Proud of my Parents

Children’s children are a crown to the aged and parents are the pride of their children.  Proverbs 17:6

As I thought about legacies in the past couple of weeks, I went back and looked up something I wrote a couple of years ago. If I remember correctly, I shared this at the 60th wedding anniversary party of my parents back in 2014.

As I became a parent, I learned what it meant to be proud of your children.  As my children grew and surprised me by doing what is right or something good, I am proud of the people they are becoming.  As I watch them change from being babies to young children, and now young adults with their own personalities and characters, I am naturally a proud parent.

But, it also took becoming a parent to understand what it meant to be proud of my parents, not because of who they are becoming, but of who they are and what they have done.  My parents grew up in rural Iowa on family farms.  My father finished school after graduating from the eighth grade to help work on the farm.  My mom grew up on the farm, but she finished high school and attended one year of college.  They found each other, got married and went on to have 8 children.  All eight of them finished high school and went on to graduate from Dordt College. (now University)

Part of that, may very well be the change of the times.  When they were growing up, college education was not as common as it is today.  And some people may not see or appreciate the fact a couple could raise their children and have them all go on and get a college education.  But, I think it is pretty amazing that they saw the value of education and encouraged us all to graduate.

None of their children will likely ever be famous or do great things in the eyes of the world.  But maybe even more amazing to me is that all of their children are reasonably well adjusted.  No one has ever had problems with drugs or alcohol, or been in trouble with the law.  None of has ever had major crisis of faith, where we left the church or God.  In today’s world to have batted 1000 by having all eight children grow up in the faith without any of the major problems seems pretty amazing.   

However, none of this is to say that our family is better than anyone else or that we somehow should get an honor of special merit, but it is a testament to the faithfulness of my parents and even more importantly the faithfulness of our heavenly Father.  I think much of this happens because our parents made sure we understood who we are and whose we are.  They made sure that we understood that we were not our own, but belonged to God. 

So as I have become a parent with high hopes for my children, I am proud of my parents for how they taught us the most important thing for each of their children was to come to learn that we belong to God.  And more than anything else, that is my hope for my children.  That they come to know who God is and to whom they belong.