Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

The Scriptures will be embedded in the story.

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 and I took a sleigh ride.

This week, Babs was deep in contemplation.

“Babs,” I asked. “I have a feeling your memories are golden, so I won’t offer a penny for them, but that smile says a lot.  Are these recent memories, distant memories, or are you asleep and dreaming of naughty things?”

Babs opened her eyes and smiled, “My naughty things dreams are going to be nice, celebratory things in just seven and a half weeks.  You won’t let me count days until we are less than fifty, and that is next Tuesday.  So, we will not be seven weeks away.  We will be 49 days away and counting.  But as for my reverie, it was very recent memories.  I had a blast yesterday.”

I smiled, “I was there too.  It was okay.”

“Okay?  OKAY?!” Babs retorted, “Matt and Maddie were talking about their friends that were going to walk down the aisle with them at the wedding in seven and a half weeks – and we are now closer than we were the last time I mentioned it – and then Janella, preschool Janella, turned to me and asked, “Where is my arm candy?  All I have is my brother!”

I nodded, “And that’s when I said for her to just wait a couple of years, and then she said that’s what her Mom and Dad always tell her.  But Babs, those kinds of things happen all the time.”

Babs sighed, “Not when your stepmother was a retired stripper.  Here, baby, this is a pole and I’m going to teach you how to take your clothes off while dancing and holding on to this pole.  It did not sound very appealing.”

I held her in my arms, and I kissed her on the forehead.  “But now I know what I can request seven and a half weeks from now.  A honeymoon with a room that has a pole.”

Babs gritted her teeth, “Don’t you dare!  I loved yesterday because I was part of the family.  Sure, no paperwork to prove it, but I felt like family for the first time.  What does the Bible say about family?”

I sat in my papasan chair, and she sat in a recliner next to me.

I shrugged, “Genesis 7 and 11 both mention family trees.  I guess you are not interested in that.”

Babs rolled onto one side and said in a breathy voice, “I don’t know.  If you crawl over here and start talking about how this guys begat that guy, I might just rip your clothes off and do a little begetting myself.”

I snickered, “We decided to wait until our wedding night.”

Babs sneered, “Yeah, seven and a half weeks away.  What you said.  Skip the family trees.”

I smiled, “How about the first time the Bible mentions a family?”

Babs smiled, “Like Genesis 5:1 when they start the story of Noah and his family?”

I laughed, “Yeah, and then the exciting part about how Noah’s family gets into the ark in Genesis 6:9.”

Babs moaned, “Please, Harold, be serious.”

I said, “Then how about a serious tale of someone trying to manufacture a family.  “so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said.” (Genesis 16:2).”

Babs groaned, “I will save you the trouble for the next one.  ’Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.’ That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
“The next day the older daughter said to the younger, ‘Last night I slept with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.’ (Genesis 19:32-34).”

Babs said, “That covers surrogacy (good in some ways today) and incest.  That is not God’s way.  The Tamar and Abram thing is still being a problem between Ishmael’s and Abraham’s descendants.  And the Moabites and Ammonites were a constant problem for the Israelites.  Violating God’s way can sometimes cause problems for many generations to come.  No, Harold, what is a real family?  A God loving family?”

I patted her on the arm.  “Okay, Babs, how about Ephesians 3?”

Babs looked confused.  “Why not Ephesians 5 and 6?”

I quoted, “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21)”

Babs said, “Wow!  I thought you were going to go to Ephesians 5:21-6:9.  It starts with married couples submitting to each other, and then what wives should do, including obey.  It goes to what husbands do, children, slaves, and masters.”

I smiled, “’Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.’ (Colossians 3:18-21) That’s a little shorter.  And that reminds me, we wanted Rev C.S.L. to write that into the vows, and I have not heard from him.  He was going to give that task to Joseph Jones who is getting ordained this coming Sunday.  So, maybe they will have it done within another week.  But in Ephesians 3, it talks about where our focus should be.  We should have the focus of glorifying God, and the rest should take care of itself.  Now, all it takes is for Satan to find the weak link in the family and all those ‘commands’ start to fall apart like a house of cards.  You wanted the biblical family, and there it is.”

Babs said, “So, where does the division within a family come from?  “’I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’ (Luke 12:59-63)”

I sighed, “What did I have before the young Babs came here?  Morrie was having an affair with two women.  And the young Babs had a way of talking innocently and squeezing the heart muscle until you saw what you were doing wrong and how it was hurting others.  You do that too.  You have totally surrendered your life to Christ, and you see these verses in the Bible and you tell yourself that you now have a new direction to go.  But then, someone in the family disagrees and the family is split apart.  Some people do not see the freedom within Christianity, they see the rules.  Others see the freedom and the gladly follow the rules to please God.”

Babs scrunched her nose, “So, whichever came first, the chicken or the egg does not matter, but when it comes to God, we submit to Him, and He saves us from our sins, even the future sins.  We have freedom, but we choose to color between the lines because we love God and that would be pleasing to God.  But if someone tries to stay between the lines without God, they get frustrated.  They don’t think their sin is that bad, and they cannot go down the path without making those mistakes.  Then they drift away from the family.”

I nodded, “Or they rebel against the family and openly cause friction and despair.  So, you end up with preacher’s kids (PK) who are absolutely rotten, and sometimes later in life, God reaches them and they come back.  Other times it is too late.  We can all see what we did wrong as a parent and think it to be our fault, but it is the one that rejects God who splits the family apart.  We cannot save the unrepentant soul.  God must convict them of their sin.  But they will never stop our prayers for them.”

Babs leaned over and the chair started rocking.  She fell back into the recliner, and she used the lever to sit up straight.  By then I had stood up.  We had a long hug.

Babs said, “I think I better go take Sugar for a walk.  But, Harold, when I come back, can we sit, hold hands, and then pray out loud for everyone in our family?”

I smiled, “Just the immediate family, but then each night this week, let’s bring each family member up, and then start mentioning our food bank friends and our homeless friends.  Let’s start writing everything down.  Let’s make it a monthly thing that we pray for family daily and the friends in the ministry and friends that need our help will each get mentioned by name once each month.”

Babs giggled, “And when we have someone that is bad sick, we can make that daily until they are healed.”

I kissed her briefly.  “I love that amendment, Babs.  And as far as I am concerned.  The members of our wedding party are family.  Well, over half actually are family.  Oh, and as for Janella’s little spat about not having arm candy, Mercedes, that is Mercy Kildare, said she would introduce Janella to Dennis Morissey, her nephew who is the son of the Lily the Pink Nursery employee who just finished her early childhood development and elementary education degree.  They are going to start pre-k, kindergarten through third grade at Lily the Pink.  But her son, Dennis is about Janella’s age, maybe a year older.  Then, Gretchen Grunge is in kindergarten, just like Jayke.  And if we can get them into that private school, they may be classmates immediately or in the near future.  If not, they will have someone to dance with at the wedding.”

And Babs was off to walk the dog.

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.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.