Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

• 1 John 4:1-6

“’Corrie,’ he began instead, ‘do you know what hurts so very much?  It’s love.  Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain.
“’There are two thing we can do when this happens.  We can kill the love so that it stops hurting.  But then of course part of us dies, too.  Or, Corrie, we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel. …”

• Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place

A few years ago, we had an evil presence in the house.  They did not believe in God, and they focused their hatred on me.  While here, they threw away a lot of things that identified me as being me: certified birth certificate, military records, and such.  Much of the missing documents were things that I could replace at a cost, some was what I could not replace.  I found a large amount of it when throwing out the trash, finding a strange pile of papers with some of the lost files buried in the middle, a miracle that I even noticed.  I would not have noticed at all if it were not for the weight of the paperwork, 99% obvious trash.  I started splitting it into smaller chunks and spreading the heavy paperwork into various trash bags, just so they could be picked up without ripping the bag.  That is when a few sheets looked different and I found some of the lost documents.

My wife denied that it was personal.  She made many attempts to get me to calm down, all failing.

My wife was always the peacemaker.  She always saw or tried to see the good in everyone.  She would never openly admit that some people have evil intent.

In this case, she never backed down.  She made constant excuses for their bad behavior.

Fast forward many years, and my son and his family were cleaning up the house, at least making a show of doing so.  And yes, they cleaned a lot, and there were some things lost that I have yet to find.

But among their finds was the teddy bear in the picture above.  That teddy bear was given to me when I was one year old by my sister.  The torn belly is about the third or fourth belly patch, an old T-shirt with the irreplaceable kisses from my mother’s mother on it – excess lipstick.  Much of the stuffing was old nylons and other rags found when the last patch was made.  About thirty years ago, my sister saw the bear and could not believe that it was still around.  When I was young, we were inseparable.  Teddy even made it to school once.  You know, show and tell.

But it was an obsession.  My mother tried to throw it away numerous times, and I could not go to sleep unless teddy was with me.  I grew out of that phase, but I had made claims in my vows to protect my teddy bear that would be hard to keep.  Yet, Teddy was carefully hidden in a footlocker during military maneuvers once, just so I could complete that oath, an oath made long before I ever knew I would be in the military.  Teddy was on a vacation or two during my adulthood, but I do not think he made it on our honeymoon.

Yes, I took my oaths made at the age of 5-6-7 very seriously.

But where was Teddy found?

In my wife’s bookcase behind some books.  The books on the shelf made a false front.  The book spines were lined up perfectly.  You would think that the books were placed against the back of the shelf, but they were not. A teddy bear was behind some of them.

My wife may have been a peacemaker who always saw the good in other people, but in the midst of what was going on, she recognized the bad in people also.  She knew that destroying that teddy bear would be a horrible blow to me.  She took matters into her own hands and hid the bear.  I had not touched the bear in nearly forty years, only touching it to accomplish something on my oath bucket list from my very early years.  It had been with the other stuffed animals, stuffed animals that were all thrown away except for two during that horrible visit.  Oh, no, with the recovery of Teddy, there were three not thrown away, but all the others were from our children’s early years, mostly stuffed animals to mark special events, events that had to be erased from memory.

I thank my son who found the bear and knew of its importance.  But greater is He who is within me than anything of this world.  And my wife knew of what Corrie Ten Boom was saying, that love is the strongest force.  Even when others were not acting in love, she saw love and she loved.  She had saved the bear, and then forgot about it.

But having a hiding place must be one of those Dutch things.  Why did I read Corrie Ten Boom’s book?  My wife’s Dutch father had similar experiences to that of Corrie, just never getting caught.  My father-in-law’s father was in a wheelchair, and he was hiding downed Allied pilots in their “hiding place,” the root cellar.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.