Fresh Start Devotionals

June 14

My Parents

When I was ten, my parents could do no wrong, but by the time I was thirteen, they could do no right. Both perspectives were clouded and inaccurate. Like a pendulum swinging, the teenage perspective corrected the naive childish view. Today I’m able to evaluate my upbringing with greater clarity.

My parents? They were the greatest. Really, I grew up in a Norman Rockwell painting—I was lucky. Yeah, a couple of times they punished me unjustly, but that seems pretty insignificant now when weighed against the number of times I didn’t get punished because I didn’t get caught.

The thing I admire most about my parents is the way they taught their values to their children. I can’t remember too many times that we studied the Bible together or had a structured time of teaching, but they taught us with their actions.

When they attended our recitals or ball games, they taught us that we were important to them. When they did their jobs with excellence, and required the same of us, they taught us the value of work.

Every week, Mama gave us an allowance and let us spend it any way we wanted. By giving us freedom, they taught us responsibility and the value of a dollar.

By taking us to church every Sunday, they taught us the value of worship, and by accepting us, even when we made bad choices, they taught us the meaning of unconditional love.

Yeah, there was a time I would have traded my parents for another set. Today, I pray, that my children’s parents are as good to them as mine were (are) to me.

Jim L. Wilson, Fresh Start Devotionals (Fresno, CA: Willow City Press, 2009).

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