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Alia Joy

a student of grace, seeking wonder, becoming fluent in the language of hope

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  • The Fluency of Hope

    My word of the day app keeps opening to the word fenestrated. I look up the definition because while I consider myself well read, fenestrated is a jumble of foreign syllables to me. It says provided with a window or windows. I look out the windows. The dark still awaits the break of dawn and… [Continue Reading]

    The Fluency of Hope
  • A Moment to Remember: Battling Shame, Envy, and Comparison

    This past summer, when (in)courage announced that its annual retreat for its writers would be in Cancun, my first thought wasn’t, how generous or I can’t believe I’m going to an ocean with warm water. I didn’t think, I have never been to a resort, or on a vacation like this. I didn’t think how amazing it would be… [Continue Reading]

    A Moment to Remember: Battling Shame, Envy, and Comparison
  • Considering It Joy: An (in)courage Post

    I am spectacularly clumsy. I have been known to fall over just standing because I am delicate and graceful like that, so while I was in Kenya, I had to pay close attention to my feet in relation to the world around me. I traveled from an insulated world where possible injury comes with prerequisite… [Continue Reading]

    Considering It Joy: An (in)courage Post
  • When Everything Feels Too Frivolous or Urgent: A GraceTable Post

    I’ve been mostly absent from social media for the past few months. I come and go but mostly I’ve been offline trying to live into my present. Living in the now is no small task. We are a people of anticipation or we are a people of despair. As people who believe in Christ, hope… [Continue Reading]

    When Everything Feels Too Frivolous or Urgent: A GraceTable Post
  • When We Don’t Want Others To Belong: A Mudroom Post

    I’m looking for spaces that are a homecoming. I’m realizing it’s not easy to find places of true belonging and it’s even harder to be a person who offers it. I don’t know a single person who doesn’t want to belong, but I know many who want to disconnect, to distance, to separate and divide.… [Continue Reading]

    When We Don’t Want Others To Belong: A Mudroom Post
  • Living Wholeheartedly Today: An (in)courage Post

    We’re cleaning out the garage and moving boxes up to the attic so I’ve been tasked with sorting through them. I get sidetracked with a box of photo albums from the old days when we actually got pictures developed and took the time to paste the best ones in books instead of just scrolling through… [Continue Reading]

    Living Wholeheartedly Today: An (in)courage Post
  • Live Interrupted: A GraceTable Post

    In the last few weeks my heart has taken to skipping beats again. The lub dub lub dub that pounds faithfully hour after hour now has a new rhythm. Like a jump start, a thick thud lands in my chest, sometimes making me cough like someone has thumped their first against my sternum. I had… [Continue Reading]

    Live Interrupted: A GraceTable Post
  • Withhold Nothing: An Incourage Post

      “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I… [Continue Reading]

    Withhold Nothing: An Incourage Post
  • When I Am Bipolar

    I hold the small red pill between my thumb and forefinger. It’s miniscule. Maybe a third the size of a breath mint. I’ve already taken my antidepressant faithfully, as I always do. I habitually gulp down the rest of my pills but this one I take last, because it’s so small. There was the time… [Continue Reading]

    When I Am Bipolar
  • Carry Me to Jesus: When We’re the Answer to Someone’s Prayers

    I fell out of a chair and re-injured my ankle. The same ankle that’s been giving me grief for years and often flares up, leaving me limping and in pain. Let’s not discuss how it’s even possible to fall out of a chair while sitting. I’d like to think I have the grace and agility… [Continue Reading]

    Carry Me to Jesus: When We’re the Answer to Someone’s Prayers

Outrage Fatigue and Leaping the Divide

January 25, 2017 By Alia Joy

I picked the wrong weekend to return to Facebook. It’s no secret, I have a small capacity for the constant churning machine that social media often is. Most days, it’s loud enough in my own head without adding voices of dissent and dissatisfaction muddying up my synapses. I suppose this is one right of the mentally ill. The removal of oneself from the entanglements of being ever present, ever vigilant, and ever available is self-care at it’s highest form. Maybe that’s true for everyone but …

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Filed Under: Mental Illness, Relationship, Story, Suffering

Bipolar is a Riptide: Breathing Lessons

January 15, 2017 By Alia Joy

I’ve written before that ~I write like a woman drowning. I write with a desperation to know and be known, to understand God, to see glory. I write to breathe again.~ I’ve been breathless lately. Mental illness is a riptide on otherwise calm shores. It is the pull of deep waters lulling you further and further from safe and sturdy ground, all at once weightless and buoyant, caressed by the lapping tides. It invites you to surrender, to be carried away in the vastness of the sea. To be small and …

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Filed Under: Depression, Mental Illness, Story, Suffering, Writing

Uncomfortable Love and the Cost of Community

November 28, 2016 By Alia Joy

The Past few Sundays I’ve watched my family pile into the car and pull out of our driveway on the way to church. I’ve chosen to stay behind. First it was because we got a new puppy, and he couldn’t last that long alone. Then it was because I was having severe back pain, and I could’t sit up that long. But then it was because I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to be around people. I chose to listen to a sermon podcast instead. I cleaned up the house, lay in bed, and watched the sky turn milky …

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Filed Under: Mental Illness, Race, Relationship

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Welcome

Hi, I’m Alia Joy

INFJ and Enneagram 4w5…so it’s complicated. Wife and mom, coffee-dependent, grace saved, cynical idealist learning fluency in her native tongue, the language of hope. My pen is my weapon of choice to fight off the darkness when depression looms, it is my compass for navigating my messy mind, my even messier heart. Writing is my wilderness and my home. I write the reminders to find my way back to the heart of God. I write to feel God’s pleasure.

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