Here’s a heart-wrenching problem. By all assessments, your aged parent should enter a care facility but your parent won’t have any part of it. You, the child caught in the dilemma, hear in your conscience the words of the commandment, “Honor your father and your mother,” and so are caught between the commandment and what obviously needs to be done.
A recent “Timely Reflection” quoted Martin Luther. “Honor includes not only love but also deference, humility, and modesty, directed (so to speak) toward a majesty hidden within them…. Next to God we give them the very highest place. Young people must therefore be taught to revere their parents as God’s representatives.” Honoring a parent as the person who represented God to us in our young lives doesn’t change when mom or dad now need our decisions about their care.
Doctrines of faith don’t rest on only one passage of Scripture and likewise Christians weigh difficult decisions with more than one passage in mind. In this case, let’s consider also the next commandment. “You shall not murder.” Luther again: “We should fear and love God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need.” The positive aspect of this commandment says, “Yes, you honor God by providing your parent, His representative, with the best care possible at this time of your parent’s life.” That still doesn’t make it easy, still heart-wrenching, but “the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13-14). Don’t add to your anguish with legalism but take comfort under the Gospel of God’s love for all His children, young and old. “Your heavenly Father knows” (Matthew 6:32).
Comments