Time for Honor - by John Godfrey

I received an unexpected but very welcomed call yesterday from a nice lady named Kim in Cedar Hill Tennessee. For those of you that do not have a clue where Cedar Hill is I'll fill you in. Cedar Hill TN is a great little country town located on the map a bit North of Nashville TN just past Springfield. My dad was called to be pastor at Cedar Hill Baptist church around 1952 so of course our family moved there at that time. I was only about four or five years old so my memories of that little town are limited. My main memory was that during hat time my mother became very ill and had to spend about three months hospitalized at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville. Best I can remember the country music star Hank Williams Senior was hospitalized there at the same time. Of course he passed away shortly after on January 1st 1953, but thankfully mother survived. During her stay at the hospital, a great family from our church kept me at their home. I'll never forget "Uncle Tater" and "Aunt Tootsie" and their son Billy Hawkins...what great folks! (If there are more of you Hawkins folks I apologize for forgetting)

But getting back to the unexpected phone call yesterday from Kim. It seems that she had being trying for some time to locate our family. The Cedar Hill Baptist Church is going to be celebrating their 100th year anniversary (I hope I have the years right?) and they want to honor all of the pastors that have served there over the years. She told me that although my dad served there only one year, that God had added 64 members to the church and most of those through baptism. It may not seem much to you, but when you look at the size of the town especially back then, that is terrific! Even now some churches much larger don't even come close to that many conversions in a year.


Okay you're saying ... "Stop your bragging" and I admit that you may be correct in your assumption. But, you see, I think its time to brag and honor our parents again. Of course dad didn't do it all on his own. He had the help of some great church members, but more than that he had God's help. Only through God and His Spirit can anyone come to know and receive Him.

Time for Honor...I should say so! Like many, especially when we are younger, I've gone through times when I really felt that I was so much smarter than my parents. I really didn't need any advice from them, nor did I really care about their lives. I rarely asked about their struggles and hardships over the years and I rarely gave them honor or praise for the sacrifices they made just to raise their three children, and they made plenty. No, their lives didn't always reflect the perfect family and they made plenty of mistakes along the way. They could not give their children the things that others had because of the lack of money. It must have hurt to send your children to school with cardboard in the bottom of their shoes to keep the rain water from flooding through the holes in the soles, or having to scrape up enough change to buy a 50 cent lunch at school. I also watched as they both suffered greatly after the untimely death of my brother Barry in 1974. It was something neither ever recovered from, nor have I or my sister Patty. So in that sense life was not easy for them at all.

I must admit that when I received that call yesterday from Kim, it reminded me that recently I personally had made the commitment to give honor to my parents. Some through the years have said terrible hurtful things about my dad. Unfortunately that happens when you are a pastor. Some church folks expect perfection from a pastor and his family as well. He was far from perfect and of course his family fell short too, but I was reminded by Kim's phone call of how God used him in many different places in spite of his human weaknesses. If you look at the characters in the bible you'll see their failures and weaknesses as well, but God still used them too. God is the only true judge of our lives and he knows what has built us up and what has torn us down throughout the years. He has the full picture of our lives so He and only He can be our judge, so maybe its time we leave that sort of thing to God.

So today....I give honor to my dad Elbert Dale Godfrey and my mother Audrey June Godfrey. I'm sure that my sister will join in to honor them as well.

Although you both have passed from this life, maybe God will give you a nudge on the arm and say..."Dale...Audrey... take a look at what your son just wrote." Maybe God will bring Barry over too and let him see. Hey who knows...at least I can dream! Of course Barry will say I copied it or that I'm just trying to get out of trouble with my folks! :-) I miss you all more than you know.

Here's a Toast to a great Dad and wonderful Mother! Today you are honored as you should have been all along.

Left to Right

Barry, Johnny (me), and Patty
Cedar Hill Tennessee 1952