My New Favorite Color by Sarah Reinhard

In the last four years, I have come to a realization that I have a new favorite color. Though I tend to like all the colors, favoring for scarlet and gray during football season, I feel almost guilty confessing that I’ve started to almost like the color pink.

I don’t think I owned any pink clothing during my childhood years. Peach, yes. Teal, of course. Purple, without a doubt. But pink? Not on your life.

Now that I’m a mom to two girls -- girls who have a decided preference for all things pink -- I find myself slowly converting, blushing and sputtering.

Maybe it’s a flaw in my character. I tend to be interested in the things that others are passionate about: recommend your favorite book to me with a convincing amount of passion, and I’ll probably run right out to the library to get a copy. Tell me about a movie that changed your life, and chances are, I’ll be trying to find the DVD and subjecting my husband to it. Have a favorite album? Just keep quiet. I have already busted the budget on music this month.

It should be no surprise, therefore, that I’m coming around to the world of pink. My daughters are passionate and persistent about their love of it. The pink marker’s usually the first one to go, and my four-year-old asked me the other day how old she’d have to be to paint her hair pink. (I think I made up a number like 86.)

The color pink has come to represent one of the ways motherhood has changed me for the better. Though I’ve always liked to think that I’m open-minded, it wasn’t until I started wearing my Mom Hat that I realized how closed-minded I’ve often been.

I was sure, for example, that those parents of the screaming kids must be doing something wrong, before I was the one pinning down the tantruming toddler. I had no idea sleep was a skill I’d come to pray for my oldest to learn or that car rides would be a special version of purgatory until she was three.

Going through the pink fire of the infant and toddler years with my oldest daughter, I thought I was ready for the second round.

That thought -- thinking that I can ever be ready on my own -- is one that gets challenged again and again. Sometimes it’s attacked by a seemingly innocent color and other times by a well meaning comment by a close friend or family member.

I can be ready, but not on my own. I can come through the battles -- pink or not -- triumphant, but not because of my skills. I can love pink, but not by sheer force of will.

I need God’s help and the grace to know when it’s coming to me. The color pink has become a reminder to pray and let them guide me.