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Do the Math

Should I tell you that I use a calculator when I grade student papers?

30 total points minus 2.5. Ummmm.

Do it in your head, dad would say. This was usually at the kitchen table, with a box of Kleenex and a math book sitting in front of him. Bless him. No dad tried harder to work numbers into his kid’s head.

In grieving my dad’s departure from us, I had a little weep one day when I was writing in my checkbook. A long time dad spent teaching me how to make a 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 –so that they would never be mistaken for other numbers. This lesson came in high school algebra. The three has a solid line on the top, so it can never be confused for an eight. The left line of the four curves to the left, so it can never be confused for a nine. The eight is made with two circles, like a snowman, so that…not sure. I think he just liked how that looked.

Algebra equations –I think that was the last time I was able to comprehend a math problem. It was downhill into geometry and calculus. Many tears to follow.

If A = B and B = C, then A = C.

Math is good for something after all, because I’ve been taking this mathematical equality to church with me.

If Jesus was raised from the dead and my dad knows Jesus, then my dad is raised from the dead.

Equals hope.

By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. (1 Corinthians 6:14 NIV)

More Easter math…

God’s power raised Jesus from the dead, and now that same power is inside of me, so my everyday problems can be resurrected.

This math is what your heart needs.  -christyfitzwater.com

That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead… (Ephesians 1:18, 19, 20 NIV)

Now that’s not so hard, is it? Dad would say.