My Favorite Number

There reaches a point when people tend to say, it’s just a number, concerning their age.
I have not quite figured out at what age people begin to say those words.
I guess it depends on the person’s perspective of aging.
Did you ever think about the effects of numbers on our lives?

We speak in terms of numbers.
We say how old we are.
We say how many years we have been married.
We tell the number of children we have.

We inform others of the date of our graduation from high school and college.
We memorize our Social Security numbers.
We know our house or apartment number.
We know our zip code.

We know our phone numbers.
We remember our passwords for our devices.
We often know our credit card numbers or at least the three-digit security code.
We know the codes to get into our houses or garages.

We know the time it takes for us to run a mile.
We know how many minutes are left on the oven timer.
We know the number of miles on our odometer.
We know how many minutes we have to wait until our flight is ready to take off.

We are surrounded by numbers.
I often wish that our minds could have one of those cartoon bubbles on top.
We would be amazed at the sequences of numbers we have in the forefront of our brains.
Whether we are mathematical or not, numbers are part of who we are.

I have a favorite number.
I have no idea why this number has always been my favorite.
Whenever my husband had to choose a number for a sports jersey, he chose mine.
In my mind’s eye, I can still see his many shirts with the number 32 on the back.

I had no idea why the number 32 was my favorite.
It just was.
It still is.
I liked the way it looked.

I remember the first community basketball game I attended.
There was my future husband out on the court with his black converse sneakers.
As he ran down the court, I saw the number on the back of his shirt.
I saw my number, 32, and he had never told me.

I remember when he looked up into the stands to see me.
I smiled and gave him a thumbs up in approval.
That was not the first shirt he wore with the number 32 prominently displayed.
He asked me once why I liked that number so much; I had no idea.

Thirty-two seemed so far away when I was in high school and college.
Thirty-two seemed so far away when we were married ten years before.
Thirty-two got closer and closer as I had each of my children.
I had my fourth child when I was thirty-two.

I used to come downstairs each morning and turn on the Weather Channel to see the weather.
I needed to know how to dress the other children for school.
As I sat in the chair feeding my son, I flipped through the channels to find the weather.
There was a woman who taught an early morning Bible study on television.

I would hear bits and pieces of her Bible study before I changed the channel.
Each day I found myself listening longer and longer.
Soon, the weather channel was not watched at all.
I would sit for the whole half hour and listen to things I had never heard before.

I was raised in a church.
I knew about God.
I prayed.
I tried to do the right things.

For the first time, I heard that it is not about the right things I do.
For the first time, I heard that knowing about God is not enough.
For the first time, I heard that I needed a Savior.
For the first time, the historical Jesus I had learned about became personal.

I knew Jesus died on the cross.
I did not know He did it for me.
I knew that there was a Heaven I hoped to go to someday.
I now knew that there was a way to be sure that Heaven would be my eternal Home.

I sat with my son and heard the Gospel clearly for the very first time.
All the things I knew in my head for all those years before had now traveled down to my heart.
Jesus died for me; He took my place on the cross.
Jesus is my Savior; believing on Him for my salvation secured my eternal life with Him.

There was a toll-free number that came across the bottom of the television screen.
It was a number to call if you wanted to receive a schedule of how to read through the Bible.
This schedule would allow me to read though the Bible in one year.
I was an avid reader; God knew the exact way to reach me.

These were the days before email was so prevalent.
I called the number and within a week the schedule arrived in the mail.
I bought my first Bible at the local Christian bookstore.
I began my journey.

In eight months, I had read the entire Bible.
I have read through the entire Bible every year since then.
God knew that my love of words would exponentially increase with my love of His Word.
God knew the exact way to capture me.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

God captured me with His Word.
The words on the page that I love to read became the Living Word that I cannot live without.
All because I sat on a chair feeding my son, and checking the weather.
All because of the Sovereignty of God.

All those years ago, I had no idea why the number 32 was so special to me.
I liked the way it looked.
I liked to see it on a sports jersey.
It became a very special number.

It was the age of 32 when God opened my eyes, ears, and mind to the Gospel.
It was at the age of 32 when the Gospel went from my head to my heart.
It was at the age of 32 when I knew that I needed a Savior to save me from my sin.
I was actually born years before but at the age of 32, I was born again.