Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Jemima L. Yeggs, a.k.a. Stinker.  Pink Lady Apple Yeggs, my landlady and my auntie, has decided that now that I am not off having adventures by chasing storms, warning people about the storm that is coming, and helping the people who are devastated by them, I should write about my Sunday School Class.  She wants to read about how younger people, especially couples respond to what the Bible says.  And she wants to know how God is at work at Lily the Pink.

B.B. was back on the road with the Turtle crew, and since we had a new member of the Sunday school class, just a week old, I had so much help getting myself together that it was too much help.  My hair would get out of place just brushing past all the people wanting to play with Stormie.  Yes, she was born in the middle of a mesocyclone that centered over the big city of Tracy for much of the day, otherwise known as a supercell.  There was a lot of hail.  We could have called her “Hailie”, but no, she was Stormie in my dream.  And I kind of feel that the next one must be Dusty, our little boy in about three years, for Dr. Ellie to have a chance at meeting her father – that is if the dream comes true, and no, I have not told Dr. Ellie about my dream.

B.B. has Dr. Ellie with her and a bunch of rookies, but Dr. Ben arrived early for the class so that he and Michael could practice the music.  And I quickly learned that Stormie loves Emmett’s music and the singing of the hymns.  Maybe she remembers hearing it in the womb.  B.B. says that we need to have Stormie’s hearing checked because she smiles when I sing.

But, for at least a month, I have Easy by my side.  He is not totally out of the Turtle business for the month.  In their special Turtle maintenance bay at Lily the Pink, B.B. set up the cameras and Easy and two friends from the engineering department were timed on how quickly the Turtle shell could be refitted by removing the summer shell and installing the winter shell which is tough enough to act as a snowplow.  Then, they did a few tests on the shell pieces.  First, visual.  Second, dye penetrant.  Third, x-ray.  Easy told me to write that in.  The two Dads would be clueless, but an engineer would know they were looking at cracks to see how well the shell held up over the summer.  But other than little things like that, he was off work and his only schoolwork was the semester exams.  My professors allowed me to skip the finals and focus on the baby.  They didn’t think my grades would be affected, since I had all “A” grades anyway.  In Photography, I had already turned in my portfolio.  Now I had baby pictures to add, but I could use that for next semester.

And thinking of pictures, I said last time that Kevin might not get any pictures, but they got in a great spot early, before Stormie came into the world, and there was just enough daylight to get some great leading-edge pictures.  So, Kevin lucked out as the fill-in photographer.

Since it was so close to Christmas, everyone was in attendance except B.B. and Dr. Ellie, but I quickly found out they were there to play with Stormie.

I opened in prayer and Emmett led everyone, along with his unofficial group (Michael Rowe Casey and Dr. Ben, Menzie MacDougall and Samuel Farquharson, and Emmett and Arabella Dalton), as they sang All the Way My Savior Leads Me, another Fanny Crosby hymn.  Emmett says that he likes the new worship songs, but the old hymns tell stories, and a lot of the stories had stories behind them, that led to the lyrics.  In this case, Fanny Crosby was short on cash, and she prayed that the Lord would help her, or she might not have enough money for rent.  There was a knock at her door, and someone said nothing, but pressed a piece of paper into her hand.  Fanny, being blind, had no idea what the paper was, but found out that it was enough money to pay the rent.  That afternoon, she wrote this hymn.

After we were finished singing, I said, “The topic today is God’s Omnipresence.”

Arabella asked, “Can you use a smaller word.  I’m still in middle school.”

A few people laughed.  I said, “Omni is like saying infinite or all.  Then what’s left?”

Arabella scrunched her nose for a second or two, “Presence?  Where God is?  So, Omnipresence means that God is everywhere?”

I nodded, “Very good.  That is exactly right.”

Arabella slapped her Bible shut.  “Okay, now that we covered that one, what’s next?”

