Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people understood what was being read.

• Nehemiah 8:8

The Boilerplate

My wife started to write her thoughts down at one point in her life.  Some hints point to 2018 and 2019, after she had her open-heart surgery.  In spite of her trials and the atrial fibrillation (A-Fib) that required her to take blood thinners, this was before her major health decline.

Sometimes, she wrote a thought.  Other times, she wrote a Bible verse, and maybe her idea on that day.  Other times, it is a prayer, but I am going to take one entry at a time and try to write about it

Her comment

“As God’s house is a House of prayer, prayer should inspire everything that is done there. Prayer belongs to every sort of work, relating to the church. As God’s house is a House of prayer, so it is also a place where shaping prayer praying people out of prayerless people is done. The House of God is a divine school house, in which the lesson of prayer is taught, where men and women leave to pray and where they graduate from the school of prayer.”

• My wife’s next comment in this notebook

The Discussion

My wife’s mother was a great prayer warrior.  She was Catholic and prayed the rosary countless times each day.

My wife did not fall far from the tree, especially after she accepted Jesus as her Savior and dedicated her life to Him.  She prayed a great deal every day.  And for those she loved as close friends or family, she wept for them daily.

My wife was playing around with her college education when we first met.  She was on the G.I. Bill and she had to make a certain grade, but she basically was going to school for the extra cash.  Once she married me, she felt she needed a college degree, since I soon got my master’s degree.  But then the army called me to go to Germany.  She put her college on hold.  Then, with two children, it took her a while before she went back to school – with a new major in another college (which is now a university).  I saw how my job was tenuous, and an opportunity opened in Mississippi, working for a NASA contractor.  Again, my wife did not complete her degree.  She probably had more credit hours than I did in total, but no degree.

I say that to say, without a doubt, that with her analogy that a house of prayer takes people that do not pray and turns them into prayer warriors…  In that school, my wife had an advanced degree.  I would think it would be her doctorate.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory