13

When I was nine I learned that the number 13 was an unlucky number. It was my first year in the Little League Baseball program and I was on a minor league team. That meant that I was not good enough for the majors, but that was all right as 99% of all nine-year-olds were in the minor league program. Anyhow, I chose the number 13 baseball shirt. It had matching pants and the coolest baseball socks.

When I arrived at my home my mom said, “Why did you chose 13? That is an unlucky number.” I asked her why. She did not know why, but everybody knows that the number 13 is unlucky. I had already decided that I wanted to be different in the first grade when the teacher asked us what our favorite color was. Of course all the girls chose pink and purple. The guys chose red, blue, and green. Not me. I chose orange, and that has been my favorite color since then.

Since I was nine every time I had a choice in choosing the number of my sports uniform I chose the number 13. I am not big on “luck” anyhow. I don’t remember ever winning anything. I don’t even read the little notes in fortune cookies. I eat the cookies; I just don’t read the fortunes.

Today I was called in early for my treatment and was reminded by my therapist that it was treatment #13—like this is the unlucky one. Wonder what will go wrong. I didn’t think it was funny. Anyhow I am not afraid of the number 13.  It is just another number, and the fact that this treatment was #13 did not faze me.

I am confident of this: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” Psalms 139:13-14 ESV

As I am writing this my dad is having a heart catheterization at Baptist Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi. Please pray for him. He was hospitalized on Saturday with chest pains and swollen ankles.