{Embrace} The Camera.... Purple.

Last weekend we went to Abilene for my Alma Mater's homecoming. Abilene always feels like my home away from home. It's the place where I learned who I was, found my voice, and above all, where I learned that the most important thing I can do in life is love others- it's the only way to truly change the world.

It just so happens we're wearing purple in this pic... which just so happens to be the color of the day. People around the world are "going purple" in an effort to stand against bullying. I'm more than happy to sport my purple.

I not only abhor the bullying of LGBT children/teens/adults, I abhor bullying of ALL children/teens/adults. I was bullied a LOT as a child and it has left a deep, permanent scar on my heart. I didn't decide to be fat. I didn't decide to have a terrible haircut. I didn't decide to be a motormouth. I didn't decide to have bad teeth, facial hair (Tom Selleck MUST have been my biological father... 'cause WOAH!), or freckles. God made that decision for me. He made me the way He wanted me to be. It has taken years of friends and loved ones (including my husband) to convince me that I'm just fine the way I am. I still have bad days. Horrible ones. Days where all I can think about is how the girl in my Girl Scout thumped and punched me in the back of the head repeatedly until I screamed because I was different. Days where I remember that Girl Scout leader getting on to me for shouting and refusing to believe one of her girls would act that way. Days where I remember seeing that girl years later and not hating her because she was mean to me. Days I remember that God's grace and a red-headed girl named Molly Jones (I miss you, Moll, wherever you are) taught me how to forgive... and how to stand up for myself.

I guess I rambled all of that to say that bullying is a sick, wrong, and horrible thing. It's a disease that is rampant because we ALLOW it to. Educate your children. Different is OK. It's OK. You don't have to agree with someone's lifestyle or their religious preferences, but you also don't have to hate them for it.

Pray for our children. Pray for our teenagers. Pray for our adults. Set a good example. Love. Embrace our differences... for that's what makes us... us. Gay, straight, black or white, brown or green (hey- some people believe in aliens!), he or she, tall or short, religious or not, we're all people. We're all here on the same Earth. Let's try to make life a little better for our neighbors. Who knows? You might make all of the difference in the world.