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 talking in the ‘green room’.  The ‘green room’ is Aunt Pink and Aunt Gwen’s restroom outside the den where the Sunday school class was now held.

B.B. and I prayed for the people in the car accident that took the life of one person, another hospitalized, but the four in the car Sophie was driving were all uninjured.  For once, we did not have Arabella in the ‘green room’.

Joseph led us in prayer, covering some of the same things that B.B. and I had prayed about.

The lead was sung by Sally Mae, Wilma, Arabella, Menzie and Carla.  At alto, there was Mercedes, and Mags Lothrop Kildare.  At tenor, Michael, Mike Lothrop Kildare, Samuel, and Emmett.  Dr. Ben, Fred, and Darrell sang baritone.  And then Dr. Kildare sang bass.  The song was Adonai (Deliverance Song).  Mike Kildare kept the beat with a fancy thing in a wooden box, with a lot of plastic pipes.  And even more strange, instead of drumsticks, he was using flip flops.  Mags played the cello.  Darrell played the guitar.  And Emmett was at the keyboard.

Emmett added, “Did that set the mood, Aunt Jemima?”

I asked, “That was lovely.  And Menzie, your solo was powerful.  But what is that contraption Mike has now?”

Mike said, “It’s a tubulum.  I have pretty good pitch, but Professor Angus had me do the math for the length of each pipe.  It’s like a xylophone made out of plastic pipe.  The two of us, that’s professor Angus and me, we have been working on it for a few weeks.

I said, “Wow!  Thanks to both of you.”

Samuel said, “Aunt Jemima, what Attribute of God are we studying today?”

I laughed, “Samuel, we are looking at God – the Deliverer.”

Arabella asked, “Deliverer from what?  I sure hope it’s pizza!”

Easy, my husband, a.k.a. Mr. Dictionary, asked, “No pizza, Fireball.  Jesus delivers us from sin and the punishment for sin.  A lot of the time when we get into a deep bind, God delivers us.  Not always because sometimes God wants us to learn the consequences of our actions.  But if you and Michael would study the verses more than studying each other.  The answers are in the verses.”

Arabella moaned, “No we studied the verses, but I thought if I mentioned pizza, it might change the mood in the room.”

Georges raised his hand.  “Jochebed and I have someone with us who is hopefully going to be a steady member of our class.  As you probably know, Lt. Dev Yeggs had his car hit when Sophia was driving.  Emmett, Menzie, and Samuel were all in the car and they are all fine.  The car that hit them, driving them off the road, had two teenagers and a younger boy in it.  The front seat passenger was killed.  The driver went to jail for vehicular homicide because no one was wearing a seatbelt.  And the third, Clarence Bell was bounced around and released yesterday into Jochebed’s and my custody.  The driver, after hitting the car that Sophia was in kept going and hit another driver head on.  The people in the third car were wearing seatbelts, but the driver is in the hospital with multiple injuries.  His passenger had broken a few ribs and was released from the hospital the next day.  So, here is Clarence Bell.  Friends call him Clay.  He just started at Moon Maid Middle.”

I said, “Welcome Clay.  This is a couples class, but we are rather liberal with the couples part.  The idea is to have someone pair up so you can read over next Sunday’s Bible verses.  Until we figure that out, you can study with your foster parents.”

Clay said, “I already have been.  When I first moved in, they would be talking French, and I thought they were talking about me.  They call it their love language, but Mamma Jochebed is teaching me some French.  That way I know that they are not talking about me.  But I am not ready to read the Scripture in French.  No way.  But I thank the Evidents for opening their home to me.”

Jochebed said, “C’est notre plaisir. »

Clay replied, “Merci, maman.”

Arabella giggled, “I understood the mercy part.”

I smiled, “Thank you, Arabella, for the attempted translation.  Clay, I will not call on you to read for a couple of weeks.  It’s a chance for you to see how we do it.”

“Now let’s get started with some verses…” I added.

Tamara (Psalm 116:8-9) “For you, Lord, have delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living.”

Tamara said, “God delivered the psalmist from a lot of things.  There is death, and Bart and I know about that one.  One woman wanted to kill Bart and instead she killed thirty other people while Bart and I watched.  That brought a lot of tears, so maybe this psalmist was spared in battle, but he saw death all around him.  He wept due to the trauma.  Then, it says that God delivered him from stumbling.  Maybe that is how he avoided getting killed in battle.”

I nodded, “It might also be Jonah being saved from the fish.  Some think that the writing style is similar.  But all of that is guesswork and I like the way one thank you led to another.  That’s the way we should look at those miraculous or nearly miraculous times in our lives.  It may only be God’s timing, but we are in the right place at the right time.  We didn’t stumble or the second disaster would have gotten us.  We were prevented from getting there too quick or the first disaster would have gotten us.  Easy, B.B. and I often get that when we interview survivors after a storm hits and wipes out everything, except the people are not harmed at all.  It wasn’t one delivery, but a series of deliveries, and before you say anything, Belle, none of them were pizza deliveries.”

Arabella groaned, “Quit talking about pizza, Aunt Jemima, you are making me hungry.”  I simply growled.  She was the one that started the pizza delivery idea.

Bart (Psalm 18:2) “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”

Bart said, “Well. This does not give any specifics.  But as an engineer, I like the structure.  It is describing a fortified city, like Jerusalem, but it says God is each part.  You start off with a good foundation.  God is our rock.  Then, you build a strong fortress on that foundation.  God is our fortress.  So then, with or without the fortress, God is our deliverer.  In Paul’s letters, what is the piece of God’s armor for salvation?”

I laughed, “Ephesians 6, it is the helmet of salvation.”

