Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

• Ephesians 5:25-27

The Boilerplate

My wife filled a small book with “Angel” on the cover.  It was hidden with a box of crafting things.  On 18 July 2025, I thought I had posted the last of these.  But this little angel book held a prayer, followed by 71 quotes.  So, the “with a little help” series is back in business for a while.  And it will be fun for me.  She did not attribute any of the quotes.  The first, next week’s installment, is from James A. Garfield, the 20^th president of the USA.  The next one is disputed, with some thinking it originated with Teddy Roosevelt and others saying Fred Astaire.  After the prayer, these might be on the lighter side.

Her quote

“If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should not grow old.”

• James A. Garfield, 20^th president of the United States of America

The Discussion

The Scripture above is the only mention of “wrinkle” in the NIV.  And oddly, it is talking about the husband ensuring the wife to have no blemish, including wrinkles.  This is figurative, and it is as if James A. Garfield was looking at this verse when he made his quote.  Let us not have wrinkles on our hearts.  May our spirits never grow old.

This was quote number one.  She numbered them, and I think they all have to do with “old.”

Was my wife old at this point?  No.  Since many of us do not reach the age of one hundred, she was past the normal halfway point, but more middle aged than “old.”  But she kept saying that she was more like her father than her mother.  He died in his early sixties while her mother lived past ninety.

My wife had diabetes, and she was able to keep it under control at this point.  Of course, she wanted to be rid of the disease.  She had to wear glasses with bifocals.  She had the normal aches and pains.  But the ticking bomb within her was the kidney failure that had started earlier that year.  With aortic stenosis and kidneys that were slowly failing, she knew what the doctors were not saying.  But she did not share her knowledge with anyone.

Yet, there are a number of reasons this quote was first.  One is rather simple.  It was the first quote she found when doing an internet search.  But I think this verse became her mantra.

Her spirit became the young thing that never grew old.  She had a few wrinkles.  Gravity has its effect. 

I am reminded of the line in The Big Bang Theory.  Leonard and Sheldon have no upper body strength.  How can they lift Penny’s shelving unit up the stairs, after Leonard had volunteered to do so.  The pieces are all in a huge cardboard box.  Sheldon admits that they know science, and that is their only hope.  They get the box to the first landing, but then they have to turn the box ninety degrees.  As they put their thinking caps on, they let go of the box and the box slides back into the lobby of their apartment building.  Then Sheldon said, “Oh Gravity, thou art a heartless b****.”  The show cuts to commercial and they have the box at the proper floor after the commercial break.

But my question, and maybe many who watched the show at the time, why did they not open the box and take a few pieces at a time?  After all, they were brainiacs.  Could they not have thought the problem through?  Of course, not thinking of the easiest solution adds to the humor of the moment.  Of course, the show ends with Penny using the instructions to assemble the shelves while the four brainiacs, with Raj and Howard with them, trying to redesign the shelves while never looking at the instructions.  I am an engineer, and I agree with them that the instructions are the least imaginative way of doing it.  I laughed as hard at that line as I did Sheldon’s line earlier.

But as an old friend of mine told me, “Sure, I am getting old, but it beats the alternative.”

Some days, I wonder if it does.

But my wife wanted to glorify God each day that she had left on this earth.  The best way to do that is to never let those wrinkles get to your heart and never let your spirit get old.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory