Stories by Joy

April 9 2026

To Stop or Not to Stop

To stop or not to stop—that is the question I find myself asking as I make my way home from the Keys. My northern friends make it home in a few days. I’ve never been able to travel that way. For me, traveling means connecting the dots between people and places.

This year, there are friends I won’t see. Not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t stop everywhere. I’m seeing friends I didn’t see last year, but my priority is getting home to spend time with family and write. Every overnight stop in Florida is one less day for family and writing.

In Finding Joy in the West, I wrote that visiting one place meant not seeing another. I also blogged about Focusing on the Big Rocks using Stephen R. Covey’s analogy. If we don’t put the big rocks in first, the pebbles will fill the jar and leave no room for what’s most important.

These days, my big rocks are clear: God, family, and Finding Joy in the East. So, as much as I’d love to stop to see every friend in Florida, my big rocks are guiding my route home. Not stopping doesn’t mean my friends are not important to me. It simply means I’m trying to stay aligned with what matters most in this season.

The decision to stop or not to stop is difficult for me, but focusing on my big rocks brings clarity. What about you? What guides your decisions to do this instead of that, or go here instead of there?

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

March 26 2026

Stay in the Game

One year ago, I published Finding Joy in the West: A Quest to Ride My Bike in All Fifty States. Getting to launch my first book in the Keys elevated the excitement tenfold. Since then, I’ve had my sights set on a repeat with Finding Joy in the East in 2027.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, to stay in the game, I picked up my writing game. My word for the year, finish, kept me focused. I made the last 100 days count. At the start of this year, I set a goal to have the manuscript ready for an editor by the end of the first quarter (March), or midyear, June at the latest.

Now, at the end of the first quarter of 2026, I could send my manuscript to an editor. But I’m not going to. Somewhere along the way, I started finding joy in editing. In draft two, I cut fifty pages and added fifteen. On this third pass, I’m focusing on each scene, the purpose of every chapter, and the spine that holds it all together: my quest to ride my bike in all fifty states.

After six months of making book two a priority—and clocking 600 writing hours—I may not hit my March goal. However, if I trust (trust is my word for 2026) myself and the system, it will be in much better shape for an editor by June.

Sometimes we reach our goals, and sometimes we miss them. But where would we be if we didn’t stay in the game? How are you doing on your goals this year? Do you need to extend the timeline? Maybe progress counts more than the date.

In March Madness terms, don’t quit. Stay in the game.

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

March 12 2026

F-U-N!

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 15-30 snowbirds plunge into the chilly, chlorinated pool to have F-U-N!

This is my third-year wintering in the Florida Keys. Keyzee pool volleyball is one simple pleasure I’ve allowed myself this year while focusing on draft two of Finding Joy in the East. Goal-setting guru Jon Acuff challenges people to make goals measurable and fun, but also to set fun goals.

Sometimes, the age gap is over sixty years. What other sport or setting would you see a large group of teenagers and eighty-somethings competing for fun? It’s such a pleasure to see eighty-year-olds sometimes “schooling” visiting college-aged grandchildren.

The rules are simple:
• Do whatever it takes to get the ball over the net.
• Each player and team can hit the ball any way they want, as many times as needed.
• To remain in play, the ball must stay in the pool, above the water, and in the shallow end.
• If players miss their first serve, they get a do-over.
• The first team to score eleven points wins. Teams switch sides after each game.
• No arguing with the scorekeeper. She’s a volunteer and a retired math teacher.

We laugh and joke and cheer from beginning to end. I dream of former students enjoying games like this Keyzee version of volleyball. Of course, no one wants to be the one to end the volley, not because we need to win, but because we secretly hope to set a world record for the longest volley in snowbird volleyball history. That record will never happen, though. The players don’t want to hear the volley count, and the writer of this blog can’t count unless she’s counting out loud. So, for now, I will focus on having fun, for fun’s sake. Not every goal has to be measurable, right?

So, what is your one simple pleasure? What do you like to do just for F-U-N?

*Photo by Anita

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

February 26 2026

What Marks Your Identity?

Will Olympic athletes forever be known as Olympians? Or will gold medalists wear that title for the rest of their lives? Many will do great things beyond their competitive years, but what will be the mark that defines them? How about you? Is what you do, who you are? Does a career or an accomplishment, mark your identity? And are you content to let it?

It took five years after I retired, before I began saying “I’m a writer,” rather than, “I’m a retired physical education teacher.” My teaching career had a timeline. Once I hit the finish line, I was . . . finished. There is no such timeline for writers. Once a writer, always a writer. This profession called to me in the third grade. It quit calling for fifty years because I had convinced it I would pursue it after retirement. It called again when I bought a motorhome and started traveling.

What began as a retirement dream has become a second career—one that costs more than it pays and asks more of me than I ever imagined. With seventy-five blog posts behind me, one book published and a second underway, I can’t quit. I’m not writing because I have a large audience waiting, or a paycheck attached. I write because writers write. That’s what we do. Writing shapes me as much as I shape it.

My friend and mentor, Chip Bell, said it this way: “We write, not because we have to, not because we like to, but because we need to. It is part of who we are.”

Let me ask you, what I’m asking myself. What do you feel compelled to continue, even when it costs you? Why do you keep showing up? Is your work molding you into the person you hope to become? What marks your identity?

Perhaps the mark we leave begins with the work we refuse to abandon.

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

February 5 2026

Find Your Joy

This week I made it to my happy place in the Florida Keys after a detour to the Great White North. I accepted an invitation from my Uncle Tim to attend a Joy Retreat at Lake Huron Retreat Center in January. Enticed by the lure of a weekend with my aunt and uncle at a retreat aptly named for me, I went despite the forecast for snow and sub-zero temperatures. As soon as I saw the waves of the lake, an unexplained joy washed over me.

At the retreat, I bonded with twelve volunteer staff members and eighteen participants seeking joy. We worked through grief and pain, learning to identify circumstances Tim called “joy blockers.” Determining what keeps us from a joy-filled life is half the battle. The other half, I believe, is trusting God. (Trust is my word for the year.)

Participants openly shared their grief, their pain. Often, the very ones who should have been showering them with love caused them physical and emotional pain beyond measure. Yet, in all our pain, we were there for each other. Supporting. Loving. Trusting. Finding joy.

By the end of the weekend, the lake (pictured above) froze solid and had such a deep snow covering that it looked like an open field. Like the lake, God blanketed our pain. For now, our stories remain at Lake Huron, covered and frozen in time, so we can step forward into joy-filled lives. We know, like the lake freezes and thaws, grief and pain sometimes resurface. But with techniques and support, we can better withstand the waves.

This weekend reminded me that joy is not the absence of pain. It’s trusting God with it. So, if your life feels frozen right now, if the waves have stopped and everything feels heavy, trust him. Trust that God is at work beneath the surface, even when you can’t see it. The road to joy may have detours and pain, but through it all, trust that you will find your joy.

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 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