With the adults trying to hold back a laugh and the teenagers grinning, I said, “Scripture that talk about God’s omnipresence.  That is what is next.  And since you closed your Bible so dramatically, why don’t you open it again…”

Arabella Dalton (1 Kings 8:27): ““But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!”

Arabella says, “So, the heavens cannot contain God.  Does that mean the whole universe?!”  I nodded.

Michael Rowe Casey (Jeremiah 23:23): “Am I only a God nearby,” declares the Lord, and not a God far away?”

Michael asked, “So, if God cannot be contained in the entire universe, we might think God is way out there, but this tells us God is very near to us.”

Easy said, “If you think of God as the air in a hot air balloon, the air is everywhere within that balloon, but the air is hot, so there isn’t much air in any one spot.  But God is not only everywhere, but there is an infinite amount to God’s presence in that He is not thinned out by spreading Himself over everything.  You can pray right now and have His undivided attention, while he’s counting every hair on Menzie’s head, and He’s guarding a little boy in Africa who is being stalked by a hungry lion.”

Michael said, “I better pray for the little boy in Africa then.”

Otto (Acts 17:27-28): “God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ “

Otto asked, “Who is saying this?”

Easy said, “Good question, cuzz.  Those verses come from Paul’s sermon to the Athenians.  They had all their statues to the Greek gods, but they also had one to an ‘unknown God’ and Paul was tying their beliefs in with the message of God the Father and Jesus.  So, you believe in an ‘unknown God’ and your poets say that we are the offspring of God, so then Paul could talk about the true God and how that ties in.”

I said, “Thanks for the explanation, Sweetie, and Paul also knew that telling them directly that they had it wrong would not work well in the arena where Paul was speaking.  Paul was educated and smart, but the Holy Spirit helped him to find the right words.”

Tamara, and welcome to the class, (Psalm 16:8): “I keep my eyes always on the Lord.  With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”

Tamara sighed, “That’s fortunate.  My cancer surgery was on the right side.”

I snickered, “With God being everywhere, I don’t think it mattered which side, but thanks.  And everyone, Tamara’s latest scan showed she is cancer free, but she has one more scan to go, right?”  Tamara smiled and nodded.

And I saved the best for last.

Blaise (Psalm 139:7-10): “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”

Blaise said, “And regardless of how my sister-in-law picks on me, God is there too.”

I snickered, “Yeah, and there too.”

Kevin said, “I liked Easy’s analogy.  Anything that we have on this earth that can spread around, gets thinner.  I bought new sheets for the bed this past week.  While the sheets were in the package, they were heavy enough to be noticed.  I threw the package on our kitchen table, and it knocked one of my textbooks onto the floor, but when you spread the sheet out over the bed, it does its job, but it is a thin layer.  With God, you get all of God no matter where you are or how many people are praying to Him at that moment.”

Arabella asked, “But how does that work?”

Easy replied, “It is where ‘infinite’ comes into play.  If you went to the lake near here and took out a bucket of water, would the level in the lake change?”  Arabella shook her head.  “Okay, now let’s have everyone in Tracy go to the lake and take ten buckets of water out of the lake.  Would that change the level in the lake?”

Arabella said, “I don’t know, but if I said no, you’d ask about everybody in the state taking a hundred buckets of water, so I’ll say that it got lower.”

I was starting to lose it, but I was holding it back.  Easy then said, “We could now go to the ocean and have everybody in the world take a hundred buckets of water out, but you might think that there is just too much water in the entire ocean for that to make a difference.  This might blow your mind, but with God being infinite, if you took away a bucket of God for your very own, that is if you could, there is still an infinite amount of God left.  You cannot make God’s ‘level’ ever go down.  Infinite is not just a whole bunch, too much to count.  Infinite is limitless.  You said it perfectly at the start.  God is everywhere.  And I think within the next few studies, we’ll get into what God can do in each tiny little piece of this world or the entire universe.”

I leaned over and kissed my Hubbie on the cheek.

Then Blaise said, “My brother has a whole lot of buckets, but where does he put all that water?”

Easy yawned, “Don’t overthink it, bro!”

