Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Jemima L. Yeggs, a.k.a. Stinker.  Pink Lady Apple Yeggs, my landlady and my auntie, 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. and I were just coming out of the hallway in the play area.  Menzie was there watching the children, including her two, and playing with Stormie.  We noticed a strange voice in the Pink’s office side of the room.

Bart said without introduction or the necessary “P” word, “Can you move down one so I can sit next to Tamara?”

Mary Jo gasped, but Tamara said, “Bart, we say please, and the answer is ‘No.’  We will both move down so you can sit next to me, but nothing breaks up our team.  Mary Jo and I study the Scriptures for this class together.  This is a couples class and Mary Jo and I are a couple, not a romantic one, but a Bible studying couple.  Tammie and Rosie over there are a Bible study couple, but most everyone else is a married couple or a dating couple.”

Arabella said, “Michael and I aren’t dating.  Our parents say we’re not old enough, but Michael and I have spent the night together, and we have been on a storm chase together.  Michael is so dreamy.”

Michael groaned, “What Arabella did not say is that my parents and Belle and I delivered a baby goat and since we weren’t going to get a lot of sleep after Belle did the kidding while the vet watched, my Dad and I went to the hayloft to take a nap until the sun came up and Mom and Belle slept where we store feed sacks.”

Dr. Ellie said, “Ben and I adopted Michael a year ago after his parents died in a flood, but we didn’t know goats came with the deal.  That’s my husband Ben with the choir.  And the goats are kept on Emmett’s parents’ farm, the County Line Farm.  That’s Emmett at the keyboard.  Now that they have melded the goats and llamas together, they are starting to add some cows.”

Bart asked, “So, who is Emmett’s other half?”

Sophie said, “That would be me.  I am Sophia Yeggs.  And with me are Margie Justice and my brother, Blaise.  Margie is the champion pitcher on our softball team at Flintheart and I’m the shortstop.  Tammie is our infield coach.  And Menzie is the one dropping off my niece, Stormie, to our teacher.  The younger kids call her Aunt Jemima, but I call her Sis, since she married my brother, Easter.  But back to Menzie, she’s a great singer, the softball team second baseman, and my bestie.  With her is Samuel Farquharson.  His Dad is a District Judge.  Menzie’s parents are Angus and Missy MacDougall.  So that is the Flintheart softball connection and the Yeggs family.”

Zuzka said, “You not say all Yeggs.  Otto and I call Mommie Pinkie, Mom.  You just call her Aunt Pink.”

Sophie snickered, “I am sitting down, but I stand corrected.

Darrell offered, “I heard you are an engineer.  You have a job, but Blake’s and my boss is Jim Kaiser, and you might be able to help out on weekends, if you have time.  My wife is Sally Mae and Penny is Blake’s wife.”

I interrupted, “That is most of the introductions.  We’ve got Mary and Joseph Jones who you may already know.  Kevin is a freshman at T.R.U.S.T. in mechanical engineering and he works for Jim Kaiser too.  And the woman next to him is a pre-med student, Joseline.  Jochebed and Georges are here.  Do not get surprised when Jochebed reads from a French Bible.  Be nice in here.  Georges is a detective who works for Easy’s Dad.  And any bread that you have eaten, except for sandwich bread came from Tom and any eggs in the morning came from Cat’s poultry farm.  Together they are TomCat ver Waarloosd.  And then we have the new folks.  Irusya has been here a while, presently the technician who manages the weather inside the Crystal Mountain, but Elroy is our new cyber security guy, and he has taken a liking to Irusya.  I think that’s everyone.  Now if you are here regularly, Bart, we have an odd number.”

Mary Jo said, “I hope that Tamara and I can continue with this Bible lesson, even adding Bart.  My only boyfriend right now is my son, Frank.  Dr. Ellie and Mary delivered him when we were stranded in a hurricane.”

Frank came over, “Mommie?”

Mary Jo smiled, “I didn’t call you, Frank.  I just said your name.  Go back and play with your friends.”  Frank laughed and toddled back to the play area.  And within a couple of months, we might have four more in the play area.”

I snickered, “Why are you questioning the four pregnant ladies?”

Mary Jo shrugged, “Zuzka’s baby bump is just barely showing, but Sally Mae looks like she might have twins.”

Sally Mae moaned, “And it feels that way too, girlfriend.  You weren’t nearly this big.”

With the introductions out of the way, Joseph led us in prayer, thanking the Lord that Bart’s work distraction was finally manageable and he could join us.

Emmett shrugged, “Well, we have not had an introduction in a long time, but the song today fits.  ‘Cause I think of all of you as old friends.”  Then he led us with Old Friends by Bill and Gloria Gaither.

Samuel said, “Aunt Jemima, what is the attribute of God that we are studying today?”

I smiled, “As if you didn’t know Samuel, our attribute of God is His faithfulness.”

Arabella asked.  “Mr. Dictionary, I kind of know what that means.  Something seems wrong when we don’t turn to you in bewilderment.”

Easy snickered, “Let’s start with the dictionary.  Oxford language says that bewilderment means ‘a feeling of being perplexed and confused.’”

Half the class said, “Thank you, Mr. Dictionary.”

I said, “Somehow, I think that was a set up.”

Dr. Ellie said, “And you suspect, Arabella!  Shame on you, Stinker.”

Joseph (Psalm 89:1-2, 5, 8): “I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations. I will declare that your love stands firm forever, that you have established your faithfulness in heaven itself.”  And now verse 5.  “The heavens praise your wonders, Lord, your faithfulness too, in the assembly of the holy ones.”  And now verse 8.  “Who is like you, Lord God Almighty? You, Lord, are mighty, and your faithfulness surrounds you.”

