The Making of Joy, the crafting of the woman Joy.

Episode Introduction:

In today's episode of "Harmonizing Joy," we explore the journey of a homeschooled, devout evangelical Christian upbringing in southeastern New Mexico. From the shaping influence of family dynamics to experiences in Africa and the challenges of navigating adulthood, we delve into the life story of our host. Join us as we journey through the events that have shaped her perspective, relationships, and spirituality.

In this episode, we focus on the host's personal story.

Early Life

• Early years and growing up in southeastern New Mexico.

Family Dynamics

• Explore the role of Joy's parents in her development, including her close bond with her mother and her relationship with her father.
• The abounding love she has for her brother and the shaping of that relationship.

Impact of Homeschooling

• Analyze how being homeschooled affected the host's worldview and her unique high school experiences.

Showing at the Fair & Rodeo Queen

• Learning that she loved being a catalyst for big things.

Journey to Africa:

• Delve into the host's experience of traveling to Mozambique, Africa, at the age of 14 for a 2-week mission school and the transformative impact of this journey.

Additional Resources:

• Katie May's Akashic Record Readings
• Katie May's "Sacred Year Project"
• Discount Code: SACREDJOYSYP
• Follow Katie May on Instagram @embraceyourselfwhole
• Host's Instagram: @harmonizingjoy & @joymoore

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Thank you for joining us on this journey of self-discovery, love, and resilience. Stay curious, stay compassionate, and keep exploring the depths of your own beautiful stories.

Today’s episode on Harmonizing Joy: Our Sacred Communion with the Fabric of the Universe.

Harmonizing with the resonance of the energetic signature I’m currently vibing in walking you through my story, at least the highlights and many low lights feel right. Having a place where the story of my life resides is an interesting feeling. One that feels really right for now.

Today you will hear the journey of my homeschooled, devout evangelical Christian upbringing in southeastern New Mexico, the shaping of my perspectives due to the relationship with my father, the challenges and gifts he and my mom gave me, experiencing Africa at the tender age of 14 for 2 weeks. My experience of homeschooling and the unique high school jobs I had. All of which shaped the person I am growing through.

The continuation of my story in part two is the trip to Mozambique, Africa at age 18 for a 3 month mission school, and the loss of my half brother while there in Africa. As well as the next few months, processing the whole experience and trying to make decisions for my life as best as I understood. What the next two years looked like as I tried to navigate adult hood in my current understanding of myself and the world.

In part 3 I will be sharing about the connection and commitment with my best friend turned husband and our special relationship and learning to navigate marriage, my journey into motherhood, and the impact of loss and grief of miscarriage and the abrupt death of my dad.

We have a lot to cover as I unpack the lessons and experiences of my life so far.

Thank you so much for hanging out with me today as I journey back through the events of my life and explore my own story again with fresh eyes of love, compassion, and acceptance.

Before we dive into part one of my story, I want to share with you about my sweet soul sisters’ offerings that are very much in alignment with so much of the healing work I have been doing over the last few years. Her name is Katie May and working with her through any of her portals is life-altering. I have had several Akashic record readings with her and the settledness of myself in my own skin was unlike anything I had experienced with anyone else. I highly recommend connecting with her as she unlocks and opens pieces of yourself you’ve been longing to feel and see again. She also has an amazing group portal called the “Sacred Year Project” where she weaves and remembers the rituals of reclamation and remembrance of what it means to live in season and cycle with Mother Earth and with yourself so you can fully honor and embody your life and bloom wildly in your own authentic way. So much of our lives in the Western cultures are lived with very little consideration of the rhythm of the seasons or cycles that nature goes through much less about the cycles and rhythms of our own body. This year-long portal is one that grounds us to this earth experience in a really unique way. Katie has graciously offered my listeners a discount code. The link and details are in the show notes. If there are any questions about any of the details, you can email me or find me on Instagram @harmonizingjoy.

Now let’s get into the story.

