Lucky Seven was a made-for-television movie in 2003 that you probably didn’t see. However, in looking for it, I was surprised to see it had made someone’s internet list of the top 30 romantic movies. (For those who want to see it, someone has uploaded it in parts to youtube. Its non-big screen status is also why there was only one picture available.)
Lucky Seven stars Kimberly Williams-Paisley of Father of the Bride fame with Grey’s Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey as bagel shop manager Peter Connor and Brad Rowe as successful businessman Daniel McCandles. Kimberly plays Seattle lawyer Amy Myer whose mother died when she was about seven. Flashbacks show how Amy idolized her mother (played by Gail O’Grady) and wrote down a lot of what she told her while she was ill. Before she died, Amy’s mother had drawn a kind of timeline for her future. In it she predicted that although Amy would have six serious boyfriends,the seventh would be the perfect one for her.
As the movie starts, Amy is at the end of her fifth relationship when she meets Daniel, a man that she thinks—and all her friends think—is perfect for her. Wonder of wonders, her father even likes him. The problem is Amy, who seems obsessive compulsive and superstitious, is still taking out her mother’s timeline and referring to it. She can’t see a future with him because he would be #6. And he needs to be #7 to fit the timeline.
Her father tries to explain to Amy that her mother was just trying to teach her that she might meet several men before she found the right one. But Amy isn’t having it. She decides to manipulate the prediction by accepting a date from a man who works in a bagel shop, thus making him #6. Then Daniel can be brought in as #7.
Peter, the bagel shop worker (who we find out later is an ex-stockbroker and owns the shop) asks Amy to be his pretend fiancée at his ex-girlfriend’s wedding to make her think he has moved on. They both go on the date knowing they are playing a part, but would you guess that they become attracted to each other? Amy starts to throw over the happiness she knows she could have merely because this man is #6 on the timeline and not #7. But finally . . . well, I think you can guess.
Lucky Seven isn’t a famous movie and isn’t likely to become a classic. Today’s morals are an integral part of its theme. It’s obvious that most of Amy’s boyfriends have been intimate relationships (is this what her mother would have wanted for her?) And Peter #6 unexpectedly falls into that category in their one night together after they both drink too much. But the audience has come to like these good-hearted characters and is rooting for them to end up together.
I found the movie more memorable than most TV movies because of the timeline in the plot. Amy connects it with the last memories of her mother, and that influences her to go through a series of men looking for the predicted one.
The movie also reminds me of the story in John 4 of a woman Jesus met at a well in Samaria. Like Amy, this unnamed woman had a series of men in her life. She had gotten up to #6. Jesus counted them down for her. He tells her that she has had five husbands and the man she is living with now (the sixth) is not her husband (John 4:18). The seventh and most important man in her life, although not in a romantic sense, will be Jesus.
The Jews hated the Samaritans so much that they would take the long way around on a trip rather than cut through Samaria. So it’s interesting that verse 4 tells us Jesus “had to go through Samaria.” Jesus deliberately went that way because He had an appointment in Samaria at a town called Sychar where Jacob’s well was. The Samaritan woman wasn’t aware that she also had an appointment that would change her life.
Jesus sat down by the well, tired, hungry and thirsty. Women in that day drew their water at the well in the cool, early morning. This Samaritan woman with the shady reputation wanted to avoid the glares and whispers of other women, so she came in the heat of the day at noon when no one else would be there.
When Jesus asked her for a drink, she was shocked. Normal prejudices prohibited public conversation between a Jew and a Samaritan and between any man and unrelated woman. Yet this woman had already broken the mores of society. They had a conversation in which He explained to her about the living water only He could give. Water that satisfies an eternal thirst.
In his book Sacred Thirst, M. Scott Barnes wrote that most of us haven’t gone through five marriages “. . . but we have gone through five jobs, five moves, five weight-loss programs, or five churches—and still the insatiable thirst continues. We will never find what we are looking for in the things we pick up along the way. Not even the religious things. Not even important things like relationships. All of these things will leave our souls empty if we try to force them to satisfy our thirst. The true object of our search is nothing less than an encounter with the Holy One.”
After Jesus told her the truth about herself, the woman resorted to what many do: she tried to start a religious argument about where the correct place to worship was. Jesus didn’t take the bait but assured her the place wasn’t what mattered: Who (the Father) and How (in spirit and in truth) they worshiped did.
Author James Watkins gave a speech in which he said, “I’m a mess. You’re a mess. That’s why we need a Mess-iah.” He said that after his speech a woman came up in tears, hugged him until he couldn’t breathe, and said: “I’m so glad somebody else is a mess.”
The woman at the well knew she was a mess, and she knew that she needed a Messiah. In this conversation Jesus gave the most complete statement in the Gospels that He was, in fact, that Messiah. She became quite an evangelist. She went into town and told everyone to come and meet a man who told her everything she had ever done. (I think she probably added that He loved her anyway.) She had the power of God enabling her to tell her story because she wouldn’t naturally expect them to believe her. She told them and left the results with God (as we must do). And, amazingly, many in that town believed because of her testimony before they even met Jesus. But after they met Him, they believed because of what He said (John 4:39-42).
Although Jesus performed no miracles on this stopover in Samaria, miracles did happen. Because coming to faith is the greatest miracle of all.
©2016 by Vicki Huffman
About Vicki Huffman
National award-winning journalist Vicki Huffman's latest book is Soon to Come: The Revelation of Jesus Christ. It is a verse by verse exposition of the only purely prophetical book in the New Testament. Her other five books are: The Jesus Moses Knew: How to See Christ in the Old Testament; A Secret Hope (novel); Still Looking: Finding the Peace of God in Job Loss; Plus Living: Looking for Joy in All the Right Places, and The Best of Times. All are available in print and e-book on amazon.com. Vicki is a national award-winning author who has taught the Bible for many years. She was an editor for several Christian publishing houses, including Thomas Nelson and David C. Cook Ministries.
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