I'd been saving the picture linked to Ecclesiastes 3:11 for an opportune time to colour it... I love the truth it speaks, but the time to savour the colouring had felt like "not yet."

Over on social media, I found I had been tagged by a friend in a 'challenge' to post five photos of myself that I considered expressed beauty.  As someone who has never considered herself to be physically beautiful, indeed who has been told she is 'plain' and even 'ugly' (long ago and far away) I was surprised, and not a little chuffed to be 'tagged' by someone who I described as "beautiful inside and out".

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I'll post the same words here I posted there, and then add some further reflections (I won't put the photos here due to memory constraints)...

The "I'm beautiful the way I am" Challenge

I never think of myself as beautiful, and let's be honest I'm a bit of a tom-boy with sensitive skin that dislikes makeup [the skin dislikes it], so I am honoured and a little bit chuffed to be nominated for this. The inevitable physical scars of cancer (and related) surgery - totalling almost a metre if laid out end to end - and the invisible scars of life in all its rich reality are part of who I am ... if I have beauty, then these, too, are part of it. Learning to acknowledge my unique beauty is a life-time's work: this is part of that.

The verse from Ecclesiastes reminds us, reassures us, tells us, urges us, to believe that everything - EVERY thing, every THING, EVERYTHING is beautiful, because God has made it so.  Beautiful slugs, beautiful cacti, beautiful fleas, beautiful rocks, beautiful people, beautiful water, beautiful stars, beautiful dust... beauty isn't [just] about outward attractiveness, it is, if we dare to trust this verse, an implicit quality, waiting to be discovered or uncovered.  Beauty is not about picture-perfect physcial attributes, but is something that shines or glimmers despite them.

Beauty is not something we may feel we possess - perhaps we need permission to hear, let alone believe that we each have our own unique beauty.  This is not to deny ugliness, by which I don't mean physical appearance but an inner being that has shrivelled or grown hard or negative,  but it is to say that the potential for beauty remains 'in our time', because God has made us beautiful, and redemption is always possible.

Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder... and the beholder is none other than God.

Thursday 4th Febraury is, so I recently discovered (or maybe rediscovered, my memory is rubbish) World Cancer Day.  This year in the UK four of the major cancer charities have chosen to work together, each selling ther own 'unity bands' to raise funds for their work, but with the common theme of 'unity'.  With the hashtag #adaytounite individuals and families are invited to post photos wearing their band/bands as a sign of this unity.

The four charities each offer something unique...

CRUK is primarily a research charity, covering all kinds of cancer and funding work right across the UK.

The Anthony Nolan Trust is concerned solely with blood cancers, and central to its work are the bone marrow donor registers, as well as research and support.

The Movember Foundation, famous for it's November moustache fundraiser, focuses on mens health in general with key areas including male cancers - prostate and testicular - a mixture of research, education and support.

Breast Cancer Care as it's name suggests is a support charity concerned with cancers affecting the breast in women and men, with education and awareness raising as well as all sorts of practical support.  Unlike the others listed above, it is not a research charity, though increasingly it is involved in campaigning in the area of secondary breast cancer.

I opted to purchase two bands - CRUK and Breast Cancer Care as these are the two that resonate with my experience, and for which I have raised, and do raise, money.

What I like about this awareness and fundraising campaign is that these charities are not competing, they are standing alongside each other, recognising the unique contribution each makes in a huge field.  Sometimes charities do compete, sometimes one will deliberately start up services another already offers... not so unlike churches really!  What is good is when, as here, they can work alongside each other.  There is lots of small scale charitable ecumenism for sure - here in Glasgow I know of joint projects between these and other charities.  This all seems good.

On Tuesday I will have my annual check-up and "squish" - which will be five years since my surgery and, all things being equal, five years NED.  Supporting the charities whose work directly or indirectly has helped me seems a good way to celebrate that.