Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

How beautiful you are, my darling!
    Oh, how beautiful!
    Your eyes behind your veil are doves.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
    descending from the hills of Gilead.

• Song of Songs 4:1

This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

• Ephesians 5:32

Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”
And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”

• Exodus 33:18-23

My dove in the clefts of the rock,
    in the hiding places on the mountainside,
show me your face,
    let me hear your voice;
for your voice is sweet,
    and your face is lovely.

• Song of Songs 2:14

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

• 1 John 3:2

The Boilerplate

My wife took a Bible Study in 2011.  (There was a note in the study guide that identified September 2 and that the study was being held on Friday mornings, or I might not have ever figured out what year.)  My wife had become a Christian in 2000. She greatly respected the pastor’s wife who was also a pastor.  The pastor’s wife spent time as the interim associate pastor, and this Bible study might have been during that time.

My wife passed away in March 2023, and I found this study guide as I was cleaning up.  It is a Beth Moore study guide.  Most of the questions are close-ended, mostly fill-in-the-blank.  But my wife was eager to learn.  She wrote her thoughts in the margins, sometimes encouraged to do so by Beth Moore.  I will use her comments as I did once before, calling this a “with a little help” series in that my wife contributes.  There is more to follow in that she wrote Scriptures and prayers in a notebook.  Probably what she found in her personal Bible study, giving her encouragement through the long illness that took her life.

So, instead of writing about a topic at random, I am going to write on my wife’s comments in the Study Guide. It may follow the study guide topics, but it may not.

Discussion on this topic

When you look back to your childhood, what are four things that were important to you?

“Man of my dreams, kids, new home, and wealthy.”

• My wife’s response

Well, she got two of the four, but maybe I lift myself too highly, and she only got the kids (children).

At what point in your life did you start to feel unattractive?  What caused this feeling?

“Five years ago when I got vitiligo, loss of skin pigmentation.  I bought all kinds of expensive skin makeup.  It would take me 3-4 hours to apply it.  Vitiligo spread too fast, and I accepted my spotty skin color.”

• My wife’s response

My wife was a fighter, in her way.  My mother first saw her vitiligo and said, “Only black people get that disease.”  My wife could have said that my sister, my mother’s daughter, had vitiligo, but she opted to semi-ignore the insult.  She turned to my Dad and said, “You always wanted a white daughter-in-law.  Now you’ve got one!”  But what she says in the quote is being honest.  At first, she tried to cover it.  Her best efforts would fail.  In time, her face was mostly void of pigmentation.  That meant being out in the sun was painful.  Her arms are where she had “spotty skin.”  Little children, who have no filter at all, would come up to her and make comments.  At first, she would avoid saying anything.  But once she accepted her “spotty skin”, she would tell the children, “I have spots because I am part leopard!”  At that moment, the parent of the child would be in shock.  They were about to tell their child to not say such things, but then everyone would be laughing.

As people who study comedy have found, often a comedian’s humor emerges from a dark place.  My wife was still conscious of her spots, but she chose not to let it victimize her.

What terms of endearment can you find in Song of Songs 2 and 4?

“A lily among thorns, an apple that tastes good and gives me strength, embraces me, young and strong, voice is sweet, beautiful.”

• My wife’s response

Notice that many of those terms have little to do with outward beauty.  The terms can apply to someone without outward beauty.  The first thing that I fell in love with was my wife’s voice.  There are not many recordings of her voice alone, mostly singing with her sisters, but I never tired of hearing her voice.

She always focused on making sure people were well fed and that their energy and strength were bolstered by good food.  So, the apple term caught her eye.

In reading Ephesians 5:32, what is more profound than a man and woman coming together in marriage?

“Understanding one another.  Being on the same page, so to speak.”

• My wife’s response

And how do you feel now about how you look?

“I remain steady and still take care of myself because that’s what God wants – internally, not so much.”

• My wife’s response

Who is someone who you are absolutely certain who loves you?  And what ways does this person show it?

“My husband.  He’s a Christian and if he loves God truly in his heart, he will love me too.”

• My wife’s response

When I saw where this was going in the study guide, I was afraid of a “peeping into the diary” moment, but her answer is why the Bible says for us to not be unequally yoked.  She truly knew that I loved her, in spite of the “if” in her answer.

In comparing Exodus 33:18-23 to Song of Songs 2:14, what is the commonality and difference?

“Both want to see their love. Exodus demonstrates God’s glory, while Song of Songs is kind and gentle.”

• My wife’s response

When God takes care so that Moses does not die, that is a bit of being kind and gentle also.

My wife gave very good answers and better answers than I expected.  By this time, she had been a Christian for eleven years.  She realized that true beauty was from within.  And in spite of her wrong steps and self-loathing at times, she was becoming aware of her inner beauty – not the beauty of the internal organs that were falling apart.  As I heard a theologian say not long ago, we are not really in a position to judge the inner beauty of our heart.  We are to continue loving others and have others determine that.

And I am prejudiced, but my wife had inner beauty by the bucket full, and overflowing, making others feel good even when she was in great pain.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory