Purples & Yellows

Originally written Monday, December 29, 2008

The final Monday of 2008, wow. I never thought that this year would end but here it is coming faster than my mind can comprehend. I heard this morning that the “color” of 2008 was purple-iris. My heart warmed as it is a shade of my preferred rung of the rainbow. I cannot say that 2008 was my favorite year however. There was mention that the deep hues of the years color depicted all the hard times that people saw throughout the last 12 months. Of course the fashion industry did not plan it this way when they pegged 2008 the year of “Purple-Iris” last December. It is amusing to me that the mood of ’08 followed the dark, cool, tones.

Just as I was over-pondering the meaning behind this year’s color, I heard an announcement of the 2009 color of the year – yellow. My grandfather would have been proud as yellow was his favorite color. The color choice is supposed to bring hope to the American soul in light of a world that often seems to be falling apart all around us. In 2009 we should expect to see yellow appear from runways to appliances as the color gets to shine and “strut its stuff” for the entire year.

For my entire life I have watched purple and yellow come together in different ways. My earliest memory was with socks. My late grandfather was a fan of colored socks. He had so many different colors that his sock drawer always looked like a bag of skittles. Whenever he came for a visit he would wear his purple socks in remembrance of me and would then take me sock shopping and we would each get a new pair of purple and yellow socks. I cherish this memory.

In college I chose to decorate my room with purple and yellow and a few years later I dated a wonderful man whose favorite color was yellow. There is just something about those two colors that blends together beautifully and depicts two opposites – like black and white, but more exciting. Whoever put purple across from yellow on the color wheel gets two thumbs up from me!

For me, 2008 was a year that was full of heartache and small glimpses of hope. It was a year that saw the death of a friend, enormous work challenges, walking away from the man I love, the near death of my puppy, a stolen wallet and various other curveballs that life threw. Each of those experiences left a small scar on my heart, but each of them also saw a small dose of hope. Life is like that, every road we walk will land us falling and scraping our knees, but we rise again and have hope that the next time we will not fall so hard.

In just a few days we will embark on a new year and we have the choice to bring the “purples” from the past with us or move on and cling to the “yellows” that wait. With all the bruises that 2008 left me with, I am choosing to cling to the “yellows” of 2009. In the last few days I have been living in the book of Romans, trying to get a handle on the basics of the Christian faith and I came upon a series of verses that are fitting as we warp up this year.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. ³Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. –Romans 5:1-5

Life is never going to be without challenges, but the only way to survive is to embrace that hope. Just like purple and yellow perfectly compliment each other so do sufferings and hope.

May you too cling to the hope of Jesus Christ in 2009.