Seems like numbers chart our worth, our happiness, our achievement all our lives. When you are born everybody wants to know your length, your weight, your APGAR (Google it). Then your place among your toddling peers is measured in the number of the month in which you sit up, walk, crawl, and speak or the number assigned to your disposable diaper size. You enter school and your very worth as a human being is constantly quantified in your percentiles and GPA. You seek some escape in sports and you are hounded by your earned run average, your runs batted in, your points, turnovers, and assists per game, your yards per carry, completion percentage, your handicap, your reps and sets, and other studiously calculated and meticulously maintained testaments to what you have and haven't done on the fields and courts of athletic endeavor. You grow older and get married, get a job, and start watching mortgage rate numbers, IRA accumulation numbers, quarterly reports on your production versus quota. As time goes by, your weight, blood pressure, and bad cholesterol numbers rise while your hair count, testosterone, and good cholesterol numbers plummet.
Recent visits to my own doctor reveal that many of my numbers are not what they should be. I weigh too much, I exercise too little, my good cholesterol is dropping, my blood sugar is rising. To hear my doc tell it, I may not finish this blog. Funny though, if I call tomorrow for an appointment because I am sick, he is apparently quite certain I will live at least 6 months, as this is the soonest he will see me. But, I digress.
So, I have come to a decision. I'm just not going to allow my life to be governed by such numbers as those enumerated above. I would rather focus on the numbers that pertain to the quality of my life than to worry about those that ostensibly may predict the quantity. Such numbers as these:
1 : The number of women to whom I have been, am now, and will for this lifetime be married.
33: The number of years to date that I have shared the joys of marriage with this one woman.
3: The number of children we have raised to be wonderful, responsible, faithful adults.
4: The number of grandchildren who call me, or will call me Papa (3 and 1 on the way!).
21: The number of years I have known the joy of pastoring the same congregation of believers.
52: The number of years thus far granted me to enjoy the rich blessings God gives me day by day.
0: The additional number of years, days, hours, or minutes guaranteed to me, even if I am careful to maintain all those numbers my doctor fusses about.
350: The approximate number of calories in 5 Double-Stuff Oreo cookies and worth every bit of all 350.
Now remember, this is MY blog and these are my decisions. I'm not asking you, dear reader, to disregard all those other numbers entirely . . . you know the ones that measure your bank account and various blood components. Neither do I intend to ignore them totally. I should consider precious the body and health God has given me and be a properly concerned steward of a reasonable level of health for my age. I should be certain that I am a wise manager of the material resources God entrusts to me as well. But, I am also convinced that many persons are consumed with living long, regardless of whether they live well. The gyms and whole foods markets are full of folk with low body fat numbers and high numbers of ex-spouses and wayward children. I have decided that the quality of my life is paramount and can't be, nor will it be measured, by the percentages of various constituents of my blood or the ever fluctuating state of my annuity.
Now, pass me an Oreo . . . or 5.
Live well and prosper,
Dr. Mike