Those early years of life are not really remembered very crispily, however as I’ve navigated motherhood, I have experienced a lot of flashbacks to those early formative years. One was while I was nursing my fourth baby, eyes locked into hers, I remembered what it felt like to be nursing from my own mom, the safety, the sense of being home in her arms pulsed through my whole body. I felt warmth and connection with her. The smell of her rushed through my olfactory system. The flash was but an instant however my whole body remembered and relaxed instantly.

As the years wandered past, my mom was my best friend. I have always felt a very special bond with her. A bond that is solid and unwavering no matter any sort of weather that comes its way. One of friendship and love, understanding and wisdom. She gave everything she was ever given or ever had to me and I am eternally grateful.

About 2 and half years later there was a brother in my life and he was the light of my life. I adored him, cared for him, and loved him as extravagantly as I had been loved by my mom. He had a lisp and a very difficult time speaking clearly for most adults to understand him, including my parents. However, I understood him perfectly and would interpret for him all the time. Still, to this day, there are very few people I’ve encountered that I can’t understand their words. I loved him with every fiber of my being.

Children express what they see and experience modeled for them by the security figures of their lives, more than they get from verbal instruction. And so I stepped in and helped mother him as I saw my mom do. That quickly earned me the title of “bossy”. And the number of times I heard, “Stop bossing him around.” And “Quit being so bossy” cannot be quantified.

In my deep self analyzation as to the how’s and why’s of my perspectives and actions over the years, I’ve come to learn quite a lot about human behavior and perspectives. So often when there are deep wounds around something, there are labels slapped on. And those labels are often pressure-release valves for the person doing the labeling. However, often the person receiving the labels is also receiving pressure that’s being let out on them. Only for them to figure out what to do with it and how to release it. And oftentimes, the cycle continues, until someone chooses to release that pressure a different way.

My sweet dad was the one with some deep wounding that slapped that label on me and created a deep stigma that I still wrestle with today, especially in my relationship with my brother. Changing viewpoints you’ve held for a really long time of a person is a really big task that requires a lot of effort, time, courage, and love. And those who put the effort in are often rewarded with a really beautiful relationship.

The formative years of my life were invested in the Bible and church. My dad felt that he had been called to be a pastor and after traveling to Mexico to preach and pray for the sick at an orphanage, he and my mom decided to move to Tulsa Oklahoma to attend Rhema Bible Training Institute for 2 years. My brother and I, having been mostly homeschooled, attended public school for the first time, in what was, a little suburb called, Bixby. It was a really rich couple of years. Filled with swimming lessons at the local YMCA behind our trailer house, and basketball and soccer games. I had the best 5th grade science teacher who deeply cared about his students and we got to experiment with shooting off rockets in the school playground at the end of the year was a special highlight. He actually attended my wedding many years later. We attended Church on the Move where I learned to run sound and do puppetry. I even got to build my own puppet, Sally. It was just a really great couple of years. My parents seemed to thrive and subsequently, my brother and I did too.

The one major drawback of living in Oklahoma was being so far away from my grandparents. My dad’s mom was a safe place for me. She adored me and I knew it. Truthfully, my grandpa and grandma both did. They were a place of fun and exploration and very few rules. My grandma always had those super yummy and oh so healthy, hot pockets in the freezer as well as our favorite ice cream, Neoplotin. She would make us jello and always had those pudding cups in the fridge. On my grandfathers 160 acre farm, he had horses and 4 wheelers for us to ride. BB and 22 rifles for us to go rabbit hunting. We played card games and watched old westerns. There wasn’t a moment with my grandparents that wasn’t wonderful.

My mom valued my grandparents greatly and always encouraged the relationship between them and my brother and me at any opportunity we had. Life is fleeting, you know. We never know how much time we will have with someone. I will always remember my time spent with both of my grandparents. Their steadiness was a gift to me. The summer between my 4th and 5th grade year, my brother and I got to spend a whole month with them at their farm back in New Mexico. And man was it wonderful.

