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

When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman.

• Genesis 12:14

Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milkah, who was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor. The woman was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever slept with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jar and came up again.

• Genesis 24:15-16

The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.

• Job 42:14-15

On the seventh day, when King Xerxes was in high spirits from wine, he commanded the seven eunuchs who served him—Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar and Karkas—to bring before him Queen Vashti, wearing her royal crown, in order to display her beauty to the people and nobles, for she was lovely to look at.

• Esther 1:10-11

Mordecai had a cousin named Hadassah, whom he had brought up because she had neither father nor mother. This young woman, who was also known as Esther, had a lovely figure and was beautiful. Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter when her father and mother died.

• Esther 2:7

His name was Nabal and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband was surly and mean in his dealings—he was a Calebite.

• 1 Samuel 25:3

Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes.

• Proverbs 6:25

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
    but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Honor her for all that her hands have done,
    and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

• Proverbs 31:30-31

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.

• 1 Peter 3:3-6

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.

In her leaving, she said someone would come.  I had thought that was Jesus, in His second coming, but a new Babs, a little older, the model for the posable action figure arrived.  While I had no desire to start over with romance, Morrie helped her move in, thinking she was the other Babs who had returned.

This Week’s Question

Last week, Babs was laughing at some AI generated changing a lightbulb jokes, as in how many wedding planners does it take …

This week, Babs emotional roller-coaster had swung the other direction.

“Babs,” I asked, “What has you upset?  If a guy said something against your character, do I have to go knock him on the head?”

Babs, still sniffling, said.  “Harold, I have failed you as a bride.  I don’t know if we can get married now.”

I gasped, “Babs!  This is serious.  If we cannot get married, I think I will simply avoid getting married at all.  You are perfect for me.”

Babs looked at me with the tears coming down.  “No, I am not perfect.  I just looked in the mirror and I have a wrinkle.”

I shrugged, “So?  You are still the prettiest girl in the world that can still look at me after she saw me once or twice.”

Babs buried her head in my chest, “I like the way you make light of the situation without making light of me.  You always see the good in the situation, but Ephesians 5:27 is the only verse in the Bible that talks about wrinkles, and it says for me to be your unblemished bride, I cannot have a wrinkle.”

I laughed, “Oh, ye, of little or no context.  You started in the wrong place.”

Babs sighed, “Now you are making fun of me.”

I laughed, “No, Sweetie.  I am saying that you read one verse and interpreted what you thought you saw.  Look at your Bible again.”  Babs did so. “Does verse 27 start with a capital letter?”  She shook her head.  “Does verse 27 end in a period?”  She nodded her head.  “Okay, now go backwards until you find a capitalized word.

Babs groaned, “Christ!”

I laughed.  “Does the word Christ start the sentence?”

Babs sighed, “No, Harold, ‘Husband’ starts the sentence.  I am no dummy when it comes to grammar.  I know the difference in a comma and a period.”

I groaned, “Yes, but in reading those three verses, who is responsible for what bride?”

Babs shrugged, “I come to you for my Bible answers, Harold.  This talks about a husband loving his wife like Jesus loves the church.  I don’t want to have a misplaced modifier by reading it wrong.”

I smiled, “Okay, dear, I will spell it out slowly.  The husband should be like Jesus.  Jesus will be the groom for a big wedding when He returns.  He is marrying the church.  And we, as believers are members of that church.  Now the verses say that the bride must be cleansed.  How does Jesus cleanse the bride?”

Babs shrugged, “I think it says with water.”

I smiled, “Babs, water through what?”

Babs groaned, “That is what makes it confusing.  It says the water through the word.”

I snickered, “Well, dear, is this a physical cleansing or a spiritual cleansing?”

Babs gasped, “I am thinking a spiritual cleansing.”

I asked.  “Babs, so, if the cleansing is spiritual, does that mean that the bride who has one wrinkle on her physical body is disqualified?  What about her spiritual ‘body’?  Does it have wrinkles?”

Babs grinned, “Wow!  Nope!  I am still going to marry you, Harold.  You cannot get away that easy.”

I smiled, “Good, but now we need to see the beautiful women in the Bible.”

Babs sighed, “Goodie!  More women that I cannot live up to.”

I ignored that. “What about Sarai, or Sarah?”

Babs, doing her impression of a young Shirley Temple, “What about Sarai?”

