This week we said goodbye to a staff member. Kailey has been a Hurley House employee since day one, and for the past three years, she has managed our kitchen. Kailey was the first person I trusted to fully take the reins in the kitchen. She set the bar so high for this position, leading by example, humbly working her tail off without complaining, teaching and training others with patience and gentleness, and always always bringing a happy attitude to whatever the day held.
She has been the glue that held our kitchen together, and I am so grateful for the time and talent she brought to our organization. She is leaving us to pursue a different career path, and my only consolation is that she will still live in Fort Worth and will be roommates with another employee.
Change is hard, and transitions are particularly unsettling for me. I cried a lot this week. I shed some ugly tears at our going away party for Kailey on Thursday evening, but it was worth it. Deep emotion is worth expressing, particularly when it comes from a place of gratitude. Sometimes our tears can be a gift, both to us and the person with whom share them. I know the next chapter of Hurley House is going to be a good one. But I am sad to see this one end. We love you, Kailey!
Here’s what we talked about this week…
ONE.
I recently finished reading Michelle Obama’s book, Becoming. I loved it. When she was settling in to her first year as first lady, getting her girls situated in school and figuring out how to manage the layers of security and staff that were involved in very mundane tasks, she writes about how it became easier (and safer) for all the communication from her kids’ school to go through her assistant and communication director. Notes about school events, soccer practice schedules, play dates, birthday parties, teacher conferences, school plays, homework assignments and projects…all of it was sent through her assistant and then compiled into a daily briefing telling her exactly what needed to happen and where she needed to be. Isn’t this what every mother needs? How awesome would it be to have someone collect all the hundreds of pieces of information related to the lives of my children and compile it into a briefing? I don’t want to be first lady, but I think I could get used to this perk.
TWO.
I read this article, and I love what it says about the realities of cooking. “We’re in the middle of a cultural moment where the most viral food videos tend to be sleek time lapses that emphasize the recipe’s low-effort-to-high-payoff ratio. We’re being sold the idea that at any given moment, we’re just a minute away from knowing how to make flaky, buttery baklava to rival the Greek place around the corner or crispy egg rolls that are as good as the takeout spot a few blocks away. In reality, becoming a good cook takes time. That’s why a lot of them have gray hair.” Cooking takes time. Becoming good at cooking takes practice. Anything offering you a shortcut is more than likely trying to sell you something. Embrace the slowness and put forth the effort. The payoff is always worth it.
THREE.
Ostriches do not bury their heads in the sand.
FOUR.
A few weeks ago at church, in the context of a sermon on Jonah, my pastor defined lament in a way that I found quite helpful. Do you know what a lament is? I think I had always thought it was a complaint, or a grievance, or a way to communicate that things are not the way I want them to be. This isn’t wrong necessarily, because a lament is a crying out to God. But the definition he put forth brings more depth and color to the word. “A lament is what faith looks like in the middle of a storm. Faith in a storm is not slapping a smile on a face that should be weeping. Lament is trusting the heart of God when you can’t see His hand.”
FIVE.
Look out, FOMO, there’s a new acronym in town, and I love it so much. JOMO, which stands for Joy Of Missing Out, is a thing. It’s the introvert’s dream. It’s the feeling you get when you realize you don’t have to participate in something you didn’t want to do in the first place. It’s that satisfying feeling of knowing you get to stay home when everyone else is going out. It’s the swell of emotion you experience when you realize it’s not your week to drive carpool. It’s the exuberance that comes when you get a text saying the soccer game’s been rained out school is canceled due to snow. Let’s all embrace JOMO.
Have a lovely weekend!
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