After their graduation from Rhema in Oklahoma, we moved back to southeast New Mexico. Back to the same little town, back to the same little house where I had spent the majority of my life to that point in. The difference this time was we attended a different church. A church on the move daughter church. We attended that church for 5 years. The environment the youth pastor created really fanned the flame of my spirituality and desire for the radical, intimate things of God. We had late-night worship nights that allowed us to release deep emotions and the messages were really personal and connected to the situations we were all facing. My time in that youth group sealed my love affair with the divine that had been cultivated throughout my entire life up to that point.

You see my dad valued the supernatural spiritual more than his physical life. He and my mom were quite devout to their faith and trust in the Bible and what it said. They both fasted and prayed regularly. One could say “religiously.” Haha. Before my parents married my dad spent 10 years in his little travel trailer reading the Bible, fasting, and praying. Doing whatever he could to feel like he was honoring God with his life. Saving souls and healing the sick would become a major focus as I grew up, but to understand the culture of my home, this is a really important one to understand. My dad was a very determined person, one who liked to argue his perspectives and felt that he was right because he had the time, effort, and study to back it up. He also didn’t have any other interests or hobbies. To have a conversation with my dad was to talk about the Bible, God, and your salvation. So as a result, my brother and I learned quite quickly that we had to have a decent grasp of the Bible to have a conversation or any connection with him.

Studying the Bible, reading books that helped further my understanding of the Bible, and listening to sermons and Christian music were the things that consumed my life. Not only did it help me connect with my dad, but it also furthered my ability to connect with the people in the youth group. Eventually, this led to me offering little mini “tithes and offering sermons”, almost weekly. My zealous and curious nature propelled me to dig into church history and the history of the book we were basing so much of my life and eternity. At the time my dad was also studying church history, except with a different bend. My was to answer the questions of authenticity and he was to learn how to master it. This would be a foundation stone for one of the lessons I would learn. That which you seek, you will find. That which you look at, you will see.

The next lesson I learned on that trip was in the area of comfort. It was the first time I had really experienced physical discomfort and I learned that my body was so much more capable than I knew. When we arrived in South Africa it was winter time and below-freezing temperatures in the night. I had only ever gone camping a couple of times with my dad but it was never in cold or harsh conditions. I was used to blazing hot but not freezing cold. To go to sleep at night, I would wear as many layers as possible, wrap myself in my cozy blanket, and then tuck myself into my sleeping bag. I learned that if I tucked my head inside the sleeping bag, my warm breath would help keep me at a reasonable temperature. We ate PBJ (peanut butter and jelly) sandwiches every day for lunch, which was the first time I had eaten the exact same thing for the same meal for that long in a row. I remember asking one of the counselors, “is this okay for our body to eat the same thing every day?” He looked at me and laughed and then put me in check that the people we were there to minister to ate the same thing every day, if they even got a meal. And that PBJ’s were perfectly fine for the duration of our trip. I battled fear on and off through the rest of the trip, learning to dance with my body and my mind.

We arrived home 5 days before the 9-11 attacks. Which was a sobering moment for me at 14. I remember waking from a dream of seeing two planes flying into a couple of really tall buildings and explosions and fires everywhere. When we turned the radio on that’s exactly what was happening. Being in the biblical mindset I was in this could only mean one thing. We are nearing the end of days. There would be wars and rumors of wars marking the second coming of Christ. Of course, this attack was even more potent because it came just 1 year after the Y2K scare where the world was ending and there would be a rapture of all of God’s people. The left behind story would come alive in my generation and these were all signs that those that had eyes to see would recognize.

Over the next couple years I would get to raise rabbits and show them at our local county and eastern fair. I would have the honor of winning best of show and best in barn at both fairs one year and proceed to take my rabbit to sale, which was a massive highlight for me. With that win on my shoulders, I would go on to host a rabbit clinic for the 4h-ers to learn to show better and pick better rabbits. We invited people who cared to see the 4h rabbit program grow, discussing the problems and needs of the program. One of the solutions that came out of those conversations was a full-fledged dedicated rabbit barn for the county & and eastern show. I felt so proud to have created such a catalyst for such profound change. It made me feel really really good.

