Honor your mother and father

Honoring your parents can be tough. Especially honoring those parents that are absent or provoking or abusive or just plain does not see your point of view. But, I was thinking....the fifth commandment does not say to honor our parents IF they are righteous or IF they are holy or IF they don't annoy us. The verse actually reads like this:

“Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12 NRSV)

I wonder if God declared this as one of his primary commandments because the relationship between parent and child represents the relationship between God and man; Parents created their children and God created man. If we cannot respect and honor those who gave us life (someone we can see with our physical eyes), how can we possibly respect and honor the ultimate Creator Himself (whom we cannot see)? We may not agree with everything our parents do and say, but our responsibility is to give them honor despite their position in life, their views in society, or their physical or mental absence from their child's life.

That sounds quite difficult, doesn't it? I struggle with this on a daily basis, but I also pray very hard that God would help me to view life from my mother's perspective. And, maybe that's what makes a parent the way he or she is - his/her perspective in life. Maybe that's why it's important to honor them regardless of the decisions they have made --- because their perspective may be skewed or just different from their child's. And, in the end it's about the relationship, not about the differences.

Hmmm...