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Simply Bloom Co.

Where Passion & Purpose Collide

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Zucchini: The Sassy Edition

Yes, I’m back.  With more zucchini talk. But you’re going to love this dish.  It’s absobloominlutely delicious!  And healthy.  And sexy. Besides.  I’m breaking out the summer squash this time too, so it’ll rock your palate in green and gold. Penne, Veggies & Sausage in Garlic Cream Sauce          Ingredients: 1 box of whole grain […]

Food, Garden

Guess What Today Was…?

And she was as ready as can be.  Happy dance ready!  And loved every minute of it.

Motherhood, Photography, The Kiddos

At The Well: Guest Post {2 Ears, 1 Mouth}

I get that mixed up on occasion.  I tend to live the Picasso life…as though my face boasted two mouths and one little ear.  And I mean little. The book of James is a fabulous {challenging…convicting} reminder to tend to the often malfunctioning filter on my flapping tongue, and to open my ears instead… {read […]

Designs, Guest Post, Photography, Quotes and Scriptures

What Really Matters

“I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.” “I choose to risk […]

Family, Marriage, Motherhood

Poppin’ Up!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled {thoughtful} post… to bring you this {rambling} drivel: In addition to the massive quantity of squash we have poppin’ up in our veggie garden, there are a few other fabulous thing-a-ma-bobs poppin’ up around here. Namely… The first 4 of 125 giant wind turbines nestled nicely into the fields of […]

Complete nonsense, Daily Life, Home

Zucchini Pizza on the Grill

My squash plants are going strong yet again this summer, achieving their unstoppable mission of complete garden domination. And once again, only quadrupled in quantity this time around, are my happy little zucchini plants…surprising us with magic green missiles overnight. I pluck them.  And low and behold the next day, they’re back! I love it! […]

Food, Garden

Happy Birthday, {Big Boy} Bug!

I was examining the fine, downy swirls of peach fuzz on your neck and arms the other day when it hit me.  One day this stuff is going to be courser.  And darker.  And most likely, spread across your face in some sort of suave goatee fashion.  And I’m not quite sure how I feel […]

Daily Life, Family, Motherhood, The Kiddos

At The Well: Guest Post {Perfect Peace}

Yes, you’ve seen this photo before!  I love it!  And I couldn’t wait until this guest post was published, so I turned it into August’s desktop wallpaper and shared it 2 weeks ago! Impatient…who me? Do you struggle with trusting God?  With every thing? With the big things?  And the small?  And the everyday, seemingly-trivial […]

Designs, Guest Post, Photography, Quotes and Scriptures

Fish: From Lake to Plate in 12 Hours Flat

My hubby and I spent the day at Michigan’s Adventure with fabulous friends yesterday, while our kiddos stayed home with nana and papa.  I got entirely too much sun, ate entirely too much food, and had entirely too much fun on the rides.  Going down water slides, over and over and over again – just […]

Food, Photography, Travels

The {Rainbow} Cake

We celebrated our little loves this weekend.  Bean turned 4 a couple of weeks ago, and Bug turns 2 in a couple of weeks.  We’re still cheap they’re still young enough to combine birthday parties. It was delightful! And the cake.  Oh! the cake. My big sister is a cake-bakin’-makin’-decoratin’ guru.  So being the brilliant […]

Cute Stuff, The Kiddos

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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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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.
If you are a One, my prayer is that you would neve If you are a One, my prayer is that you would never lose your love for truth, goodness, justice, and integrity.

Those are beautiful reflections of the heart of God.

But may you also discover the freedom of laying down the impossible burden of perfection. May grace become louder than your inner critic, and may rest become something you receive instead of something you earn.

And may you know, beyond all doubt, that God's love for you has never depended on your performance. It has always flowed from His heart.
There’s something about nature that turns me into There’s something about nature that turns me
into an awe-struck, five-year-old wildling.

