Jay’s Blog – Tribute

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Last weekend, I had the opportunity to pay tribute to my dad at his memorial service. I’d like to do so again by allowing you to know him and the impact of our God working in a life well lived.

Good afternoon. I’m John’s oldest son, John Winston Ferguson, Jr., and over the next few minutes, I hope you’ll see why I’m proud to bear that name.

On behalf of our family, thank you for being here to honor our father. It’s a blessing to have you join us.  Today, my siblings will share with you some of my father’s favorite Scriptures, and in them, I believe you’ll note an abiding theme—beauty from ashes, life from death, transformation from suffering—all made possible by and through the blood of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. My father instilled these themes in my family’s hearts through his teachings and example. 

I want to focus for a minute on one of these passages, Job 19, because I think it captures several truths about my dad’s life. In this passage, Job has suffered more than anyone can imagine. He has lost his family, home, business, health, and everything. His friends have now come, “encouraging” Job by blaming him for his woes. They “comfort” him by claiming that if he simply repents of whatever he’s done, surely God will be merciful and give everything back. 

Job, who knows he’s done nothing to warrant his suffering, refuses to buy his friends’ simplistic, transactional views of God or the world around him. He senses something deeper at work, although he doesn’t understand it. Above it all, however, Job is steadfast in his belief that God is here, at work, present and active in his life, 

For I know that my Redeemer lives, 

And at the last he will stand upon the earth. 

And after my skin has been thus destroyed, 

Yet in my flesh shall I see God. 

My dad knew suffering. It bookended his life and filled the pages in between. My dad shared with me that his childhood was filled with many good memories, but also deep hurt and tragedy that caused him great pain and impacted who he was forever.  As we all know, my dad ended his life with a long and distressing battle with Alzheimer’s and cancer, a long goodbye that no doubt frustrated him and crushed us all. 

Yet, my dad was no victim of his circumstances. He knew that His Redeemer lived, and that gave him a vision to be a man of joy, one who embraced life, and who loved people well. 

My dad had a tremendous work ethic. He worked in the same business for over 40 years, and was always, always professionally dressed. I put a fresh shine on my shoes today, because my father would have wanted that. My dad worked well into his 70s, until he literally couldn’t work anymore. We worked, too. Every weekend involved at least one project, fixing something around the house. My kids always make fun of me for not being a handyman. What they don’t know is that it’s not that I don’t know how to do it, but that I’m completely burned out from a childhood as a plumber’s assistant, electrician’s apprentice, and junior carpenter. 

One summer in my early teenage years, I was his yardboy. I spent the whole summer going over to his house, pulling weeds, trimming the hedges, cleaning out the pool traps, and whatever else needed to be done in the heat of the Texas sun. And, as all of my siblings can attest from the 25 cent/week allowance we received, Dad did NOT pay well. 

That was a miserable job. Between the swimming pool and deck, the back patio, and the front circular driveway, there wasn’t actually that much yard. I kept thinking, “Surely he’s going to tell me, ‘Hey, we’ve got everything covered for this week. Take the next couple of days off.’ There just couldn’t be that much to do. And yet, all summer long. Every. Single. Day. He had hours of work for me to do. 

I later realized that it wasn’t about getting the yard in pristine condition. He wanted to make sure I knew how to work hard. I learned my work ethic from my dad, but I learned way more than that. I learned later in life that Dad had been supporting at least part or all of three households—ours, the Southwestern house, and my grandmom’s—for 40 years after Granddad died, along with his brothers.  My dad was a provider, he was a caretaker. He saw and taught me that hard work was not an end in itself, but a way to love and care for the people God had entrusted to you, including his family and a host of others. 

Dad wasn’t all work, though. He loved the Rangers, SMU athletics, and playing golf and guitar (although he wasn’t very good at either). And he loved to fly. Oh, how he loved to fly. He probably spent as much time in the air as he did on the ground from the time he was fifteen.  And he loved having us with him during all those times. My stepmom says she loves that Dad saw all of life as a gift and that he loved living it out loud. 