I groaned, “It’s going to be that kind of a conversation?”  Babs laughed.  I continued. “Sarai was taken by Pharoah and Abimelek.  Abram, later Abraham, said she was his sister.  He thought they might survive in a hostile environment better as brother and sister.  But Sarai was taken due to her beauty, and she was old when they left Harran to go to the Promised Land.  But Sarah is mentioned in Hebrews as being a woman of faith.  She and Rahab are the only women on that list of the Hall of Fame of faith.”

Babs said, “Rebekah isn’t on that list, but she was considered beautiful.  It says so in Genesis 24, but did she have a wrinkle?  I doubt it.”

I laughed, “We could mention Rachel and Bathsheba.  But what about Jemima and her two sisters?  They were the loveliest women in the land.  But before you think that Jewish women are the only pretty ones in the Bible, what does Esther 1 say about Queen Vashti?

Babs said, “She was beautiful and King Xerxes wanted to show her off.  She did not wish to parade in front of some drunk people, so she refused.  Xerxes proclaimed that he would never see her again.  Then when he got sober, he lamented that he had said that.  But when he saw Esther in all her beauty, we don’t hear the king moaning about deposing Vashti anymore.  But get to your point, Harold.  If you don’t hurry up, I’ll have another wrinkle before you get to the good part.”

I snickered, “I am glad you think this wandering around in the Bible has a ‘good’ part.  I have one more lady to talk about.  In First Samuel 25, David meets a descendant of Caleb, the old spy, one of the two of his generation that was allowed to enter the Promised Land.  But Nabal was an oaf of a man.  What does verse three say about his wife, Abigail?”

Babs said, “Rats!  It says that she was an intelligent and beautiful woman. Now, I fall short in two places.  I never went to college, Harold!”

I laughed, “Yes, you never went to college, but you are very intelligent.  You have a lot more smarts than a lot of college graduates that I know.  My point is that godly beauty does not worry so much about the outward beauty.  It does not focus on just being attractive.  You act a bit goofy at times, but I love that.  You make everyone around you laugh.”

Babs groaned, “Now, I am the clown!  You are digging yourself a big hole here, Harold!”

I asked, “What does Proverbs 6:25 say?”

Babs said, “I guess it is talking to a man.  It says to not lust after the woman and do not be captivated by her eyes.  Do I captivate you with my eyes, Harold?”  She fluttered her eyelashes.

I moaned, “If you only knew, Babs.”

Babs giggled, “I think I do know.  But, hey, wait!  This section of the Proverbs is warning against prostitutes!  What are you saying here, Harold?  I may have made my mistakes, but I want a blemish-free life with you.  No funny business!”

I nodded, “Yes, I may have taken that verse out of context, but it leads to the last two verses in the book of Proverbs.”

Babs started flipping through the book of Proverbs. “How many chapters?”

I said, “Thirty-one, but you could find Ecclesiastes and then back up a page.”

Babs huffed, “You and your engineering short cuts.  Okay, here it is.  Hmmm.  Charm is deceptive.  There goes one of the things I could use.  Beauty is fleeting.  Rats!  I am all out of weapons!  What’s left?”

I moaned, “Is this your day to read only half of what you should be reading?  Babs, you fear the Lord.  That is the true sign of beauty, Babs.  I love you because you love everyone around you.  You bubble over with Joy and Love.  And Peter says in his first letter that your beauty, that is the wife’s beauty, should not come from cosmetics, or hairstyle, or jewelry.  Your beauty comes from your inner self, a gentle and quiet spirit.”

Babs snickered, “And who is the one not reading all the verses, Harold.  You skipped right past how I am supposed to obey you.  I dodged a bullet with that one!”

Babs leaned in close and kissed me, “I will obey you even though you skipped that part.  You would never lead me astray.”

I sighed, “If I led you astray, we’d both be in the soup together anyway.”

Babs laughed, “Harold, now who is the one making everybody laugh.”

I smiled, “Babs, you don’t have a wrinkle at all!  If you have anything, it’s a laugh line.  And I guarantee you that laugh lines are not blemishes that disqualify you for being the bride.  The more that we love life, love other people, and show that love in service, we might just end up with more laugh lines.”

Babs and I hugged and kissed. Then Babs said, “I think I can live with that.  I have laughed more in the past months being around you every day than I did in my entire life until then.”

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

My wife lamented that she was “cute.”  She wanted just one person to call her beautiful, and somehow, I did not count.  She wanted to be ravishing.  She wanted to be a “knock-out.”  “Cute” was the friend of the beautiful, ravishing knock-out.  But she had all those knock-outs beaten with her inner beauty.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.