Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Editor’s Note: For those who love this series, it has been said that their being together only lasted a little over a year.  Yes, there has been only one Bible study each week while they had them daily, sometimes more than one.  But it has also been said that someone else will come.  Thus, there will be a jump in the calendar of one year between now and next week.  The Babs and Harold Conversations will continue with a more-lasting couple having the conversation – that is if God’s Will keeps me going as a writer.  And if you have accepted the premise of what has already unfolded, you will be able to take that leap to the next set of conversations.  I thank you for your loyalty to this series, and I hope you enjoy the twist.

Author’s Note: This was a hard one to write, even knowing this was to come.  The focus for this last year has been someone without a sin nature trying to figure out what being a human is all about.  The Bible studies will continue next week, but the focus of the conversations will change.

For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

• Psalm 91:11-12

He unleashed against them his hot anger,
    his wrath, indignation and hostility—
    a band of destroying angels.

• Psalm 78:49

All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

• 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10

Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind.

• Colossians 2:18

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)—if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority.
Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to heap abuse on celestial beings; yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not heap abuse on such beings when bringing judgment on them from the Lord.

• 2 Peter 2:4-11

And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.

• Jude 1:6

Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!

• 1 Corinthians 6:3

And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

• Revelation 20:10

Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word.

• Psalm 103:20

Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his heavenly hosts.

• Psalm 148:2

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.  Since she was a doll that had come to life, we came up with the term ‘other living.’  She was not a human, an animal, or even a plant, but she was definitely living, and very vibrant.  Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs.  After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.

This Week’s Question

In the last episode, Babs recounted her blessings and thankfulness.

This week Babs was supposed to come down for our Bible study.  We were still at the house, only a few fairly local sales calls before the Christmas break would return us to the house.  She was staying upstairs in Willie’s room.

I walked up to the room to see her on the edge of the bed, in tears.

I had never even sat on the bed with her, so I knelt beside her and held her arms.  “Babs, what’s wrong?”

“I’m broken again, Harold, and this time it’s for good.  I just heard from my boss.  You won’t do anymore traveling.  My time as your traveling buddy is over.  I have to go back to my old job.  I will not be here when you wake up tomorrow.”

I said, “I have so many questions, but I can fix the last one.  I just won’t go to sleep.”

She said, “Can you do something you have never done, Harold?  We aren’t going to do anything bad, but sit next to me in the bed, and hug me.  I have been in bodies before, but never for this long.  I feel human pain now.  This might hurt.”

I did as she said.  For a while, I just hugged her while she sobbed.

After a while of that, I asked, “Who is your boss?”

Babs said, “Oh, you wouldn’t know him.  He works for Michael.  Of course, the big boss is God the Father.”

My heart started racing.  “Babs, are you talking about Michael, the archangel?”

Babs said, “Yeah, I’m in the warrior angel division, specializing in guard duty.”

I asked, “As in a guardian angel?”

Babs nodded, rubbing her head against my chest.  “Don’t worry.  I supervise a team.  They guarded you on sales calls, while I tried my hand at evangelizing and showing love for others.  That was the bright spot of being in a human-like body.  Being a spirit, you don’t get those chances, but I can’t stop talking about Jesus.  And it’s why I was so thankful that you suggested putting my feet in the oceans.  Spirits cannot feel such things.”

I asked, “Wait, Psalm 91 says that you are there to ensure that I do not even stub my toe.”

Babs groaned, “Harold, that is a messianic prophecy about Jesus.  You stub your toe all the time because you’re a klutz.  You would think that those lessons that are placed in your path would make you more alert, but nope, you stub your toe again.”

I asked, “So, you are in the same division with the destroying angels?”

Babs sighed, “Yes, Harold.  Gabriel runs the messenger service, and Michael runs the Army.  I was one of the angels that Elisha’s servant saw.  I was standing guard on that first Good Friday.  It’s why I had a minor meltdown that day earlier this year.”