Speaking of loud, my dad loved music.  For as far back as I can remember, I knew virtually the entire catalogues of Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Sr., Willie Nelson, and, of course, Buddy Holly, sung, whistled, and played through the vinyl and cassettes of my dad’s various stereos over the years. There are still days when I have to play “Bridge Over Troubled Water” through my car speakers as loud as it will go, like my dad loved to do. I don’t think I ever knew that song could be played any other way. He got his love of music from his mother and grandmom, and he gave it to all of us. When he could no longer remember our names, and at times there didn’t seem to be much of him left in there, there was always a song. He was always singing, and the sound of his singing always kept us connected to him even when we thought we’d lost him. 

I believe that music is the language of heaven, and that’s the way Dad always carried heaven within his heart, even when times got hard for him, even when he had forgotten everything else. 

As you can imagine from the artists I just named, we did not have a sheltered childhood, and the tragedy of that music sometimes served as the soundtrack to our lives. I never doubted my father’s love, but the brokenness in his life cast its shadows on my own and left impressions that required years of work and God’s healing. There was a season in our lives when we didn’t talk much, when we really struggled. Now, seeing life through the humbling lenses of my own parental failures, I realize he was doing the best he could, motivated, as all of us are, by the dark fear that our children might become the worst of who we picture ourselves to be. 

We struggled as a family during my siblings’ 20s and 30s, and as I watched Dad and Sherry work and love our family and each other through some really hard things, God continually transformed my dad. From my perspective, he became softer, more gracious, and more patient.  This man was the father-in-law my wife knew, the only Granddaddy my girls have ever known, and Jesus is so very good to make that so.  My dad taught me many things growing up, but he showed me, from that point forward, the greatest truth I could have possibly learned: that I didn’t have to be the same man at 30 that I would be at 40, 50, or 60. By submitting to the power of Jesus through the Holy Spirit, I can become everything God intended me to be. That’s who my dad became. 

Finally, my father was an exceedingly generous man—generous in praise, generous in kindness, and generous in giving.  My friend Katie lives in Tyler, and her kids attend my school. She is known as one of the pillars of our school community. This woman is always there to care for and provide for those who are sick, in pain, or in need. She is a true, modern-day saint. I asked Katie to speak at our gala this year, two and a half weeks before Dad passed away. Katie was talking about the way this school community cares for each other, and she said she learned to care for people when her daughter, who had been born with special needs, was in the hospital for months in Dallas. The daughter was her second child born with special needs.  She said there she was, feeling sorry for herself and saying, “Why me, Lord?” She says that, in that moment, she had visitors.  “John and Sherry Ferguson must have found out from Jay that my kid was there. Every night as we were there, night after night and month after month, they would quietly bring us meals in the hospital, consistent and faithful, showing us love and concern. God showed me “why me.” He showed me how much he loves me, and that He always would, through them. I learned how to love people from them.” 

Another woman, a school mom, in my town started a charity for families of children with cancer, the Gold Network. It has helped dozens of families caught in tragic circumstances over the years. Heather, the founder, often tells me she was inspired to start this support network when her son, Sawyer, was sick at Children’s in Dallas, receiving weeks and months of treatment. Guess what happened while she was there? You got it– here came John and Sherry Ferguson, the two-person meal train, night after night, week after week, teaching them how to love, love that would partially inspire Heather and leave a lasting imprint on the lives of so many others. 

My dad’s greatest legacy may be the hundreds of children and their families who were loved for the gospel of Jesus, who will never know his name but who will be changed forever, all because he believed that suffering wasn’t an end in itself but a way to surrender to becoming all God had for him so he could be all for others.  Surrendering to love. 

For I know that my Redeemer lives, 

And at the last he will stand upon the earth. 

And after my skin has been thus destroyed, 

Yet in my flesh shall I see God. 

Our father’s life is a testimony to victory in Jesus, what is possible for me and for you when we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts God raised him from the dead. This is the truth my father believed, loved, and lived. Our family’s prayer is that his life and this truth will inspire you to victory as well.