Oscar Wilde said,
In America,
The president reigns for four years and journalism governs forever and ever.
And this quotation is really a perfect introduction for my guest this episode,
Yvette Walker,
Who wears many hats,
Many,
Many hats.
Besides for having her own podcast called Positively Joy,
She's an author,
A teacher,
A speaker,
And yes,
A journalist.
But she isn't only a journalist when it comes to words.
She's also published devotionals,
As well as her latest book,
Sixty,
Which is about a reporter returning to her small town and the mysteries and secrets she uncovers there.
Yvette is so multi-talented and prolific,
And she does it all with the most gorgeous smile on her face.
She is absolutely here to change the world for the better,
One creative project at a time.
On her website,
It says that Yvette uses storytelling to empower and authorize women to tap into joy in their life by choosing spiritual over physical happiness.
Now Mother Teresa said,
You want to know what she said about joy?
She said,
Joy is prayer,
Joy is strength,
Joy is love.
Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
And honestly,
By the end of our conversation,
I was joyful and I was sad that I had to let Yvette go.
But now I know that she's in the world,
Making this place a lot more shiny.
I feel so much better.
You would not even believe it.
I just absolutely know you're going to fall in love with her as well.
So now here's my interview with the wonderful Yvette Walker.
So I get there and she was,
She was under,
But she woke up for me.
And my mother was a nurse and she,
She worked with the terminally ill and she was always,
She always believed that you do have control of your death in some way.
She was a strong believer of that.
To some degree,
People who would hang on for too long and she would tell them,
It's okay,
You can let go now,
Or for people who needed to fight,
Whatever.
So anyway,
She woke up for me,
We're all in there crying,
You know?
And then she says in a very clear voice,
Why are you crying?
You know,
I'm not afraid to die.
So I remember when I said that I felt like I had this encounter on that retreat.
So you got to remember,
You know,
When I was a little girl,
I felt like I could feel the presence of God,
You know,
In like in these churches I was in when I was a little girl.
And over time,
I'd gotten farther and farther from that,
From that.
And so when I was on this retreat,
And there's just no way to describe it,
And people are not gonna understand,
But there was an exercise that we were supposed to do,
Where you were,
We all had these index cards,
And we were supposed to,
We were supposed to pray and just write down whatever comes to you.
And then later,
The index cards at random would go to people,
To people who were in,
Were at the retreat.
There was one,
So I'm just sitting,
I'm sitting outside,
Like on a bench,
And it was a lovely day.
And so I'm just every card,
I would write one.
And then there was a,
There was like a van or maybe like an SUV or something parked nearby me under a tree.
And an acorn or a nut or something of some kind fell from the tree and hit the van and made this sound that I can't explain,
Except I just knew it to be God communicating with me.
I cannot,
I just can't explain it any other way.
So I have the card here somewhere.
And I wrote down,
Lord,
Is that,
I mean,
I wrote,
I wrote that experience down.
And I said,
Lord,
I know you can talk,
I know you can talk to me.
I feel like that was,
I mean,
I wrote this experience down.
And then I turned the cards in and we don't know who's going to get the card.
Guess who got that card?
Me.
That card was for me.
The card was confirmation that the Lord hadn't,
Had not stopped talking to me.
I had just forgotten how to listen.
So that's,
That is one.
And I can't explain it because there's no way you can understand,
Know what it felt like or know what it,
You know,
What,
What it sounded like.
But you know,
But,
But the Bible talks about the sound,
The sound of God's voice.
And it's a couple,
I mean,
It can be a lot of people say,
You know,
Quiet,
Still voice,
But also rushing when,
I mean,
There's lots of different ways that the Bible describes his voice.
On that day for me,
It was some kind of acorn or something hitting this car,
But it was just,
It was just really the,
And the other thing I'll say is I have been so blessed to be at the deathbed of both my parents.
My mother,
Who was a nurse,
She didn't say anything profound,
But she was a nurse and she was always very honest about death with us.
And she was also a believer.
And so I'm in,
I'm,
I have to travel to get to the hospital and I'm crying on the plane the whole thing.
Cause I knew,
You know,
My sister was like,
You got to get here now.
So I get there and she was,
She was under,
But she woke up for me.
And my mother was a nurse and she,
She worked with the terminally ill and she was always,
She always believed that you do have control of your death in some way.
She was a strong believer of that.
To some degree,
People who would hang on for too long and she would tell them,
It's okay,
You can let go now or for people who needed to fight,
Whatever.
So anyway,
She woke up for me,
We're all in there crying,
You know?
And then she says in a very clear voice,
Why are you crying?
You know,
I'm not afraid to die.
And then we talked just a little bit more before she went back under and then she passed that night.
So I mean,
I don't know if that was a miracle or so,
But,
But again,
I know that you don't have to fear death.
My mother didn't fear death.
She always taught us that and because she witnessed,
She witnessed death all the time in her,
She wasn't a hospice nurse,
But she,
But she worked with the terminally ill and she saw many of them die and the transitions that she witnessed and then her own transition proves to me that I don't have to be afraid of death.
So that's something I carry with me.
Thanks so much for listening to this episode.
And thanks to Yvette for sharing all of her amazing stories and all about her journalistic life and everything that she experienced there.
Please do remember to rate and review the podcast as well.
Please subscribe and share the heck out of it.
Those ratings and reviews help other people discover this little labor of love of mine.
And of course,
As always,
I would be ever so grateful.
So thank you for listening.
And here's my one request,
Be like Yvette,
Spread joy,
Be shameless about it.
This world can always use a little more joy,
A little more happiness.
And as Mother Teresa said,
That joy,
It's infectious.
It can cure souls.
It can cure hearts.
It can lift others up in ways that we can only guess at.
So be like Yvette,
Be shameless and spread joy,
Just knowing that you're changing the world and the people in it every single day.