I had always admired cowgirls and rodeo queens. When I was about 6 or 7, my second or third cousin not only ran but won Miss Rodeo New Mexico and went on to compete in Miss Rodeo America. The elegance, class, and poise of these women captivated my young imagination and left a lasting impression on me. I was captivated by these women and their ability to seamlessly blend strength and grace on the back of a horse, on stage answering questions and in person was truly inspiring. As I watched them ride with such skill and perform intricate routines, I dreamed of someday embodying that same sense of empowerment and fearlessness that these rodeo queens exhibited.

All while I was training, my mom was taking classes to get her nurse’s license reinstated to help financially and my dad was looking for a church to Pastor because he had yet to fulfill his dream and the “call of God on his life” as he felt it. Well, he happened to find a little church about 5 hours west of our little town in an even smaller little town. I remember my dad inviting me out to a little Mexican restaurant where he cleaned their carpets every month. That was how he provided for our family. The following conversation was really difficult. He told me that my mom and I could stay behind until after the pageant and he and my brother would go over to get settled. I immediately felt the whole weight of my parent’s marriage and the future of our family on my shoulders.

My parent’s marriage was strained and had been for a long time. They argued and fought a lot. I heard a vast majority of the arguments from the time I was 5 years old. So many different circumstances but all with the same resounding theme. Desperate to be seen, heard, and loved for who they were. And because of the intense pain, they both felt, neither one could offer to the other the things they needed. Religion, spirituality, and the Bible offered some solace and answers, still deeply rooted in the narrative they already believed, that they were not enough, not good enough, not smart enough, not holy enough to be loved or wanted. Each of the arguments and intense conversations resounded with the same resonance. Of course, that understanding wouldn’t come until much later in my life.

As my dad shared his excitement and trepidations about the move, I imagined what life would be like if I took him up on his offer. What if I stayed with my mom behind? How would that play out? What if I just chose to go?

I chose to give up my dreams and not split up the family, if even for a few months. I chose to move with my folks 5 hours away and have dual enrollment, attending Western New Mexico University for my junior and senior of high school. Little did I know that my parents would choose a house to buy with property and a horse for me to be able to ride, or that for the first time in over a decade, there would be a rodeo queen competition in that little town, or that I would compete and win first runner up due to a technicality, or that I would get to be a catalyst of and organize a rodeo queen clinic locally, or that I would get to work in radio and eventually be a cohost on a morning show, or go to Mexico on a pottery workshop with my college pottery class, or be a kindergarten teacher at a little local private school, or that I would experience some really radical and loving relationships outside of my family up to that point. The two years we were in Silver City were two really magical years for all those reasons I shared and so many more.

There was a really pivotal moment in my life in December before I was to graduate high school. But first, let me backtrack for a minute. While we were in Oklahoma I had the opportunity to tour ORU, Oral Roberts University, and had firmly decided that I was going to attend, majoring in Business Marketing and specializing in advertising. I really loved the psychology behind sales. I recognized that there were a lot of similarities between what people in ministry did and people who sold products or services. I thought that if I could understand marketing better then I could serve God better by getting more people to hear this gospel message.

One weekend I was house-sitting for my boss. They had a gorgeous, hand-built home that he built over a 10-year period up in the mountains. They had radiant heat in the floors, this was before most people knew what that was or had it in their homes and they handprinted the floors to look like stones. My boss had designed it and built it. The home was laid out in a circle. One of the most magical homes I have ever been into this day. I was so excited to stay in this home alone.