I nodded, “As we have been doing, let’s end with our benediction.  Everyone bow your heads in prayer.  ‘“‘The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.’”’” (Numbers 6:24-26)

And everyone said, “Amen.”

As everyone started to leave, I pulled Tamara aside.  “This is a couples class, but we are loose with that.  But I heard that you had a boyfriend, or something like that.”

Tamara nodded, “Yeah, we were getting intimate with each other, and I sold everything I could to pay off my cancer treatment bill, but some police lieutenant was concerned that we were not handling the trauma very well from being the only survivors of the health club massacre.”

I gasped, “So, that’s why you are here!  Don’t worry.  You are in the right place.  And If the lieutenant you spoke of was Deviled Yeggs, he’s my father-in-law.  You didn’t say where your boyfriend is, and I would like to invite you to take our bus to hear my Dad preach.  Everyone calls him Rev C.S.L.”

Tamara said, “Sure, why not?  But Bart won’t be coming.  When everyone in his department was killed, he promised the big boss that he would get all the projects finished on time.  He’s in his room working.”

I nodded, “Okay, stick around.  We’ll be leaving soon.”  She started talking to Easy.  I walked over to Margie, “I don’t want to pry, but are you alright?  You looked very distant, and you and Blaise did not even sit together.”

Margie said, “I screwed up, Stinker.”

I nodded, “Easy always says, ‘That’s sometimes better than screwing down.’”

Margie grimaced, “What does that even mean?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know.  He is working on his engineering degree.  I just laugh, and he gives me a kiss.”

Margie snickered, “Maybe that’s what it means, an opportunity to kiss a wonderful woman, but I was not wonderful a few days ago.  I got naked and told Blaise to take my virginity.”

I inhaled slowly, as I exhaled, “Okay, that was fast, to the point, and a little too much to absorb all in one breath.  What happened next?”

Margie started to cry.  “Blaise wanted to, but then he stopped.  I got embarrassed and got dressed and ran to the waterfall.”

I nodded, “Yeah, I like the waterfall when I feel blue.  We might meet there sometime, and if it’s for that reason, we can give each other a hug.  Are you seeking counseling?”

Margie nodded, “Yeah, with Joseph in the class, I decided to not sit next to Blaise.  It felt weird with Joseph watching, but it felt weirder not sitting next to Blaise.”

I smiled, “Next week, sit next to Blaise, hold his hand unless you are searching for a Bible verse, and tell yourself that God’s plan is a good one.  Don’t you think that Easy and I had some temptations along the way?  Come to think of it, I almost did what you did two or three times.  I have seen you two together.  You are a couple of years older, but you work as a team.  That is, when you are really working.”

Margie nodded, “Thanks.  Can I come by for some girl talk?  Joseph is a guy.”

I thought for a second.  “Oh, yeah, I guess you are right.  He is a guy, and as for the girl talk, I have done girl talks before.  Dr. Ellie and B.B. say that is why they are here in class, and what led them to Jesus.  Sure, come up to my apartment anytime.  If Easy is there, I’ll kick him out.  If he knows it is a girl talk, he will return with popcorn.  If you have a specific flavor that you like, tell him before he leaves.  But on the other hand, don’t say anything and he’ll get some of all the flavors.”

Margie asked, “Does he really like popcorn that much?”

I shrugged, “He got popcorn once, and it has become his thing ever since.”

Credits

I am using suggested Bible verses from The Attributes of God, A Journey into the Father’s Heart by A.W. Tozer, in two volumes.  My two volumes have a Study Guide by David E. Fessenden, which is designed for each chapter of Tozer’s book.  I may review those chapters to keep Stinker from straying too much, but the nature of her class is that the class tends to stray anyway.  I am not using Rev. Tozer’s comments directly.

Our second son was the quiet one.  His cries were either much softer than his brother’s or we had gotten used to the demanding cries of one that it simply sounded like the other hardly whimpered.

I may have heard the bucket of water in the ocean analogy from someone, but I cannot remember who.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.