I am endlessly fascinated by the details. And increasingly convinced that you cannot look closely at creation without bumping into the extravagant creativity of its Creator.

Over 350,000 known species of flowering plants.
An absurd variety of colors, shapes, textures, sizes and fragrances.

God could have made one flower.
One color. One shape. One scent. Done.

Instead, He keeps showing off.

And then there’s this common little zinnia.
Look closely. Closer. Closer still.

Those aren’t just little petals in the center. They’re loads of tiny little florets packed together, each one its own tiny work of art.

For what?

It grows. It blooms for a few days.
And eventually, it dies.

What on earth?
How lavish is this God of ours?

So much of creation isn’t necessary for survival. Beauty doesn’t keep us alive. Fragrance isn’t essential. Neither are color or texture or the tiny, ridiculous details hiding inside a zinnia.

They are gifts.

Little reminders that our Creator is not merely practical.
He is wildly, extravagantly generous.

And I, for one, am delighted to keep being a five-year-old wildling about it. 🌸
What if grace has been waiting for you where perfe What if grace has been waiting for you
where perfection never could take you?

This week on Oh, Good Grief, we wrap up our exploration of the 9 Enneagram types, and how each one engages grief, with Type One: The Reformer.

We'll explore the gift of integrity, the burden of the inner critic, and the freedom that comes when we stop striving to earn what God has already given.

The Enneagram may reveal the stories we've believed to survive.
But only grace tells us who we've been all along.

🎧 Episode 038 is available wherever you listen to podcasts.
From the front, our little apple tree is living he From the front, our little apple tree is living her best life: laden with fruit and bursting with life.

But that’s only half the story.

Take a walk around the backside and you’ll see something entirely different: a large branch, nearly a third of the tree, black and barren. Clearly diseased. Clearly dead. Clearly in need of pruning.

And yet, every time I walk past it on our evening loop around the campground behind our house, it catches me off guard. I forget it’s even there.

Maybe because I prefer to look at the fruitful side.

And isn’t that a little like us?

We’re pretty comfortable displaying the beautiful parts: the wins, the answered prayers, the accomplishments, the parts of life that look healthy and fruitful.

The broken parts? The grief. The struggling relationships. The things we’ve neglected. The places where we’re tired or hurting or simply not okay?

Those we tend to tuck around the backside, hoping no one notices.

But here’s the thing: what we hide still needs tending.

We don’t have to be ashamed of the barren branches. We don’t have to pretend they aren’t there. And we certainly don’t have to wait until everything looks beautiful before we allow ourselves to be honest.

Maybe growth does look like good fruit.

And maybe sometimes it looks like finally walking around back, taking an honest look, and saying, That needs to go.

Pruning isn’t failure.
It’s making room for what’s still alive.

And if you’ve got a few dead branches of your own right now, take heart. You are not the barren branch. You are the whole tree. 🌿

#SimplyBloomCo
If you are a Nine, my prayer is that you would nev If you are a Nine, my prayer is that you would never lose your gift of bringing calm, compassion, and steadiness into a fractured world.

Those are beautiful reflections of the heart of Christ.

But may you also discover that your voice is not an interruption, your needs are not an inconvenience, and your presence is not optional. May you become the kind of peacemaker who tells the truth with love, receives love without shrinking, and lives fully awake to the life God has entrusted to you.

May you know, deep in your soul, that you don't have to disappear to belong.
What if the peace you've been protecting has come What if the peace you've been protecting
has come at the cost of your own presence?

This week on Oh, Good Grief, we're exploring Enneagram Nine: The Peacemaker.

Nines have an incredible gift for helping others feel safe, seen, and understood.
But somewhere along the way, many learned that staying connected meant staying quiet.

What if healing isn't about becoming louder?
What if it's about believing your voice already belongs in the room?

🎧 Episode 037 is available wherever you listen to podcasts.
Follow @SimplyBloomJoy

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