Why I am going PINK for the month of OCTOBER

It's been 23 years since my mom died of breast cancer. She only lived for 11 months after she was diagnosed. If you've read my "Mother's Day" blog you know that she was only 44 years old. Too young to die. When I think of what she must have gone through the last few months of her life, it's quite sobering. Saying good bye to her kids, her husband, her friends, wow, she always seemed so composed.
My mom had the
"peace that passes all understanding".

I have never gone "PINK" before this is the first year that I feel compelled to spread "PINK". A simple reminder that there are women that are leaving their loves behind because of breast cancer. If going "PINK" puts a reminder in one women's mind to get a mammogram, encourages one person to give a donation to the Breast Cancer Research Fund or encourages someone to do the "Three Day Walk"....then going "PINK" for a month is the least I can do.

The women in our lives are very important...let's do all we can to make sure they are with us for a long, long time.

Patricia Joyce Wilkinson Shelton:
daughter, sister, wife, mother of 4, friend to many,
follower of Jesus Christ.

The Broken-Healed Heart

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4

The heart is a fragile organ, it's soft, it's warm and it's easily broken, with one thoughtless move the flow of blood to the heart can be stopped forever. No wonder we refer to our emotional state as the "heart" of the matter. Our emotional state of mind is fragile, soft, warm and easily broken, and with one thoughtless move it can be stopped or damaged forever.

If we considered how our words and actions can stop the "heart" of a person, we might choose our words and actions more carefully. One thoughtless word, one careless action or one neglectful moment can stop that fragile, soft, warm "heart" from beating. The pain is real, the ache is indescribable.

Our broken heart can only be brought back to life by the creator of it. God. Only God can mend the broken heart, and He wants to mend it. He wants us to be whole, to have a soft, warm, and tender heart. A heart that is softened by love, love for people, all people the precious people that God puts in our path. Before the beginning of time God knew who we would affect and who would affect us. He also knew which of those people would stop, break or damage our "heart" but He made a way to put our heart back together. Each time we allow God to put our heart back together He adds a little something, He adds His power, the power we need to move forward, start over, create new, love more, forgive, restore and to give just a little more of that "broken-healed" heart to someone else. God makes our "broken-healed" heart bigger in order for us to give more of it away. When we give our "broken-healed" heart away, we give a little of ourselves but we also give a piece of the understanding we have of who our Lord and Savior is.

It's a beating heart slowed down by hurt, then we let God put it back together and when He does He always gives us a little extra to give to someone else. God's love always means more when it is given through the love of another person, there is a special bond between people that share in the Power that heals a broken heart.