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Simply Bloom Co.

Where Passion & Purpose Collide

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And here we go again!

We’re on our back from a week on Martha’s Vineyard.  Massachusetts is behind us, Michigan is before us, and New York appears to have us in her grasp.  The dance across the Canadian border is up next.  Armed with a Passport, a Green card and the kids birth certificates, we hope for the best. We’ll see how the kids fare.  My babe would love to trek on through, but being the maternal figure in this car {and being that we are still 7 hours from home}, I’m more in touch with the reality that unless we desire our eardrums to bleed and our hair to be ripped from our very scalps, it is highly unlikely.  Highly. We have had a most glorious vacation, and have surprisingly spent less than budgeted.  This trip was the 2nd one given to us since the birth of our son.  God is just cool like that.  The first was when Aiden was 6 weeks old, when we trekked to Virginia for a timeshare that would have been wasted without our selfless voyage to save it {ahem}.  This time it was payment for a design job.  You’d think I charge a lot for design if you’d seen this place on the island, considering which island this is…a few thousand a week to rent it.  Nope.  This was simply the lavish offer by a sweet client who would have owed me around $300 for everything I designed for her, had she paid with money. Yup.  Lavish provision.  That’s how our God rolls. We invited a couple we love who are expecting their first child next month to join us {as a “babymoon” of sorts}, and a splendid time has been had by all!

MV Scenery 4 MV Scenery 6 MV Scenery 5 MV Scenery 2

MV Scenery 8 MV Scenery 9 MV Scenery 7

Needless to say, the island was beautiful.  Lovely.  Loaded with character.  And a very cooperative model for my budding love of photography.  Thanks Martha.

MV Family 1 MV Family 3 MV Family 2

And thanks, cricket, for being the cutest little darn thing since Shirley Temple.  Your momma loves you!  {and wishes you wouldn’t despise smiling for the camera like you do}.

MV Scenery 1

Today is my 29th birthday.  I’ve been meaning to get back on the blogging bandwagon for some time now (seeing I’ve had this sassy little blog designed for months now with absolutely nothing on it), and I can think of no better than today. Well, I suppose yesterday, or last month for that matter, would have been nice…but let’s be realistic. Today is all I’ve got.  A And today is a new day.  It’s a fresh start.  A celebration of life! Today I start my 30th year.  And by the very grace of God, I’m actually ridiculously excited about it.  The wisdom and maturity, comfort and security that the 30s {have the potential to} offer is just so appealing to me. You’ve heard it {or maybe you haven’t}: 30, flirty, and thriving.  I love that.  I want that {in a deep, less superficial way than it may be read initially}.  And this is all a part of getting there. My life is so in complete and utter limbo right now.  I feel like everything is uncertain around me.  We’re living in a house we haven’t closed on, an hour away from everything I know and hold dear to me outside of my husband and children, with some damaged furniture that, at this point in time, appears will not be replaced by the people who damaged it. I think it’s safe to say there’s room for growth. {Ahem} I have found blogging to be so therapeutic.  Healing, even.  Purging my heart and mind of the chaos, discovering the occasional nugget of wisdom, helps me process through the yucky stuff and forge onward. So giddyup…here we go again!

Related posts:

  1. Do the limbo!
  2. An Open Letter to my Mother
  3. And the Grand Conclusion is: We Like Camping!
  4. Our First {Real} Adventure
«
»

Family, Travels

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Simply Bloom exists to empower women to embrace their stories, live out their passion with purpose, and leave a legacy of love.
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Hello there! I'm Joy. Speaker, designer, author & coach, and creator of the #weROARproject. Welcome to Simply Bloom Co., where passion & purpose collide.

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May you remember that God is not only the God of d May you remember that God is not only
the God of destinations, but of detours.

When life takes you somewhere you never intended to go,
may you recognize that you have not been forgotten.

May you have eyes to see the people in front of you,
hands willing to gather the sticks,
courage to shake off the snakes,
a heart willing to welcome and be welcomed,
and faith to believe that even here,
especially here, God is at work.
What if the place you keep calling a detour is act What if the place you keep calling a detour is actually part of the story?