My intention and plan for this weekend was to spend time with God and figure out what I needed to do to attend ORU. The first day I remembered an email I received from this guy friend of mine I met on my trip to South Africa. He was telling me all about this lady who ministered and preached while burying her face in her lap, sitting on her knees on the stage. Her message was about love. Loving God with everything in you and loving the one in front of you. Her messages were all about laying your life down fully in your love for God. A laid-down lover is how she phrased it. As I watched Heidi Baker, my whole being lit up and I was enthralled. This is what I was craving. This was the spirit I deeply desired to live my life from. My dad’s focus was winning souls and healing the sick. But that never really connected for me. Love was the message. It had to be. I had spent countless hours in church and outside of my youth pastor that one summer, I had never heard a message that resonated so clearly. Love was what everything was all about and she shared stories of love displayed. I wanted to learn from her. I wanted to experience this love firsthand. But she was only in the States raising funds for her ministry in Mozambique 3 months out of the year. So I stuck for the time being watching her sermons on VHS that my buddy had sent me.

As I opened my computer that first morning of house-sitting, I heard internally, “Your education is more important than I am in your life.” Wow, I thought. I went straight to everything in the Old Testament about having idols I had ever heard or read. “Thou shalt not have any other gods before me.” The children of Israel were told over and over again and consequently punished in the wilderness because they kept turning to their idols and losing heart. You weren’t supposed to eat meat sacrificed to idols. John & Paul talk extensively about idols. Was I in the category of these people who willfully hurt God? What was I to do about this idol? Burning was a common theme of instruction to destroy the idols you possessed. How do you burn a desire? The thought that came to me was to go out into nature. I set the computer on the little table next to me, got a little piece of paper that was in my bag, and wrote these words, “My education.” With my heart intent on releasing ORU and any other ideas, I had plans for my college or learning. I got in my little blue Aerostar van and made my way up the mountain. I didn’t go too far before I saw a large boulder and a tree clearing. I got out and placed that piece of paper on the boulder and said, “I release my education. Forgive me, Father.” Immediately there was a gust of wind on our perfectly calm day and blew that piece of paper away. As I drove home I asked God what I was supposed to do now then. NO college in my future, What was I supposed to do? When I returned to the house, I logged into my email finally to find a note from my buddy telling me all about this school that Heidi and her husband were hosting, in Mozambique at their ministry headquarters that summer. It was the first ever of its kind and it was called, Holy Given School of Missions. Ahhh, even the name indicated everything I wanted to be and learn on a deeper richer level. THIS was what I was to do. I was to experience missions firsthand and focus on my spirituality, not the carnal nature of the flesh in business. I had such an overwhelming feeling of peace and tranquillity rush over my being. This… This is what I was going to do immediately after graduating high school.

For the next four months, I worked diligently to raise funds and sort out all the details to make my way to Mozambique Africa. My mom helped me with all the logistics and my dad was so excited for me to pursue ministry at such a young age, he prayed and fasted for my journey. My even applied and considered going with me. But ultimately decided not to go.

Being homeschooled and dually enrolled in Western New Mexico University, I wasn’t sure how I was gonna graduate high school. And when you in high school, graduating is the whole goal and focus, outside of where you’re attending college.

The little private school that I was teaching at in the afternoons gave me a really amazing gift. My boss asked for my transcripts and agreed to give me a diploma. I was one of 3 graduating seniors that year. Overwhelming gratitude filled my whole being. The forced schooling was over and done with. Now I was able to focus on the things that I really got excited about it.

Boarding the plane to venture to Africa for the second time, except this time completely alone, I discover new things about myself. One is how much I really love airports. More on that in the next episode.

As I embark on this adventure to Mozambique, Africa, and dive deep into the heart of my spirituality and mission, the twists and turns of my life are only beginning to unfold.

Next week’s episode, I'll take you with me as I explore being in Africa around the message of love with a bunch of strangers, making deep connections of friends and walking through the loss of my brother in a foreign land.

So, lovelies, if you're curious about how this story unfolds if you want to be a part of this journey of self-discovery, love, and resilience, then join me next week as I continue to harmonize joy and explore the sacred communion with the fabric of the universe. Your presence makes this journey all the more meaningful, and I can't wait to share the next part of my story with you.

Thank you for tuning in today, and I'll catch you in the next episode of 'Harmonizing Joy.' Until then, stay curious, stay compassionate, and keep exploring the depths of your own beautiful stories.