The Number 49
This year I celebrate my 49th trip around the sun. And on the morning of my b-day, I didn’t want to be optimistic like I usually am, yet I wanted to be intentional. I’ve never been one to really celebrate my birthday since childhood, so I kind of never treated it like it was a big deal. I was grateful but I just wasn’t used to putting that much emphasis on it. I would always find myself in a funk and somewhat unexplainably depressed since I could remember. But recently after the loss of my pops and my homeboy, I started coming to terms with learning to appreciate life from moment to moment, I decided to take a different approach and chose to start celebrating my special day. My wife had lost her dad a few days prior, so it felt like the inevitable was on the horizon as the eve of my red-letter day neared. So, in a last-minute effort, I scrounged together a makeshift celebration of things that I’ve been wanting to do but never got around to it. First, I wanted to visit the WNDR Museum, to stimulate my inner creative and expose my family to an immersive experience. And secondly, I found a restaurant called, The Tortoise Supper Club, which I felt would help me “stay in character” so to speak, and stay focused on my perseverance-themed yearlong initiative “in my turtle’s race” as I closed in on my album release in a few weeks. So, I got up, journaled a bit, mentally put together my “fit”, and shared my plans for the day with my eagerly awaiting family. To make a long story short, it truly ended up being perfect. Everything I wanted to do I did with no backlash. No disagreements wit’ wifey, no complaining children, no traffic, etc. Now don’t get me wrong, I could definitely nitpick, (wifey took too long to get ready, food could’ve been better) but for the most part, the day was pretty perfect. As always, I woke up the next morning to figure out and lock in my goals for the upcoming year. During my devotion, I decided to look up the significance of the number 49 in a biblical sense, and I was led to this:
The Meaning of Numbers: The Number 49
The meaning of the number 49 is derived from the fact that it is 7 times 7. Seven is a Biblically perfect numeral representing spiritual perfection.
So to myself, I felt pretty DOPE for a sec until I read a little further. As I continued it shared the illustration of when Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive a person who sinned against him. He suggested that forgiving someone seven times seemed generous to him. And the Lord's response, however, was "I do not say to you until seven times, but until seventy times seven (490 or 49 x 10)" (Matthew 18:22). Christians are not to limit themselves in regards to forgiveness and mercy. If they are to be perfect, like their heavenly Father (Matthew 5:48), believers are required to offer unlimited forgiveness.
That “feeling” of perfect that I felt just one day prior, was mentally whisked away as all of my attention now focused on this undeniable statement that led me to believe that this finding was on purpose, and I willingly accepted it because it instantly challenged me. This proclamation shook me to the core because FORGIVENESS is something that I’ve struggled with my whole life. And forgiveness, while a process, is a race that I’ve lost so many times in the course of my life’s marathon. That fun fact of 7x7 with the biblically perfect hodgepodge and the significance of that for me in real-time addressed a situation that I was currently preparing for. As I stated, my father-in-love passed away a few days prior to my birthday, and in the days to come I would find out that his homegoing would be at the very church that I painfully exited just a year ago. And the transition was very emotionally draining, infused with backlash and persecution, with a sprinkle of resentment, that could easily trigger me when in that environment. Since leaving in March of 2021, I’ve only been back once since then to lay my best friend to rest on December 16 of ‘21, which was just as painful. Earlier this year I came across a book by Tariq Trotter, a.k.a. Black Thought, called 7 Years: Words + Music | Vol. 18, and the lessons learned in this intriguing look into his life oozed out of me to seemingly seep into the cracks of this reopened wound that I had been reluctantly hoping would form a scab and heal up already. But it hadn’t, and here I was nursing this injury improperly, only allowing this non-treated infection to continue to grow into this mass of unforgiveness year after year. In this audiobook, he gave insights with transparency about his life and career in seven-year increments, and how the dynamics of our lives change every seven years. This made sense to me. It helped me understand a lot in this season in my life. And as I stepped ten toes down into this new chapter in my life cycle, I understood that it was time to finally DEAL with it. The proverbial band-aid needed to be ripped off, and the soothing ointment of forgiveness had to be applied. So in this 49th year, the goal is to FORGIVE. Not for others’ sake, but mine. I am required to offer not only unlimited forgiveness but mercy. So this week, as I prepare to give honor to a man that meant a lot to me and many others, I begin with an idiom that I heard many years ago but never understood or had to until now. It says to make (the) perfect the enemy of (the) good which means: to allow the demand, desire, or insistence for perfection to decrease the chances of obtaining a good or favorable result in the end. (Usually used in the negative as an imperative.) Or in layman’s terms, some of us, unfortunately, strive to live perfect lives (on the outside), when in actuality we can make the perfect enemy of good and not experience true happiness and peace in this lifetime on the inside. Just because a decision hurts doesn’t mean it’s the wrong decision. And in hindsight, I’ve also come to know that you might have to fight a battle more than once to win it. So, my goal in this 49th year around the sun is to FORGIVE and LEARN HOW TO TURN WOUNDS INTO WISDOM.
