Stories by Joy

January 15 2026

His Name is William

His name is William. We met at the Calhoun-Gordon County Library on a rainy afternoon one week before Christmas. I saw his bike outside and found him inside talking on the phone. I overheard the word porch. When he hung up, I asked him to tell me his story.

William told me he had a head injury from an accident caused by a drunk driver. He was traveling the country trying to raise awareness of head injuries and the gaps in care. He had just asked someone from a local church for help, and she suggested he go to a homeless shelter. The man looked frustrated.

“What do you need?”

“I just need a place to sleep and recharge my bike batteries. People at homeless shelters try to steal my stuff. I’m not an alcoholic or a drug addict. I don’t fit in there. When I charge my batteries at a park, the cops kick me out. This is my nineteenth time across the country since 2017. It’s always like this, especially in the South. All I want is a safe place to sleep and maybe a shower.”

We walked outside and called my neighbor. Between the three of us, we figured out how to meet William’s needs. He followed me to my house, where he got a shower and a hot meal.

William said, “I just want people to know there are good people out here trying to make it on our own. Is it too much to offer me a porch for a night?”

After dark, I led the grateful man to my neighbor’s church. There he charged his batteries and got a good night’s sleep. William texted my neighbor at eight the next morning, saying he had locked up and was on his way to Rome, Georgia.

William and I have talked a few times, and I have had time to reflect. More than his needs for food and a warm place to sleep, or bike parts and a new sleeping bag, William is making me aware of something deeper. What I’d really like is for William to see that compassion still exists in our country. That there are people willing to listen, to see him for who he is, and to offer more than a porch for the night. If you have any ideas or would like to help William in a practical way, please email me or let me know in the comments.

* WilliamGallowayBicycles

Thanks for being a part of this journey!

If you enjoyed reading this blog, I’d love your support in growing this community! Please share this with your friends, family, or anyone who might find it interesting. Your shares help me reach more people to help them find their joy.

Joy M. Walker

January 1 2026

Looking Back, Looking Forward

There is something satisfying about looking back at a full calendar. Yet, looking at a clean, unmarked one is equally satisfying. As someone with a June birthday, I always feel bad for December and January birthday people. I get two equally spaced times each year to reevaluate and restart. Looking back and looking forward is something I enjoy twice a year.

Those with December and January birthdays get robbed of a mid-year evaluation unless, of course, they choose July 4th, our nation’s birthday, as their restart date. Those born on MLK Day are the exception. They get to start again because everyone knows that by mid-January most people have already quit their New Year’s resolutions.

Anyway, this is a time for new beginnings. It’s a time to look back and learn from the past and look forward to a world of possibilities. Did you reach your goals? Celebrate! If you didn’t, rest easy knowing no one reaches every goal. As we start a new year, let’s focus on the goals we did reach. Should we keep the same goal? Increase it by 10 percent? Decrease it by 50 percent? Pick a new one?

In the blog Let’s Make the Last 100 Days Count, I committed to writing every day and encouraged you to focus on your goals. Yesterday, I printed the first draft of Finding Joy in the East. Staying committed helped me reach the goal I set on January 1, 2025.

My Happy New Year blog suggested writing out our goals, sharing them with others, listing steps to reach them, and having accountability. I hope to have my second book ready for an editor by my birthday and ready to print by December 31, 2026.

I’m writing these goals and sharing them with you so you can hold me accountable. So, what are your goals? Please share them so we can encourage each other. If you haven’t done so, look back and look forward. And let’s make this year one to remember.

*iStock Photo by bombermoon

Thanks for being a part of this journey!

If you enjoyed reading this blog, I’d love your support in growing this community! Please share this with your friends, family, or anyone who might find it interesting. Your shares help me reach more people to help them find their joy.

Joy M. Walker

December 18 2025

Is anything ever finished?

My word for 2025 is finish. Two goals for this year were to get my first book in print and to finish the first draft of my second book. When I published Finding Joy in the West, I wished it had pictures. It still didn’t feel finished.

Then, ten days ago, when I drafted the end of my tour of the east coast, I told people the first draft of Finding Joy in the East was finished. Though I had written about arriving home, the story had gaps. So, as I wrote in Let’s make the last 100 days count, I will continue drafting for another fourteen days.

Technically, I reached my goals. Finding Joy in the West is in print, and draft one of Finding Joy in the East is finished. But will I ever accept that they are finished? I thought, is anything ever really finished?

Now, wait . . .

Before you think I’m being pessimistic, look at what I am learning. When Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished,” He wasn’t saying the story was over. He was saying he had finished the work he had been given to do.

Publishing Finding Joy in the West and completing the first draft of Finding Joy in the East doesn’t mean my journey is finished. It means I’ve done what I was called to do.