Paul was headed to Rome. Instead, he ended up shipwrecked on Malta.
It wasn't the destination. But it mattered.

A reminder for all of us: don't waste the waiting,
the detour, or the place you didn't choose.

🎙️ 042 | Make Malta Matter | Finding Purpose in Divine Detours
  The latest Oh, Good Grief Podcast episode is out now.

#OhGoodGriefPodcast #MakeMaltaMatter #SimplyBloomCo
Instagram post 17924817765424628 Instagram post 17924817765424628
What if the years you thought were wasted… weren't What if the years you thought were wasted…
weren't wasted at all?

In Part 2 of my conversation with Leah Harvey,
we go deeper into what it means to trust
God when the outcome is still unknown.

Leah has spent years carrying the ache of infertility,
and she doesn't offer a tidy answer or a spiritual shortcut.

Instead, she talks about restoration.
About eternity.
About choosing Jesus over her preference.
About looking for treasure in the middle of the story.

And about the surprising realization that there
may not have been wasted years after all,
because God was present in every one of them.

He is.
Even here.
Even now.

🎧 Part Two with Leah Harvey is live now.

#OhGoodGriefPodcast #StruggleWell #StayRooted #SojournTogether
Instagram post 18091972097640684 Instagram post 18091972097640684
What if trusting that God is good doesn't mean bel What if trusting that God is good doesn't mean
believing He will give us everything we ask for?

That's one of the questions my friend Leah Harvey
and I wrestle with in this week's episode.

Leah and her hubby, Jake, have walked through years
of infertility and the kind of unanswered prayer that
doesn't just hurt once—it asks you to keep
trusting God over and over again.

We talk about grief, surrender, the questions we sometimes feel afraid to ask, and what happens when we stop trying to put tidy answers over messy pain.

This is a tender conversation about choosing Jesus over our preferences, embracing the mystery of God, and learning to believe that His goodness doesn't depend on whether He gives us the thing we're asking for.

Part One of my conversation with Leah Harvey is live now
🎧  040 | The Goodness of God in the Waiting

#OhGoodGriefPodcast #StruggleWell #StayRooted #SojournTogether
Before the world told you who you needed to become Before the world told you who you needed to become...
Before fear taught you how to survive...
Before shame convinced you to hide...
God looked at you and called you His own.

Not because you had healed.
Not because you had figured yourself out.
Not because you had become your best self.
Simply because you were His.

You are still becoming.
And you are already loved.

Keep coming home.

#OhGoodGriefPodcast #SimplyBloomCo
What if the goal isn't to become a different type, What if the goal isn't to become a different type,
but to become more fully yourself?

We've spent the last several weeks exploring the Enneagram:
our gifts, wounds, coping strategies, and the stories we
learned to believe in order to survive.

Now it's time to come home.

Episode 039 closes this Summer Series by asking
what happens when self-awareness becomes surrender.

The Enneagram can help us understand our patterns.
But it was never meant to become our identity.

You are not your number.
You are not your trauma.
You are not your coping strategy.

You are a beloved child of God.

🎧 Oh, Good Grief — Episode 039 is available now.
Sitting on the front porch with a cup of coffee, m Sitting on the front porch with a cup of coffee, my Bible and a book of maps in my lap, and the sun on my face, has me thinking about how strange and beautiful life can be.

It’s no small honor to be given the opportunity to preach at our church from time to time. Had you told the broken, shoplifting, lying, giving-her-body-away-for-free teenage girl I once was that one day she’d stand in a pulpit and talk to people about God’s goodness and grace, I would have laughed at you.

But maybe that’s exactly why God delights in using the messy, the unlikely, the misfits. Because these are the stories that make His redemption impossible to miss.

One of my favorite lines from The Chosen, spoken by Mary Magdalene, sums it up perfectly: “I was one way, and now I am completely different. And the thing that happened in between was Him.”

That’s my story, too.
And if I were to hazard a guess, it's yours as well.

It’s one of my greatest joys to dig into God’s Word, share what He’s laid on my heart, offer some encouragement and conviction, confess the uncomfortable things, and ultimately point people back to Jesus.

Because there’s no denying the extraordinary power of redemption when you’ve lived it yourself.
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