I have loved today’s date for seven years now. I was in prayer one morning in 2018 when I happened to open my eyes and look at my clock at 7:17. I sensed the number was significant, so I asked the Holy Spirit to show me what it meant.

I have shared the revelation in this video, but the gist is that the Holy Spirit led me to Genesis 8:4, where we are told that Noah’s ark came to rest on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. For this reason the Gregorian July 17 has a special place in my heart.

The Holy Spirit also reminded me that the number seven represents divine perfection in the Bible, and 17 represents victory. Thus, 7/17 and 7:17 represent complete victory. This is the kind of victory Jesus won on the cross, as passages such as Colossians 2:14-15 declare.

Since 2018, one of the things I’ve enjoyed doing on July 17 is praying for people with a birthday on this day. This past Sunday, I got to pray for a lady who was visiting LA from another state for her birthday trip (her birthday being today). I have shared that story in this video.

In 2022, while I was in the throes of editing There Once Was a Man Who Suffered, July 17 fell on a Sunday. The Lord had a delightful surprise for me after church that day.

I had just finished praying for a couple when a young lady named Shannon came up to me and said, “Sharon, you prayed for me about July 17 some years back, and you told me about Noah’s ark.”

July 17 is Shannon’s birthday, so I prayed for her again that Sunday. Then a lady named Angel joined us saying it was her birthday too, so I prayed for her as well. Given how I enjoy praying for others, I considered myself doubly blessed that day!

Shortly afterwards, a birthday balloon floated by where we were standing. We had no idea how it got there, but Angel’s daughter handed it to Shannon, and I joined the birthday girls for a photo.

Life is not just about birthdays, of course. It is also about our exit from earth, what Shakespeare calls our “going hence” in King Lear.

Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither (V, ii, 10–11)

On the evening July 16, 2019, I was finishing up at work when the Holy Spirit prompted me to check my email. That’s how I learnt that two-year-old Jeremiah, a coworker’s friend’s son, had fallen into a pool and been declared brain dead. My coworker was requesting prayer, so I jumped in.

I posted a prayer request on my YouTube channel, and at the staff meeting next morning, July 17, I announced a prayer meeting for Jeremiah that afternoon. I share more in this video.

The doctors were to pull the plug at 3 p.m. that day, but during the noontime prayer meeting I fell on my face before the Lord and pleaded with weeping that this would not happen.

I knew in my spirit that Jeremiah should not die at 3 p.m., because 3 p.m. (the ninth hour) was when Jesus yielded His spirit on the cross and died. Jesus’s death had paid for Jeremiah’s life, so I begged the Lord for a delay.

The Lord, who is rich in mercy, granted that specific request. They pulled the plug later that evening, not at 3 p.m.

In the natural, Jeremiah did not live long enough to make a huge difference to anyone except his family and their social circle. But he has left a large, indelible mark in the spiritual, for at least two reasons.

One, because of his suffering. He tasted something of the sufferings of Christ in his two-year-old body and mind when he fell into the pool.

Jeremiah was instantly set free of all pain when he stepped into eternity, but for months I ached to think of the poor baby’s trauma as his lungs filled with water and his heart filled with fear. Did he try to call for his mom as he struggled to breathe?

Two, because he rallied prayer. As he lay dying on the hospital bed, many prayers were raised up on Jeremiah’s behalf. Only eternity will tell how many lives were changed because of those prayers.

My life certainly was, for I am always changed when I pray with intensity, passion, and tears.

I feel privileged to have played a small part in Jeremiah’s story. And today, on the sixth anniversary of his passing, I am writing this to honor the memory of his brief but beautiful life.

(c) 2025 by Sharon Arpana Edwards. All rights reserved.