The One and Only

These days, you can find anything on the internet if you know where to look.  For instance, there’s a website called howmanyofme.com.  Supposedly, if you put your name, it will tell you how many people there are in the United States who have your name.

I don’t know how accurate it is, really--I’m sure it’s mostly just for fun.  It’s at least somewhat accurate:  putting in “John Smith” gives 47,356 people, and Bill Jones gives 927.  You’d expect those names to be somewhat popular, and they are, so I guess there’s some degree of accuracy there.

Naturally, I entered “Jeff Adel” to see what I’d come up with.  It tells me that the number of people in the United States named “Jeff Adel” is “one or fewer”.  On the one hand, it’s nice to be unique.  On the other hand, I didn’t really like that “or fewer” part--does this website know something I don’t know?  So I entered “Jeffrey Adel”--which is, after all, my given name--and was told there are two people in the United States named “Jeffrey Adel”.

Well, I’m one, of course.  So I googled “Jeffrey Adel” to see if I could find the other one.  And I did find the other one, or an other one at least.  There’s a Jeffrey Adel who’s a professor in the Culinary Arts department of Johnson and Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island.  He’s apparently in his sixties, so he’s not much older than I am.  I also found an address and a phone number, so if I wanted to contact him, I could.  Had I wanted to spend the time and money, I could’ve found out more about him, I’m sure.  

I haven’t contacted him, but I’ve thought about it.  I wonder what he’d think if I did.  Would he have enough sense of whimsy that he’d think it was kind of cool to hear from someone with his name?  Would he think it was creepy that I’d dug up this information about him online?  Would he think I was some kind of a stalker, or a scam artist, or maybe just some kind of a nut?  Who knows?

It’s kind of interesting to think there’s only one other person in the country with my name.  But even if there were lots of them--even if there were 47,356 of them--I would still be unique and special to God.  So would you.  God created each person to be unique and special.  And God has a plan and a purpose for each of our lives.  That’s true no matter what age we are.  Whether we’re three or thirty-three or a hundred three, God still has a plan and a purpose for our lives.  And we need to do what we can to follow God’s plan and fulfill God’s purpose.

I’ll probably never get to know the other Jeffrey Adel.  But God knows him.  And God knows me, too.  And God knows you.  Let’s all make sure we know God and follow God’s plan for our lives.