Bart shrugged, “Makes sense.  Here it is the horn of salvation.  Some ancient sets of armor had horns on their helmets.”

I nodded, “That was very thorough Bart.”

Bart reddened, “No, I have been listening to an audio Bible driving back and forth from work.  Somehow, I don’t mind getting stuck in traffic.  Listening to the Bible relaxes me.”

Tammie (Psalms 34:17) “The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.”

Tammie smiled, “This answers Arabella’s question.  God delivers us from troubles, whatever troubles they had to be, but I don’t see anything here about pizza.”

Arabella talked into her Bible, “Pizza a Go-Go?  Yeah.  This is Arabella.  Send me my usual, no a large-large.  Right away.”

Emmett said, “That was your Bible, Belle, not a cellphone.  You don’t have a cellphone.”

Arabella huffed, “God is the deliverer.  I don’t need a cellphone!”

Emmett sighed, “Belle, that joke may have crossed a line or two.”

Rosie (Isaiah 12:2-3) “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.’ With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”

Rosie said, “Here the focus is on salvation and when I think of God as a deliverer, I think of salvation.  Sure, with my addiction problems, God has delivered me many times here in this life.  But sometimes you endure one hardship after another, and all you can see at that point is the finish line.  But God takes care of the troubles, like Tammie read about, and that’s when you can turn around and look back and see that God had already put a program in place to help you with that trouble.”

I replied, “Thanks for your perspective, Rosie.”

Mr. Tubulum, Mike (Psalm 50:14-15) “’Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.’”

Mike said, “I am not Mr. Tubulum yet, Aunt Jemima.  I just played chords to keep the beat.  When I can play an entire song on the tubulum, then I might accept some praise.  Give all of it so far to Professor Angus.  But I looked at just Psalm 50:15 where it just says God will deliver us from any kind of trouble, and we will honor Him.  But when you read the two verses, it talks about offering thank offerings and fulfill your vows to God.  So, the promise in Psalm 50:15 comes from worshipping properly in verse 14.  And verse 14 mentions thank offering specifically.  So if you are already giving thanks to God and thinking in a thankful mindset, when God pulls you out of the trouble, you will not only immediately know that God did that, you will be thankful that He did that.  If you eliminate verse 14 and God pulls you out of the fire, would you ever think to honor God as the deliverer?”

I raised an eyebrow, “Did you come up with that, or did your parents help?”

Mags smiled, “Mike is my smart one.  Mercedes is pretty good too, but Mike is the deep thinker.”

I smiled.  “I don’t think I would have looked at it that way at his age.  Mike, that was excellent.”

Mercedes (1 Corinthians 10:13) “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

Mercy said, “So, each time I feel like clobbering my kid brother because he is such a deep thinker, mankind has already had that temptation before.  God is faithful.  He knows how his elect avoided falling into that temptation and He can help us avoid it.  But the word here is endure.  That gives me the feeling that the temptation does not simply go away.  So, do not expect God to make the temptation go away, but He gives the strength to endure.”

I sighed, “I think there are two deep thinkers in the family.”

Tammie smiled, “And in AA, God lines you up with the best sponsor ever, like Rosie.”

Rosie smiled and added, “And mine is Tommie Tat.”

I said to Mercy, “You see, God does not always give you the strength.  But He might give you the strength enough to say that you need help.”

Mags said, “I used to give my sponsor for drug addiction a call a few times each week.  She’d talk me down each time.  Mercy, you were a big help too.  You saw me struggling and gave me a hug.  But now, I have your step Dad to hold onto, and I call my sponsor at least once a week because I love my friend, the one God provided to talk me down from going over the edge.”

Mags Kildare (2 Peter 2:4-9) “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.”

Mags sighed, “Wow!  God brought a global flood to the earth and wiped out everyone except for Noah and His family.  God knew how to save Noah and He delivered him from the flood.  God brought justice against Sodom and Gomorrah, but he rescued Lot and his two daughters.  So, who are we to think God cannot deliver us?  No matter how bad the darkness seems, God still loves us.”

I snickered, “Is Grannie Fannie behind me?”

Grannie Fannie snickered, “You know I am right behind you, Jemima”

Easy interrupted, “Everybody, I texted Pizza a Go-Go, and they will be delivering enough pizza for everyone, here, in the den about the time everyone gets back from church, which is lunch time anyway.  It’s Jemima’s and my treat.  Don’t worry, we got our television appearance stipend last week.  We have the money, even after we paid tuition.  As everyone knows, God takes care of us, and this time, God is having Pizza a Go-Go do the delivery.

I asked, “Grannie Fannie, can you lead us in our new benediction?”

Grannie Fannie (Romans 15:13) “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Lauren ran up to Menzie and Samuel, “Mommie!  Daddy!  The buses!  The bus driver is here.  And Liam, Lympie, and Ellie Rain are with her.”  Then, she ran to Grannie Fannie and hugged her.

Brooke did not meet me.  She had gone to Goober’s football game, since it was not a long drive.  T.R.U.S.T. lost the game, but it was close.  And Goober had two more sacks.  He says that he wants to break Chris Long’s freshman sack record of fifteen and a half.  He’s only played three games, and he is almost halfway there.  But they are already double-teaming him.

Credits

The nature of the blog from Sweet to the Soul Ministries gives only one verse.  I used various searches and cross references for the other verses.

I used to listen to the Bible to and from work.  Those were the days when it was about an hour each way during rush hour, about thirty-five minutes if I went to work an hour early and returned at least thirty minutes late.

Here is Jon Sabaglian singing Adonai (Deliverance Song).  The “choir” that backs him up is a group from Psalmist Mission.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.