and some old toys for us. He would say, “I have found work and money and decided to buy these for you.” We kept quiet as we all know that he had not found any work and had gone through the dustbins to bring the items for us. He wanted to maintain his role as the family provider.
One afternoon, while I was searching for empty bottles among the rubbish dumps, I saw a dog running frantically down the road with a piece of meat in its jaws. There was a limping man with a stick chasing after it. The dog who appeared to be nursing at that time had obviously stolen the meat from the butcher for her hungry puppies. But the man who chased after the dog was my father who took the meat from its jaw. And on that night, we had meat… albeit taken from a dog, for the first time since we moved into town.
One memorable day, a neighbour came to call me from my secondary school. My father had been run over by a big lorry. I went to pull his body out from underneath the lorry with the help of several firemen. He had a three feet tall old teddy bear in his arms and he was smiling from cheek to cheek even in his death. I knew what his last thought was. It must be, “I am going to make my youngest little girl Jenny happy tonight. She has always wanted a big teddy bear.”
How are we as children going to judge this man? According to the standards of the world, he was not a good father and provider. But we didn’t judge him that way in spite of what other people said about him. He was an unfortunate man with the circumstances of his time but he loved us. His little girl Jenny became a famous clinical psychologist in one of the top hospitals through scholarships. She had the blood-stained teddy bear in her office at all times. Whenever her patient is a troubled adolescent who cannot accept his parents, she would tell him the story behind the teddy bear. Many times, the patient would break down and cry, and went back home to make peace with his parents. My father’s love for his little girl which was manifested in the teddy bear had not been in vain.
What about you… my brothers and sisters in Christ? Are you in talking terms with your parents? And are you holding any grudge against them? Do you hate them for what they have done in this world? Are you praying for them every day to come to our ultimate Heavenly Father, God Himself?
Please do not judge them by your personal standards and the standards of this world. Not everybody is lucky in this world. Many poor men and women were jailed for stealing milk powder from the supermarkets for their little children back home. They had to pay the price of stealing but their children should not condemn them as thieves and convicted felons when they are released to rejoin the society. Let God judge them when they meet Him on the Judgment Day.
Do not insult your parents by bringing forth their unhappy worlds. Every parent wants to appear capable in front of their spouse and children. Give them every privilege to fulfil their God-given natural instinct. Hold your tongue from condemning them of their darkest secrets. Let them live their world and you build your own world out of their ruins. If you know that your parents are involved in illegal business to provide for your PhD studies overseas, do not query and condemn them on your graduation day. Pray for God’s power to change them into becoming law-abiding good businessmen. If they asked you for help to get themselves out of trouble, do it whole-heartedly as a filial child. Do not ask those questions that will incriminate them as crooks in the eyes of God, their beloved families and their standing in the society. God allows us to repent and come back to Him anytime, anywhere under any circumstances without the need of spilling all the beans for the judgment of everyone in the world.
If I have told my poor father, “You are a thief who stole a dirty piece of meat to serve your for dinner. You could not provide for us and you ran through the dustbins to give us rubbish in place of food?”
What do I gain? I may release my anger, hatred and frustrations for a moment. But I may still not be able to break out from poverty with those few words. What do I lose? I would break the heart, confidence, life and the world of my poor father. I may not be confident enough to get married and be a father myself. I don’t have a very successful life too and I have done many shameful things to earn money for daily survival according to the standards of the world. What happen if one day, my sons and daughters stand up and point their fingers at me and exclaimed shame towards my past?
That would break my heart because I did not choose to live such a life. Instead I was forced into it by unfavourable life circumstances at that time. In the same way, I have shown respect and honour to my father, I can extract the same respect and honour from my children by telling them my father’s story.
Brothers and Sisters-in-Christ, give your fathers and mothers the most precious gift that they want from their children: the gift of love, respect and honour. It does not matter what position they hold in the society, respect them as parents and do not judge them according to their life accomplishments or mistakes in the secular world.
Lastly, I hope that my story would have touched you and improved the relationship between you and your parents. If I know that one child has approached his estranged father or mother and honoured them, my father’s short life on earth would not have been in vain.
God bless you and your beloved parents.
Dear Viewers in Christ, if you find this article edifying to you, please share with your friends or loved ones by using the social media plugs (Share, Email to this article). The Lord will surely bless you as you bless others. May the Lord’s peace and love be with you. Amen.
References for pictures:
http://www.gospelherald.com/files/opinion/0617editorial_pic1.jpg
http://www.chinasmack.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/china-poor-rural-girl-05-mother-560×372.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BLLeH8xhqJE/T2BBhkF-UxI/AAAAAAAAHRk/AYPW3S9zf_0/s1600/1.jpg
http://www.teddybearfriends.co.uk/images/teddy-bears/large/gund-big-teddy-bear-barley.jpg
http://thecripplegate.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/father-daughter.jpeg
http://impactolatino.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/p1150438.jpg
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