A Cool Feature with Ebony

A few weeks ago, a writer from Ebony.com reached out, asking if we were interested in being featured in one of their regular columns called “Coolest Black Family in America.”

Jordan and I were pretty flattered, because we know two couples who’ve been featured previously — The Henrys (the wife is a former college advisor of mine) and The Eppersons (who are part of our Renaissance Church community). And let me tell you, both of those families are pretty amazing. So we were beyond happy to be in their company.

We scheduled a time to speak with the writer by phone and spent nearly two hours answering questions about our lives growing up, our perspectives on family, our stories of love and loss, our marriage, and our new role as parents.

We’ve done interviews before, but I really appreciated this one, because it came at a time when I needed to reflect on all of the crazy things that have happened in life — both good and bad — and be reminded of God’s amazing goodness and grace through it all.

The interview also came at a time when Jordan and I have been somewhat overwhelmed by life and haven’t done the greatest job of just being sweet to one another. In fact, it’s worth noting that as I collected the family photos that would go along with the feature that detailed our loving relationship, I had an exhausted meltdown and yelled at Jordan for keeping me up too late. (Sleep deprivation is the devil, y’all). But it’s real life when I tell you it can become much tougher to be kind to one another after the day-to-day work of managing a life and family together really sets in.

So it was life-giving to have to answer questions like, “how did you feel after that first date,” “what do you love most about him?” and “how has your relationship evolved over the years?”

While sitting on the couch together and answering each question and listening to his responses and laughing at his dry humor (only Jordan would reference sweatpants with no pockets!), and nudging him to get off Twitter, I was truly grateful for it all. Our good parts and bad parts and broken parts and silly parts and hopeful parts that make up our little family.

You can read The Coolest Black Family in America, No. 68: The Rices, which was published yesterday.

P.S. We’re in Kansas City, MO for a couple days – Any suggestions for things to check out? Happily accepting recommendations for delicious barbeque and kid-friendly activities. :)