With every event that we planned this year whether it was Relay for Life in early summer, an unbelievable 5 year anniversary fundraiser at Neo in Annapolis in July or the 4th annual Think Pink Family Fun Walk in October, I hoped that each would have an obvious element of celebration to them. The raising of funds to keep this ministry going is certainly important and I would never want to minimize the abundant generosity of so many this year, but I hoped the theme of this 5th year since my diagnosis would be one of grateful commemoration for all that we went through during those days of diagnosis and treatment.
Over the last two Sundays of Advent, our pastors have been offering fresh perspectives on how the coming of Jesus affected His earthly father and mother. Much like us, Joseph and Mary had plans. They were building their futures in their minds when the message of the angel threw a serious world-changing wrench. If Joseph had not embraced his calling (as he was tempted to do) and Mary had not surrendered her will, the Christmas story wouldn’t be what we all know and love to recall today.
As I prayed back in October for ideas for how to honor the Pink Warriors that attended this year’s Think Pink event, I was reminded about why Pinked Perspective came about in the first place. It was about a calling that I had no idea I would have until July 29, 2011 when the wrench was thrown in my plans.
“Pink” used as a verb is defined as to pierce, stab. As any trial has the potential to do, hearing my diagnosis pierced many holes in the way I was viewing my life. And even though I could never anticipate that kind of change of my plans at the time, I was reassured of just how much God loved me as His Presence was made known in each step of the process. This led to a choice to embrace and surrender to certain choices for how to live the rest of my days on earth.
In each gift bag that was given to survivors this year, we included a token to remind them that even though they may never have anticipated that the plan for their lives would include a breast cancer diagnosis, there is a unique and special calling that we will always share in being “pinked”.
No matter what is vying for our attention or what kind of wrenches are being thrown in our plans this advent season, my prayer is that we might all choose to embrace and surrender to whatever He is calling us to this year.
As always, thank you so much for your support to the ministry of Pinked Perspective.
Merry Christmas!