At Christmas, we celebrate that Jesus came to earth to begin the work he would one day finish. His birth was not the end of the story, but the start of faithful obedience. If “finished” means being faithful with what we’re given, then maybe the joy isn’t in being done, but in saying yes to what we’re called to do.

*Image by Arnie Bragg from Pixabay

Thanks for being a part of this journey!

If you enjoyed reading this blog, I’d love your support in growing this community! Please share this with your friends, family, or anyone who might find it interesting. Your shares help me reach more people to help them find their joy.

Joy M. Walker

December 4 2025

Thankful

This Thanksgiving was a memorable one, but not in the way we had planned. Though thankful for the bonding time, I’d rather not make it our new family tradition.

My sister, Sandi, called me Wednesday night from the emergency room and said they were going to admit her. On Thanksgiving morning, the best surgeon in the country removed four gallstones that were blocking her bile duct. Immediate relief! We were so grateful.

However, when she woke her surgeon hit her with something she didn’t see coming. She would need to stay the night so he could remove her gallbladder on Friday. The speech therapist, for the first time in her life, was speechless. She asked if he was kidding. He wasn’t. We honestly didn’t know that once a gallbladder started producing stones, it would continue to do so.

Sandi received better care than she might have at a five-star hotel. The nurses and assistants treated Sandi like she was their only patient. They were kind and informative. You never would have known that they were forgoing time with their families to spend Thanksgiving with us.

On Friday, her surgeon and his robot friend removed her gallbladder. (Laparoscopy is incredible.) When I thanked him for taking care of my sister, he acted like it was no big deal. It was a big deal to us, though. We were relieved, grateful.

On Saturday, her surgeon said she could go home. Yay! We thanked him and everyone who took care of her for their expertise and their kindness. What a great team!

Now as we reflect on Thanksgiving and look forward to Christmas, may we remember to be thankful even if our holidays don’t go as we planned.

*Photo by Deborah Hudson, Pixabay

Thanks for being a part of this journey!

If you enjoyed reading this blog, I’d love your support in growing this community! Please share this with your friends, family, or anyone who might find it interesting. Your shares help me reach more people to help them find their joy.

Joy M. Walker

November 20 2025

Can one little shift change your world?

In my head, retirement meant no alarms. After decades of waking to an alarm, I believed I had earned the right to never set one again. Even when I started my second career as a writer, I resisted. It’s not like I am getting paid to write. I should be able to write whenever I want, right?

But looking back, that mindset kept me from one little shift that could change my world.

I’ve always called myself a night owl. My best writing comes after midnight, I insisted. Yet every book I read about writing delivers the same message. Write in the morning. I fought it. I even wrote a blog declaring, “I can’t.” Recently, everything I have read or heard about waking early ganged up on me.

Still, I told myself that setting an alarm meant waking up before I’d gotten enough sleep, and I can’t write when I am tired. Then I checked the weekly sleep totals on my Garmin. Except for the week I came home from Alaska sick, I slept 7 to 7.5 hours a night, without an alarm. Now after three weeks of setting one? I averaged 7 to 7.5. It turns out my “sleep until I wake up” philosophy never gave me more rest. It just gave me more angst.

In sixty-one years, I have never had a bedtime. For three weeks now, I’ve set an alarm and focused on getting to bed earlier. For twelve days, I have written in the morning. Yesterday I woke before my alarm. Epiphany! All this struggle is not about an alarm? It’s about a bedtime? Is it really that simple? One little shift has changed my world.

How about you? Can one little shift change your world? Send me your thoughts.

Thanks for being a part of this journey!

If you enjoyed reading this blog, I’d love your support in growing this community! Please share this with your friends, family, or anyone who might find it interesting. Your shares help me reach more people to help them find their joy.

Joy M. Walker

November 6 2025

On Breaking a Streak

Last Monday, my watch told me something shocking.

It said, “One-day streak.”

For 1,156 consecutive days (that’s over three years), I had met my steps goal. (See Lower the Bar) Even on sick days, riding days, and driving days, I had fit in a walk. So of course, I assumed my Garmin had messed up. Surely, it wasn’t me. But when I looked at Saturday’s stats, my circle was a U-shape.

It took me a few hours to piece together what had happened. On Saturday afternoon, I gave blood. Before I left, my phlebotomist, Kim, told me not to exercise for 24 hours.

Since I was hungry and tired from too little sleep the night before, it was easy to take her advice. I went home, ate, took a nap, and woke still feeling a little off. I worked on Finding Joy in the East before heading out to see comedian Jeff Allen with my friend Becky.

Jeff kept us laughing for nearly two hours straight. Still buzzing from the show, I ordered his book, Are We There Yet? on Audible. Having met him in the lobby, I couldn’t wait to hear him read his own story. I listened for a while, wrote for a couple of hours, and drifted off to sleep listening to Jeff.