Arabella said, “Wow!  He kept up with those verses without writing them down.  He’s going to be a good pastor someday.”

Joseph snickered, “Fireball, there is a little more to being a pastor than just keeping a few numbers in your head.  Besides, Aunt Jemima is very ‘faithful’ in sending everyone an email or text with all the verses.  I read them a few times this week.  But as for what these verses mean to me, since that’s the way we do this, the psalmist praises God and His great love.  God’s love stands firm forever.  If God is faithful, you would think that the love He has for us today is going to be the same love He has for us all the time, forever.  Then it mentions God’s faithfulness in verse’s 5 and 8.”

Irusya asked, “Why say psalmist?  Didn’t David write the psalms?”

Joseph smiled, “He only wrote about half of them.  Asaph wrote twelve.  The Sons of Korah wrote eleven.  Solomon is credited with two of the canonical psalms, but they have found a non-canonical book, meaning not in our present Bible, that is nothing but Psalms of Solomon.  But this psalm was written by Ethan the Ezrahite.  All we know of Ethan was that he was a wise man.  It says in 1 Kings 4:30-31 that Solomon was wiser than Ethan. ‘Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. He was wiser than anyone else, including Ethan the Ezrahite—wiser than Heman, Kalkol and Darda, the sons of Mahol. And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations.’”

I said, “Now, Arabella, that’s getting into pastor kind of knowledge, but I have a feeling he researched that out of curiosity rather than preparation.”

Joseph put his finger to his lips, “Come on, Stinker!  Don’t give away all my secrets!  I was just curious about who Ethan was, and those are the only two times he is mentioned.”

B.B. (Psalm 89:24): “My faithful love will be with him, and through my name his horn will be exalted.”

B.B. said, “Stinker?  Can we avoid the code names?  I mean, B.B. stands for Bossy Boss.  When was the last time that I was a bossy boss?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know.  Other than right now when you used my code name to demand me to not use code names, I don’t really write all the instances down.  But you can make up something in that fertile mind of yours as to what you think B.B. stands for.  Since you are the closest thing that I ever had to a best friend, it could stand for ‘best buddy.’  The rest of us will be thinking bossy boss, and you can be basking in the glow of how you are someone’s best buddy.  But isn’t this demand an excuse for not having a clue what an exalted horn is?”

Mary reddened, “Yeah! And right after my Hubbie had all kinds of research on his verse.  Wait!  How did he know you would pick him first?”

I smiled, “He didn’t.  Now, do you know who might know what an exalted horn is?”

Mary swallowed hard and turned to her husband, “Oh, my dearest husband, do you have any idea what an exalted horn means?”

Joseph said, “In this poetic language filled with metaphors, what do you think about the stag who butts his head against the other stags until his strong horns prove the mightiest?”

Mary shrugged, “Other than a lot of stags having a headache, I guess his horns held up.”

Joseph nodded, “So, by God’s faithful name, his name, talking about David probably, will be exalted as the mightiest in battle.  A name above all names might refer to Jesus, but when it comes to mighty warriors with horns on their metaphoric heads, who could beat David?”

Mary moaned, “Okay, so what we didn’t read was a lot about how God was faithful to David and He is faithful to us?”

Joseph nodded, trying to hold back the mirth at his wife’s expense.

Zuzka (1 John 1:9) “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Zuzka giggled, “I read that verse a lot.  God promise to forgive sins.  I have sins.  God forgives because He faithful.”

Otto (2 Timothy 2:13) “if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.”

Otto blinked a few times and then said.  “I get it!  God is in us, so if God is unfaithful to us, He is unfaithful to Himself, even if we forgot to turn off the coffee pot warmer last night.”

Tom ver Waarloosd groaned, “That was you!  I walked in for my early morning bread baking and the entire bakery stunk!”

Otto said, “I will not say that it won’t happen again, but I will try really hard.”

Tom snickered, “Don’t worry about it.  I made the same mistake a couple of months ago.  When you work baker’s hours, sometimes you put your brain in autopilot.  I simply knew what that smell was, and I took care of it.”

Tom (1 Thessalonians 5:24) “The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.”

Tom smiled.  “Thank you for that verse, Aunt Jemima.  I volunteered to help your father-in-law with his feeding the homeless of Tracy mission and I just had a heart for it.  I have gotten a lot of help, and I have learned a lot about how to cook for hundreds or even more than a thousand.  God gave me the call and he has also given me the strength and the knowledge and skill is coming little bits at a time.”

I said, “That’s the way I wanted to end this.  But I sense our bus alarm is about to come over.  Lauren, are the buses here?”

Lauren threw her hands up. “How would I know!”

I giggled, “Every week you tell your mother that the buses are here.”

Lauren giggled, “All I say is ‘the buses.’”

I looked at her mother, Menzie, and Menzie said, “All you can see out that window is the flower garden in the shape of the cross.”

Lauren came over from the play area and patted Menzie on the knee, “Mommie!  The buses!”

I smiled, “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)

Then I added, “We are not having extra verses next week.  We are all going to think of how God has been faithful to us, and if a Bible verse comes to mind, we can go there.”

And as I shook my head in wonder while everyone filed out, I will probably never know how Lauren gets us to the buses without seeing them drive up.  I guess it’s a “gift.”  Our bus driver always says that we are very punctual, no waiting.

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.

And here is Old Friends sung by the Gaither Homecoming Crowd. This song was written by the Gaithers, Paul Simon had his own song of the same title. The tribute to Kenny Hinson may have been added, but Kenny Hinson was a Southern Gospel singer who died in 1995, but many of the people in this video have passed on.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.