Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Then the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and Levites—everyone whose heart God had moved—prepared to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. All their neighbors assisted them with articles of silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with valuable gifts, in addition to all the freewill offerings.

• Ezra 1:5-6

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

• Luke 11:11-13

Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

• James 1:16-18

These two Christmases were only 3-4 years apart.  Funny how I can remember those two Christmases in intricate detail, but I cannot remember how old I was in either case.

The first Christmas that I can remember was when I was roughly 5-6 years old.  I saved up box tops or bottle caps to get all kinds of things growing up.  Most of the time my mother would say that it did not come in the mail.  I don’t think she ever sent the box tops in for redemption.  Twice I got something, a recording of Stan Musial, teaching me how to hit a baseball, with a book with pictures of Musial in the batting box.  I remember that since Stan the Man was left-handed, I could mirror his stance exactly.  But as the ball got faster and my reaction time did not, the record only helped me one year.  The other bottle cap prize was a football signed by Tommy McDonald, Hall of Fame halfback, before the days of having wide receivers.  I played with it so much, I wore the signature off.

But one of those “never heard from the box top company” excuses was when I wanted a Cowboys and Indians play set.  Sorry, I will not be retroactively politically correct.  When my mother told me that it never came in, I shrugged it off.  But on Christmas morning, I walked into the living room, and underneath the tree, all around the tree, there were cowboys behind split rail fences shooting at the attacking Indians.  It wasn’t that I got the toy set that I thought I had been cheated out of.  It was that the set was set up as if Santa had played with it.  Now, I was on the horns of a dilemma.  I did not want to touch it, because that was the way Santa had left it.  But then, would I ever enjoy playing with it?  My mother solved that issue.  While I spent all day crawling around the floor looking from the vantage point of every Cowboy and every Indian and even making up dialogue, I never touched anything until bedtime.  My mother demanded that I put away my toys.  With tears in my eyes, I had all the Cowboys and Indians dismount their horses.  I disassembled the split rail fences.  And I found a box to put everything in.  That year, my mother was irritated that I was transfixed by my toy set – that I had basically purchased for myself, if push came to shove.  And I hardly noticed neither my first-ever full length KJV Bible, that matched what my brother and sister had nor the matching robe, so we could pose for those cringe-worthy Christmas photographs – and I do not think any of those photographs survived.  I hope not!

The other Christmas was a few years later.  My parents shielded me about their financial disaster, so when they suddenly said “no” constantly, I did not understand.  But I received the Kenner Girder and Panel construction set that year, along with the bridge and road expansion set.  But I got a note along with the expanded construction set.  It said that Santa would never return to the house and I would never again get a toy for Christmas or my birthday.  I think I was nine-years-old.  I cried my eyes out over the note, but I became very careful when I played with that set.  My cousins did not play carefully and within a couple of years, I could hardly build anything anymore.

So, there are my childhood memories of Christmas, the good and the not so good.  And I never again got a toy, but as a senior in high school, I got a bumper pool table.  I won first place in the science fair at the school and at regionals (impressing the university’s dean of engineering), explaining how to make trick shots, complete with a log of success and failure.  It was basic physics, Newton’s Laws of Motion, in a fun way of illustrating it.  My Dad had finally worked the family out of debt, and he was saving for his retirement.  And I helped him even more by taking an ROTC scholarship a year later.

The only other Christmas that I can remember was when my cousins from Florida came to visit.  And when we played hide and seek, they slid under the beds and found their presents, unwrapped, before Christmas morning.  Yikes!

But God said that a parent does not give you a snake or a scorpion, but that Christmas after my parents lost their farm, it felt like it.  If they had explained why we sold everything, moved back into town, and never raised turkeys again, I was probably at that 50:50 age as to whether I would understand or not, but they never brought it up and I knew not to ask uncomfortable questions.

But God does not give us bad gifts.  He gives us good gifts.  And He explains things to us in His Holy Word.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.