I asked, “Back to the stubbing the toe thing, have you protected me at all for the past year and a few months?”

Babs hit me with her fist, but not hard, “Of course, I have.  When I first became ‘other living,’ you were cut off by a big truck who changed lanes suddenly.  He was going to continue and drive off the road, taking you with him, but I pushed him to keep him in his lane, or really the lane you had left when you went off the road.  He was fully loaded.  I had to push hard.”

I asked, “You?  You are a beautiful young lady, but I do not see much muscle tone.  You were in the car with me.  How does that work?”

Babs huffed, “I am indwelling this body so that I could prepare you for what is coming.  But in real life, I am a spirit with strength that you could never imagine.  Yes, I know, you are an engineer that deals with the knowledge of infinity, but you will be shocked when you get the Heaven.”

I asked, “Will I ever see you again?”

Babs shrugged her shoulder, I felt them against my chest. “That’s up to my boss.  This body will be broken, so it will have to be a non-physical means of me showing myself, but do not worry, Harold.  I will always be there.  The remaining team members will take care of you while I detoxify, but that is done outside time.  So, you won’t notice me ever being gone.”

I asked, “What does that mean?”

Babs groaned, “I have been in this form for a very long time, much longer than average.  As I kept eating meals with you and living in this body, the body kept gaining human feelings and such.  I have no sin nature.  That’s why I was so interested in that aspect of humanity.  But I started feeling human emotions, and like a diver who gets the bends, or nitrogen narcosis, they usually go to a hyperbaric chamber.  I will have something like that before I get back to my old self, but even that is outside time and space.  I will be back here, watching over you, and my entire team.  But do not pray to me.  You pray to God.  Do not worship me, like in Colossians 2:18.  I am just an angel, doing what angels are assigned to do.  Right now, I feel love for you, but even that will fade.  God loves you and as such, I show love to you by my actions in being your guardian.  If I went beyond that, I might become a fallen angel, condemned to the lake of fire.  Second Peter 2 and Jude talk of those angels who did horrible things and they are held in Hades.  They will be released only to stand judgment and be cast into the lake of fire.  I must obey, or I will see the same fate.  When judgment of me comes, please, Harold, be kind.”

I asked, “Why would I have to be kind?”

Babs sighed, “Harold, first Corinthians says that you will be among those who judge angels.”

I asked, “But what happens to you when I die?”

Babs giggled, “Let’s do our song once more. 1, 2, 3.”  And we sang “I don’t know” to the tune of my doorbell.

I asked, “But Babs, that has bothered me from the beginning.  It took me a while to pinpoint the tune, but you were singing ‘I don’t know’ to that tune from before we ever came to the house.  How did you know?”

Babs moaned, “Harold, have you not been paying attention?  I was your guardian angel from the moment you were born.  You moved into your parents’ home after they passed away.  It’s the same doorbell.  I was listening to that doorbell from the moment you came home from the hospital.  I have invested many years in your life.  Don’t waste the rest of them.  Remember what I have taught you.  Remember.”

I was thinking about how she would bring up the subject or the Bible verses, and I was teaching her.  What did she teach me?  What did she mean?

Then Babs said, “If I am allowed, I will cherish every moment that I had with you, and always remember that God loves you, Harold.”

I intended to ask so many more questions.  I had told her that I would simply not fall asleep, but the next thing I remember, it was morning.  Next to me on the bed was the briefcase that the poseable action figure had come in.  I quickly retrieved my computer and plugged in the USB cable to inflate the doll.  But the doll did not inflate.  From the beginning, Babs had been so scared when she cried.  Tears were leaking and she was afraid she had sprung a leak.  She had said the night before that this leak would not mend, or something like that.

