Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

• John 14:15-21

Lately, I have written stories and posts that disturbed me.  Some people might call it me finding my voice in my writing.  Many people might read the posts and yawn.  But to me and where I am in my walk toward eternity, I was moved to tears.

Three weeks in a row, the Babs and Harold conversations caused that reaction.  I have been brought to tears over other things I have written lately, maybe possibly due to being near the anniversary of my wife’s passing.  But then again, this is God speaking to me in a very real sense.  It is personal, and others might not see the change in my writing.  But let’s focus on Babs.  I have really gotten to enjoy each time she visits me.

One week, Babs lamented that she had played laser tag with a pretend gunslinger in Tombstone, Arizona, and she shot him three times before his weapon was halfway out of the holster, each shot was to the heart, but it was laser tag.  No one got hurt.  But she was inconsolable because Jesus said that calling some one a ‘fool’ was just as bad as murder.  Maybe my emotional reaction was a holdover from all the Army training that I had in my younger years and how I refuse to play laser tag or paint ball after I left the military.

Then, I thought of the idea that Babs, unknown to Harold, is really a guardian angel and she was there on that first Good Friday, and no one had read her in with what was going to happen on Easter Sunday, and she remembered the emotions of that day.  My eyes still get wet thinking about it.

Then the next week, I told myself to write something light for Babs and Harold to talk about.  Babs told Harold that she was happy because they were riding up the Pacific Coast and she was looking for a man with scarred hands, frying fish on the beach (as in John 21).  At sunset, they go to the beach to watch the phenomenon of the sun setting on the horizon and how things change in an instant, and Babs talks about events from John 19 through John 21.  God defeats sin.  Then God defeats death.  And then the Joy of reuniting with the disciples by the Sea of Galilee.  All Joy and happiness, but then as I was starting to write “The End” my fingers kept moving.  Something inside me said, “Babs was looking for someone on the beach frying fish.” So, for the first time, Babs and Harold have an audience that eaves drops on the conversation, and they ask for more talk about Jesus, inviting them to a fish fry at a bonfire down the beach, and maybe even a few baptisms in the ocean.

I never intended to write that.  I did not even dream of writing it, but sentence by sentence after I had mentally said “The End” I was still writing, and again the tears were flowing, but this time, I knew God was speaking to me.  It does not matter to me if you go to Babs is Refocused and you see nothing special, but I had a moment with the Holy Spirit that was special to me.  Maybe it reminded me of my old lay witness days where the Holy Spirit was palpable in the room.

Early on in my writing, I wrote about A. W. Tozer quoting another pastor of his day who said we should “Pray until we pray.”  He meant, pray until you run out of things to say and then if we really listen carefully, we will hear God talking to us.  That is when true prayer begins, so we pray until we pray.

And I have discovered only in a few occasions that we can write until we write.  It might not be noticeable to anyone else, but we, the authors, know how it changes our life.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.