It never even occurred to me to check my watch.

After church, I finished listening to Jeff’s book as I walked my neighborhood, unaware that Saturday had slipped through the cracks. On Monday, the notification that my 1,156-day streak was gone jolted me out of bed. I would have to call Garmin and have them fix the problem, only to realize it was my problem, not theirs.

How devastating. In over three years, I hadn’t missed a single day. How could I have forgotten?

But I did.

I broke my streak.

So, what does that mean?

It means I start again—just like I encourage you to do when you feel you’ve failed, let yourself or a loved one down, or broken a streak of your own. Just start again.

Thanks for being a part of this journey!

If you enjoyed reading this blog, I’d love your support in growing this community! Please share this with your friends, family, or anyone who might find it interesting. Your shares help me reach more people to help them find their joy.

Joy M. Walker

October 23 2025

What I Learned From My Bug Woman

Technically, my bug man is Justin Silver. He owns the business that has been getting rid of my ants, spiders, and bugs for twenty years. It’s my newest tech, Michaela, though that spurred me to write what I learned from my bug woman.

Michaela has been treating my lawn and home for a year. This time she arrived because the boxelder bugs are overtaking my bedroom, as they do every fall. After she put on shoe covers to protect my carpet from her wet shoes, we walked upstairs.

“My house is a mess. I just posted a blog about camping with my niece. (See A Week of Firsts) I haven’t had time to put everything away. We just got home last night.”

“Oh, you’re okay.”

“I hate I didn’t get to clean up before you got here. It matters to me what you think because my home reflects who I am. I like to keep my house clean.”

Around my bedroom window, she sprayed something new, something “sticky” she said. Next, she did the same to all the downstairs windows. We kept talking.

“Actually, I don’t think most people care about what we think. We just spray. We aren’t inspecting.”

At her truck, Michaela put on a backpack sprayer. She continued listening and spraying as we walked to the backyard.

“I was gone all summer, and I’m still catching up on the yard. It was a successful summer, though. I finished my first book, Finding Joy in the West, did a book tour, and rode in three more states.”

“You’re out there traveling though. You are living your best life. All I do is spray bugs. I like it though. I’m not a people person. It’s hard for me to talk with people.”

Thank you, Michaela, for listening. You are doing way more than spraying bugs. You are a people person. Maybe being a people person isn’t about talking. Maybe it’s more about listening. So, what did I learn from my bug woman? I learned the importance of listening—even if you think you are just spraying bugs.

Thanks for being a part of this journey!

If you enjoyed reading this blog, I’d love your support in growing this community! Please share this with your friends, family, or anyone who might find it interesting. Your shares help me reach more people to help them find their joy.

Joy M. Walker

October 9 2025

A Week of Firsts

My five-year-old great-niece and I went camping in my tiny house this week. We picked Fort Mountain State Park because we had been there twice before. (See No More Pretending) Since I booked a site only days ahead, we didn’t get our favorite site 68. This would be our first time at site 13. It turned out to be a week of firsts.

Since I forgot to pack our brushes, it would also be our first time to comb her hair. She wasn’t happy with me, but we combed through it. After an hour of tag and climbing at the playground, we played seventeen holes of miniature golf. Hole eighteen doesn’t return the ball. She scored a two, three times—pretty good for a first-timer.

Another reason we chose Fort Mountain was because the lake is within walking distance of the campground, and she is not ready to say goodbye to summer. The overcast skies made 70 degrees feel like 55, yet the child played in the water. After stepping in the icy water, I agreed to help make sandcastles with my sweatshirt on. We had the beach to ourselves—another first.

After a warm shower (her idea) and a cup of hot chocolate, we returned to the playground hoping to meet new friends. Two couples I knew from teaching their children at Adairsville Elementary were there with four of their grandchildren. What are the odds? My niece and the grandchildren were instant friends. The adults caught up as we watched the children play drop tag—another first.

Later that night at our friend’s sites 68 and 67, my niece played a game she had never played, ate her first s’more, and painted her first rock. The next day, she hid hers at our campsite. While playing with two of the grandchildren, she witnessed two other children finding the painted rocks and rehiding them for others to discover.

As we climbed to the top of Fort Mountain to see the fire tower and an overlook, she saw an entire city from a whole new perspective. My little niece wanted to climb over the railing and “go there.” Seeing farmland, ponds, roads, cars, buildings, houses, and hawks in flight may have been the most mind-blowing experience of her young life, but her new friends? That’s all she has talked about since we left. What a joy to experience so many firsts through the eyes of a child. It was truly a week of firsts.

Thanks for being a part of this journey!

If you enjoyed reading this blog, I’d love your support in growing this community! Please share this with your friends, family, or anyone who might find it interesting. Your shares help me reach more people to help them find their joy.

Joy M. Walker