I went in to work and my badge did not work for me to enter the building.  My boss came out into the lobby to say that I had been laid off.  He had already been laid off, but he came back to tell me, as his last task for the company.  I would get the full bonus and my pay for the rest of the month, and one day’s pay for each year that I had worked for the company, including when I interned there before graduation.  I asked why.  He said that the company had been sold, and the new company was going a different direction.  The older people, like me, were all being let go, but I was at the top of their list.  In the past fifteen months, I had sold many contracts that would take a couple of years to complete.  The company could not start doing the new work when I kept selling contracts to do the old work.  I was so good at my job, that I worked myself out of a job.  I was allowed to go to my desk and get some personal things.  I surrendered my laptop, and the IT manager handed me a copy of my personal files from a clone folder on the server.  When I got home, I noticed that all the photos of Babs were missing.  That seemed to hurt worse than anything.

For almost a month, I never left the house except to go to church.  Babs was not beside me, and Gladys had passed away, as Babs said she would, while we were out on our last sales calls.  Willie came by once a week with groceries.  I was alone.

Morrie came by.  He went upstairs and started a remodeling project.  He said that Babs had suggested it.  When I was no longer travelling and Babs had to leave, since she was strictly my travel buddy, he remodeled his room to contain a kitchenette.  Willie’s room would be the bedroom, and his room would be the living room and kitchen.  The bathroom upstairs was already connected to both rooms.  It was a full apartment to rent to someone who could take care of me when I got older.  With him there most nights after work and on Saturday, I was not totally alone.

But then, I was arrested.  A neighbor had seen Babs enter the house.  He had a security camera pointed at my house, and he never saw Babs leave.  When I was brought into the precinct, they brought the briefcase.  They were unable to open it, so they thought it suspicious.  I used my fingerprint to open the case.  They tried to inflate the doll, and one of the detectives said that the tear that did not allow the doll to inflate was the left side of her chest.  She’d died of a broken heart.  I was released and never charged with a crime.

A few weeks later, while grieving the loss of my wife and then the unkind double grief of losing Babs, I remembered how on our last trip, she had dragged me along to help at food banks.  I went to our church’s distribution.  They said they had all the help that they needed, so I sat and greeted people who came into the distribution room.  And then I would ask, “Do you want to talk about it?”  And many stopped by.  Nothing they had gotten was perishable.  They had a coupon to go to the store for that.  And we talked. I talked about the things Babs had brought up in conversations.  And I talked about my pain, even more now that Babs was not by my side.  And they talked about their pain.  We would embrace, and I would pray for them.  And the next month, I was back, and they had more to talk about.

I always attended my home church’s food bank, but I started going to other food banks in Tracy, doing the same thing.

But something else started nagging at me.  Babs had said that someone would come that was better than she could ever be.  That must be Jesus, coming to take me home. But, why did she give Morrie the idea of turning the upstairs bedrooms into an apartment for my caretaker?

She kept saying, “Remember.”

But remember what?

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

The day before she passed away, passing away just past midnight, I think my wife knew this was the end.  She had worked in hospitals.  She knew when a doctor was withholding what he knew.  The doctor said that the specialist would see her next Wednesday, have the surgery on Thursday, and she would be fine.  But the truth was that she would not last the night and rushing her to the big hospital in the group of hospitals would do no good in that she was too weak to survive the surgery.

And she sent me home, so that she could die quietly in her sleep, but the heart monitors went off.  She died with one doctor trying to perform CPR while another was trying to insert a pacemaker.  But I doubt if she was there by then.  She was sitting in the bed next to the doctors, shaking her head at their futility.  Either that or she was already in the arms of Jesus, “Welcome home, good and faithful servant.”

And after the first few months of writing these stories, I thought of where this would go.  Next week, I will reveal that with the beginning of a new series of conversations with Harold.

And you may think this is bad timing, being early in the Christmas season, but when do companies do major layoffs?  Near the end of the year, to change the company demographics for benefit assessments and to save in other areas that are based on payroll on January 1.  But Harold would find that the severance check would help give him a larger Social Security allotment.  Babs had seen to everything.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.