PINK RIBBONS

​I never got to meet my maternal grandmother, because she lost the fight with breast cancer when my mom was still in high school. Devastating. My mom’s sister, my aunt Sheila, also lost her life to breast cancer while I was so young, my memories of her are few and fleeting. And although I never had the opportunity to develop relationships with these ladies, they are still my family, my roots, my gene pool. This isn’t just another cause to me. This is part of my story.
 
And because these branches of my family tree died from breast cancer I’m at high risk. I can’t control if I ever contract breast cancer or not. But there are still things I can do. Things you can do too.
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You’d have to be blind not to realize October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Pink is everywhere, which is awesome, because I love pink. But it’s even more awesome, because so many companies, brands, teams and every day people have gotten in on this fight against breast cancer. Every time we buy a cup with a pink ribbon on it or a bottle of One Hope Chardonnay (it’s not too good to be true, there really is wine with a cause) a little more money helps researchers find a cure, once and for all, for this life stealing disease. 

Wine for a cause

But there’s more we can do.
 
Something more personal than football players wearing pink cleats. Something more powerful than eating pink M&M’s. Don’t get me wrong, I love all M&M’s and enjoy the pink ones extra bunches. I also get a kick out of seeing macho athletes wearing pink.
 
But there are things we can do that start with us, that begin with caring for our true reflections. We can eat right and exercise, because both of those things reduce the risk of breast cancer by 20-40%. Wow! Pass the whole grains and my gym shoes, please. Not to mention eating right and exercising reduces the risks of a lot of other nasty diseases too. If you’re over forty-five, please get your annual mammogram. And, it seems uncomfortable and awkward and strange to talk about, but we have to do our breast self-exams, girls! If you are old enough to wear a bra, you’re old enough to start doing self-exams. We know our bodies better than any one else. We are the ones most likely to discover a lump, to know the difference between a lump, a bruise, or poison ivy, or to know intuitively that something is out of sorts, out of place. How are we going to know? Because if we check ourselves monthly we’re figuring out what normal is. We’ll know what our breasts are supposed to feel and look like. So if they don’t feel or look like themselves, we can hightail it to our doctors and have  things checked out.

You are beautiful. God made you. And because He made you, He longs for you to take care of yourself.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV
 
Take care of that body so one day your granddaughters and nieces will know you, will laugh with you and share with you. Glorify God by caring enough to check in with your body. Feel free to reward yourself with some pink M&M’s afterwards as a ribbon for taking such good care of you.