Delighted to meet you!
I’m Leila Joy! Welcome to my corner of the web, where I seek to help you cultivate greater joy in your journey through life.
Some introductory quick takes:
What do I do? I am a freelance writer and I manage communications for a Catholic media apostolate.
What else? Well, when I’m not bouncing between wayyy too many articles at once, there are likely books around me. This reality may have something to do with the articles . . . let’s call it a virtuous cycle.
I’m a Florida gal who left her heart in the mountains long ago.
Few conversation topics truly hype me up more than Jane Austen.
Although I’m 100% tea > coffee, catch me still saying “let’s grab coffee”
Happiness looks like a good playlist of music over a bluetooth speaker in the kitchen with my three favorite people on earth – my siblings.
what led me here…
In May 2024, I graduated from Ave Maria University with a B.A. in Communications and Humanities, with minors in Theology and Marriage & Family (loved it too much not to mention all of it). I had the great honor of sharing the stage with Fr. Mike Schmitz at commencement when, following his keynote message, I spoke to my class as Co-Valedictorian.
It’s funny how the roads of life’s aspirations often eventually circle back. When I was about eight or nine, I recall wanting to be a journalist. I liked creative writing, and I liked to read, and I wanted to do something important. Yet it wasn’t long before I dismissed the idea. “What did I mean by that? I could never . . . that requires some insane note-taking and too much writing . . . ” Twelve or thirteen years later found me graduating college and apparently rediscovering that dream, because here I am.
After an edifying but intensive four years of college that included an abundance of papers, I expected that I would want anything but writing within an inch of my life. But it seems the Lord had other plans: the writing bug had bitten me hard. I had accumulated quite a list of topics to explore on paper and only felt I needed the time and grace to dive in. One of my last courses in college was a directed independent study on writing that solidified my skills and left me well poised to continue applying them. After graduation and some summer adventures, I took off. Here again was the girlish dream of doing something exciting with a pen that I might have left behind for a bit, but the Lord places some desires in our hearts for a reason and does not forget. My “plans” after college looked like openness to whatever He had in store for me, and that road led me to freelance work in communications. I currently manage communications for a Catholic media apostolate, Ahava Productions, and as of January 2025, I contract for the media team at Ascension Press and am a regular contributing writer for Blessed is She.
And so, this is me. Leila Joy in the journey, somewhere between a slew of articles, many good books, and meaningful philosophical conversations, but always running with you in the race towards Christ.
Why “joy in the journey?”
JOY
“There shall always be rejoicing and happiness in what I create; for I create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight.” – Isaiah 65:18
What is joy? Several saints said it best:
“Joy is the net of love by which you can catch souls.” - St. Augustine of Hippo
“The world promises us pleasure, but it is only in Jesus that we find joy.” - St. Therese of Lisieux
“Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” – St. John Paul II
JOURNEYING
“Life with Christ is a wonderful adventure” – Saint John Paul II
When taking a Writing for Journalism directed study in college, I needed a theme for my semester’s compositions. When I prayed about it, the Lord whispered, “journeys.” Pretty sure I giggled. “I’m supposed to sound like I’m starting a travel blog, Lord? That’s too ironic!” I responded. For, in truth, I was really only an avid travel-dreamer of a little soul who walked the same trail between home and school, church and work, day after simple day. Sure, there were some fun family roadtrips in the rearview mirror, but adventure and wanderlust had yet to subtly set into my soul: at that point in time, I had never flown on a plane, much less taken a solo trip. But the inspiration to craft my writing around the theme of “journeys” remained, and I chose to embrace it, finding that the Lord had in fact worked this theme into my life quite richly already and continued to do so. I realized I didn’t need to go far to have something to say about the way, and the real travel blog is the one about the intricate journey of life. Thus, welcome to . . .
“JOY IN THE JOURNEY”
… because while we’d very much like to have the joy with us––up front––supplied by us and thus brought on our way, most of the time we have to continually seek, identify, and choose to make the joy of Christ ours. We must learn to find it amid weariness, behind the clouds . . . and it is often hid on the other side of suffering . . .
Hence, I chose this wording for a reason: there’s a subtle yet important difference between saying “joy in the journey” and “joy for the journey.” I chose the former because there’s something about being in the journey and about what it offers us that we could do better at soaking up. Life is a gradual becoming, a process. If we get caught up in the end result, we miss the grace offered along the way.
“Happy are those who find refuge in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrim roads.” – Psalm 84:6
The colors of my site
I chose a purple brand color because it unites so many rich and important significances. At large, purple is the color of wisdom, creativity, royalty. The following are some of the little threads of meaning that converged in my mind when dreaming up this site:
As the color of royalty, purple is our color, for we are children of the One True King. (It also calls to mind my favorite Disney film, Tangled, which would relate this color to sonship and daughterhood.) Our most important identity is that which encompasses who we fundamentally are in God: we are redeemed, we are chosen, we are endowed with all that is good. Our Father is a King Who wants to lavish us with abundant joy.
Purple also has a hidden connection to the Blessed Mother: it’s the color of the lavender plant, known in Catholic legend as “Our Lady’s drying plant.” The story is that when laundering the Christ Child’s clothes, Our Lady laid them to dry on lavender bushes, and so the plant received its sweet scent.
Liturgically, purple shows twice each year, during Advent and Lent. These are fundamental seasons in the spiritual life: journeys imbued with contemplation, waiting, prayer, and penitence. Advent is the one liturgical season that deeply hits home for me (I look forward to it even more than I do Christmastide), and Lent leads us into the school of love, deeper into gift of redemption.
Finally, I could not resist a sprinkle of pink: a gentle rose and truly the color of joy. During the spiritual sojourn of Advent and Lent, the Church offers us a brief reprieve from the silence and the penance: “gaudete,” and “laetare” –– the two Sundays of the year when the priest dons rose. The somber purple of an Advent wreath is offset by the one rose candle. There is stillness, there is waiting, there is suffering in the spiritual life. But at the end of the day, our God is a God of Joy.
