HurriedPatience

I started this year with a blog about how I had a great new word to focus on in 2020, and the great plans that aligned with my word. Explore Like most of the world, there is not much exploration happening. Many people are mourning the loss of events, holidays, gathering... and I am too. As the imagery of the title would tell, I just ripped the beautiful blue and white chevron print washi tape that had the word Ghana written on it that covered the last half of May on my calendars. If you know me, this is a bigger deal that deleting it from my online calendar because I adore my paper calendar. I get it, I get the lock down. I get the protection. This does not mean I, and many like me, can not mourn the loss of plans. I hurt to my core for my youth group and family friend SENIORS who are missing out on their proms, senior trips and possibly graduation. I have some close friends who have reimagined their weddings because they were scheduled for the weekend after the #covidchronicle...

Wowzers! So I began thinking of the my word of the year probably mid- December and realized at that point that I did not even know what word I had chosen for 2019. So a quick search of the old blog lead me to the word DISCOVER! and Yes! 2019 was a year of discovery. When I wrote DISCOVER for 2019, I didn't know: I would get to explore a little more of the area I had relocated to in 2018, and expand the border to Washington DC before... Getting to explore airports during the first two months of 2019 ... While interviewing for the opportunity to move closer to "home". These three bullet points were the centerfold for the first quarter of 2019. We had planned a trip to Texas for our sons first birthday, and got approached to start a conversation with a church in the state. We made that trip an epic road trip of Texas and celebrated our little guy turing one with family. Arriving back in Virginia we were still a little upside down on what God was calling us to do. W...

The old idiom," Time flies when your'e having fun", was correct.  Today I sit here writing about how it has been two years since our son Malachi made his entrance into the world. Where did the past two years go? Well if you are keeping up with the Jones' ( not our real last name- haha), since January of 2018 we have: Had a baby  Moved cross country twice Been employed by two great churches Explored DC Six plane rides  Little M is such a trooper. He loves going along for the ride, and as you see noted above- there have been plenty in his short time this side of the womb. I really can not figure out where the past two years have gone, but know that it has been fun.  Happy Birthday Malachi!  Mommy and Daddy love you!

Photo by  Rifqi Ali Ridho  on  Unsplash I recently came across an article about a boy and a “grandma” celebrating their 4th Thanksgiving together after an accidental “grandma” moment text 4 years ago. The woman texted out to her family sharing about the time for Thanksgiving meal but instead of the intended grandchild receiving the message, a young man from the area received it and texted back “I don’t know you but can I still get a plate?” and in grandma fashion- no one goes hungry. After the first year, the invites kept coming.  Growing up, my household parents ( dad and bonus mom) we not from Texas, let alone the USA so I experienced holidays and family gatherings in a different light than the “normal” US-based family.  First, we didn’t have extended family to invite over for the holidays, so we included other people who had been relocated for work or school into our household- I will forever refer to these men and women as aunties and uncles or FRA...

Photo by  Marc Kleen  on  Unsplash When you drop a student's birthday cake and spill a not touched venti iced coffee from Starbucks and it feels like the end of the world, you know you’re wound tight. There are many things going on in my personal inner bubble (we will use this terminology to define close family, friends, and household), and I know that I am leaning on the wrong things (food choices, social media scrolling, tv watching) and small first world problems (like the one above) are crushing my world. How often do we do this? Why isn’t our first reaction to hit The Books ( is the Bible, hence the capitalization)? I am not currently practicing what I have preached to youth and children going through the same things I am going through. I think it a because: 1. In leadership, there is a stigma to hide in your struggles until they have passed us over and we can say we survived them. I think this is a little bit where it began- I didn’t want to sha...

Sai De Silva We all have heard the stories, or have one of our very own, of a child who heard an adult use an adult word and repeats it. Little ears pick up everything, but so do little minds, hearts, and spirits. I have struggled with my body image since childhood. I have struggled with thinking that being overweight meant that I was not pretty. These stem from things I heard the women around me saying about their own bodies. Moms, Aunts, Babysitters, Friends- looking in the mirror saying," I look so fat and ugly today," or "I wish I could fix this." Part of my weight loss journey has been coming to the realization that weight is not equivalent to beauty and that I am beautiful with the weight on or off. I think this is part of the reason my weight loss journey has been so rocky until recently. I could not let the weight control my image of myself. I had to see the woman that my husband saw and told me I was( thank you Honey 😘). At one point I tried to ke...

Photo by  Artem Beliaikin  on  Unsplash In the past few years, I have heard the grumblings of older generations about the constant use of cameras when families are out and about. I am not saying families whos noses are in their phones using the playground as a babysitter, I am talking about moms who are always taking photos of their kids. I have even seen blog after blog about being present with your families instead of having photos of every event. I agree we need to be present in the moments that are happening, but is there someone missing that moment? Yes, there is someone missing those moments.  It could be a dad or mom is at work. It could be siblings away at school. It could be grandparents that are not living in the area.  I am writing this two-fold. First, that as the caretaker, we have to ignore the stares and whispers of the people around us. Second, we never know why someone is doing what they are doing, so why does it matter to us? ...