Fitting into the Blue Dress

There is a story behind this gown.

Recently, I was invited to attend and speak at PeaceJam’s  20 year anniversary party and movie premiere in Denver,Colorado. I flew over two thousand miles from Miami, Florida to Denver where I wore the above pictured blue dress to the event. I was invited by PeaceJam Co-founder Dawn Engle to attend the event to share my PeaceJam Story as an alumni of the program. The thing is I bought this gown to attend the event months before I was ever invited or even knew I would be attending. I purchased this blue gown and put it in my closet in hopes of specifically wearing it to the upcoming celebration before I ever even had a conversation with Dawn. Many weeks after purchasing the gown, I got the opportunity to travel with the PeaceJam team to Cape Town South Africa as an Alumni Challenge winner for their annual youth Conference. It was during this trip that I was able to meet Dawn Engle and where she invited me to attend the anniversary party to share my experience as a PeaceJam Alumni. I never mentioned to Dawn or any one else else on the team that I wanted to attend, but I bought the dress and told my mother that on November 11th I’d be attending the anniversary party for PeaceJam in Colorado. So you can imagine how ecstatic I was to be invited to attend by Dawn Engle herself all those months later.

Peace is a blue dress. Wear peace daily.

The week of the event I went to try my gown on and it was a little tighter than when I had bought it months before. I was a little worried at first that I would not fit into the gown before the event. Quickly I stopped filing myself up with unhealthy foods and began working towards the goal of fitting into this blue dress that had envisioned myself wearing at the anniversary party so many months before. Thankfully, I fit into the gown and wore it proudly to grace the stage with Co-founders Dawn Engle and Ivan Suvanjieff. What I’ve realized is that peace is like a beautiful blue dress. Its seems to be a far off and lofty goal that hangs in our closest, just a dream.  But, if we fill ourselves with fear, or hate or doubt we will never fit into peace. Fitting into peace takes action not just words. Our dreams of peace are possible. We must work together to fit into peace and wear it proudly. We must wear peace daily until we see peace all over our nations and all over our world!