Somewhere along my countdown to the big 4-0, I began taking inventory.  No, I haven’t been counting my towels or dinner plates (although they might be next).  I’ve recounted accomplishments and failures.  I’ve tried to organize my future goals and dreams.  And….I’ve inventoried my relationships.  The PROductive ones and the DEstructive ones.  The relationships that draw me nearer to God and the ones that pull me away from Him.  This inventory process has led me to some great realizations about how I want to celebrate living for half of eighty years.  I plan to go away ALL BY MYSELF for a few days, but to mark the end of my fourth decade I want to have coffee, or breakfast or lunch or a glass of wine with the forty women who have the the largest impact on my life.  I’m not done counting, but I’m feeling enormously blessed at this moment by just how many amazing women I get to do life with.

Here’s a few Biblical factoids on the number forty (more will come throughout the week)…..

Moses was on the mountain with God for 40 days (TWICE)
(Exo 24:18 KJV) And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.
(Exo 34:28-29 KJV) And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
(Deu 10:10 NIV) Now I had stayed on the mountain forty days and nights, as I did the first time, and the LORD listened to me at this time also. It was not his will to destroy you.

The Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness, one year for each day they explored the Promised Land.
(Exo 16:35 KJV) And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.
(Num 14:33-34 NIV) Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert. {34} For forty years–one year for each of the forty days you explored the land-you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.

Jesus fasted for 40 days in the wilderness
(Mat 3:17 KJV) And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
(Mat 4:1-2 KJV) Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. {2} And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered.

Jesus was seen in the earth 40 days after His crucifixion
(Acts 1:3 NIV) After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

It rained for 40 days and 40 nights when God wanted to cleanse the world and start over.
(Gen 7:12 KJV) And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

Noah waited another 40 days after it rained before he opened a window in the Ark.
(Gen 8:6 KJV) And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: