You don't have to tell me the sky is blue.

Growing up, my youngest daughter loved the color pink. Pink wasn't just her favorite color, she wanted to live in a world of pink. Her bedroom consisted of pink walls, pink curtains, pink blankets, pink pillows. She had pink toys, pink sweaters, pink pants, pink shirts, pink socks, pink pajama's. My daughter loved pink so much that I had to use food coloring to get her to eat her birthday cake. Even the icecream had to be pink.
I remember one summer afternoon, she asked me why the sky had to be blue. She wanted a pink sky, pink clouds and an all pink rainbow. I couldn't answer all the endless questions she asked about pink, so I would just smile and tell myself, one day she will grow out of this "pink phase." However, she never seemed to. For her sixth birthday she got a pink Barbie and decided to play dress up. She stood in front of the mirror wearing my high heel shoes, a pink purse over her right shoulder and a pair of old pink sunglasses. She was pretending to be an all pink Barbie. Naturally, she was a dark-haired pink Barbie, who was obviously in love with the color pink. She had her pink tea set and of course she was having a pink tea party, which was actually pink lemonade.
Her father found it amusing that whenever he took her for the weekend, she had to have her pink Barbie suitcase, her pink nightgown and her all pink glowworm. I tried to explain to him that girls will be girls, but he never understood why pink was so important to her. I just shrugged the whole thing off, thinking it was no big deal. Someday, I thought she will look back on this and laugh.
But, that never happened. While I watched my daughter grow from wanting pink Barbies to pink purses to pink cell phone cases, I was amazed she never seemed to grow out of liking the color pink. So for my daughters 18th birthday, I made her a pink cake, with pink frosting and I gave her a pink birthday card with an all pink rainbow. Inside I wrote, You don't have to tell me the sky is Blue, but today God has made an exception. The sun was just about to set, and a soft pink glow was covering the sky. I realized right then, God must have been listening. All this time, she had loved the color pink and for her birthday, God gave her a pink sky. Amazing.