How "Joy In The Story" Got It's Name

Someone asked me on Instagram recently how I came up with the name Joy in the Story, and I gave the short version.

But the real answer probably deserves more than an Instagram story. Mostly because Joy in the Story wasn't actually the original name. When I started this blog, it was called Joyful in the Journey. And that name came from a pretty difficult season of my life.

I was learning—or maybe desperately trying to learn—what it meant to choose joy when life didn't necessarily feel joyful. I was reminding myself that joy and happiness weren't always the same thing. That hard things could be happening and joy could still exist somewhere alongside them. More than anything, I was trying to hold onto the truth that God was still present in the middle of whatever road I was walking.

So, Joyful in the Journey.

At the time, it fit. It wasn't just a cute name. It was something I needed to believe.

Life is a journey, and even when that journey is difficult, there can still be joy along the way. For a while, that was exactly what I wanted this space to hold.

But then something started to change. The blog grew. I grew. The things I wanted to write about expanded beyond trying to find joy in difficult seasons. I was writing about faith and motherhood. Ministry and friendship. Questions and celebrations. Ordinary Tuesdays and big life moments. Things I was learning and things I absolutely did not have figured out. I was writing stories.

And somewhere along the way, Joyful in the Journey started to feel like it belonged to an earlier version of this space. Not a wrong version. Just an earlier one.

I still believe deeply in finding joy in the journey. I still believe joy can exist alongside grief and uncertainty and exhaustion and all the other complicated pieces of being human. But I started realizing that what I was doing here wasn't only documenting a journey. I was telling a story. Or, more accurately, I was telling little pieces of a much bigger one.

That's when Joy in the Story started to make sense.

Life is a story. My story is filled with chapters I would gladly reread over and over again and chapters I probably would have skipped entirely if I'd been given the choice. There are pages filled with people I love. There are plot twists I absolutely did not see coming. There are questions that still haven't been answered. There are chapters that make more sense looking backward than they ever did while I was living them. And there are parts still being written.

Through all of it, I'm learning to look for joy. Not the kind that requires everything to be good. Not the kind that asks us to pretend the hard parts aren't hard. The kind that can sit right there in the middle of the complicated stuff. The kind that shows up in ordinary moments and people and places. The kind that reminds me God is still here.

Because if my life is a story, I'm not holding the pen alone. God is the author of a story much bigger than the chapter I can see right now. And I think that's what Joy in the Story has slowly become for me.

This space is where I try to pay attention. To the chapters I'm living. To the people sharing them with me. To what God might be doing between the lines. To the joy tucked into places I could easily overlook. And then I write it down.

There's also one considerably less profound part of the name that I happen to love. My Instagram handle is @joyinthestorri.

Joy in the Storri.

Torri.

Get it?

Listen, I couldn't resist.

So yes, the name has this whole meaningful story about faith and growth and trusting God as the author of our lives...and also a pun on my name. Both things can be true.

That feels pretty fitting for this blog.

A little deep.

A little ridiculous.

A whole lot of figuring things out as I go.

And always trying to find the joy in the story.