Being part of a church community is something I truly value.

Nah, allow me to rephrase. Being part of a church family is something I truly value.

I love that there are people I interact with throughout the week and on Sundays that I otherwise wouldn’t get to know.

True, there are church family members that can be tricky to deal with, but that’s another post for another day. Heck, in my own extended family there are people that are hard to deal with. That comes with being part of something larger than yourself.

There are also church family members I really love being around. Ones that encourage, bring laughter, great story-tellers, and ones that simply bring peace and calm.

One church family member I cherish is Billy Carrington.

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My grandma celebrated her 90th birthday this weekend.

She’s an amazing woman and our family is blessed by her legacy of love.

Here’s a post written in honor of her:

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At just under five feet (4’ 10” but please don’t tell her) she stands taller than nearly anyone I know.

She is the matriarch of our big, fun-loving Catholic family.

Olive Alzera Morte was born in the little town of Paia on Maui on October 8, 1926. She was the ninth of nine children; she was raised in paradise before it was truly recognized.

Sadly, her father the hard working sugar plantation manager died when she was only eight years old.
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Not long ago I received a text message from a man who’s been attending our church for as long as I can remember.

In it, he described how his wife had been hospitalized and was awaiting surgery. He wanted to get a care plan in place so when she was released everything would be running as smooth as possible.

I called him and talked through the plan. He updated me in the following days with her status. Information was exchanged over a week or so until I saw him at the church that Sunday.

He talked me through everything. All of it. What led to the hospital visit, what they did for her there, the plan afterwards, literally every detail.

I stood there with him and finally something clicked…
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I’m a big fan of summaries.

Sometimes (okay, okay often) when Hailey gets home from school with a really long, drawn-out and dramatic story I just want her to give me the highlights.

In high school I loved Cliffs Notes. Whatever book we were supposed to read in class was summarized beautifully in a few pages. They provided just enough detail to convince the teacher you’d read the assigned chapters.

At the weekly men’s recovery group I attend a man recently summarized the first three principles of recovery as far as he understood them.
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