Our Test: Be Joyful

While planning our year abroad we needed to come up with family goals. If you don’t know what your purpose is you will quickly lose your way. Between Jake and I we know one goal this adventure needed to accomplish: the take off of Jake’s company and podcast. Family goals are what keeps us focused when the going gets tough or when we lose our ambition to continue. We have a family goal to be joyful no matter the circumstance.

I’m being real with you when I say this family struggles being joyful at times. However, between Jake and I we make a pretty good team. When he is struggling with finding joy in a situation, I can rally his spirits. It works the other way around too, I would say Jake is much better at rallying my spirits than I am his, though. (A little shout out!) Having the children learn to be joyful amid stressful, bad, or ugly situations now will make life much easier for them in the future. Modeling this behavior as a parent is much harder when you are learning it later in life.

We have had a fair amount of circumstances that have put our goal, being joyful amid unfavorable circumstances, to the test. Between the burglary, lack of internet, throwing away a plane ticket, paying for nights in Airbnb‘s we aren’t using, being sick…there are many reasons we can complain and be unhappy. Frustrating as complications are, finding joy is possible.

Hungry, Tired, and Traffic

We recently had an experience where joy was hard to find. We had just spent four wonderful days in Singapore exploring and were now on a bus ride north to Kuala Lumpur. The bus ride was quite peaceful with Averi, Tage, Jake, and me sleeping much of the way. One of the hard parts of traveling from country to country is estimating how much local currency you are going to need so you don’t have to convert a lot of cash or waste it last minute. In Singapore we literally came down to cents, it was as close to perfect an estimation as you could get. That is until you realize you could have used at least a few dollars more.

Around lunch time the bus stopped for a break in a more or less remote location. All that was around us was a food court and a newspaper stand. No ATM’s and credit cards weren’t accepted, but they will take Singapore or Malaysian money. That would have been great if we had either of those. We fully anticipated an ATM machine to get some cash for lunch. In my backpack I had Skyflake biscuits and maybe some left over cookies. We ate those up, but we still had another couple of hours before our destination.

A driver was arranged to pick us up at Sunway Lagoon, about a twenty-minute drive from our home for the next month. When we arrived at Sunway Lagoon, we could not find our driver. By a miracle, my phone connected to Wifi and I was able to get in touch with our host. After waiting almost an hour from the time the bus dropped us off to the time our driver found us, we were still penniless and hungry. Angels are always in our path and this day was no different. The concierge at the Sunway Lagoon hotel was a very friendly man who thoroughly enjoyed talking with us and made sure to tell our driver that we needed to stop by a bank.

The children were beginning to mention that their tummies were quite hungry by this point, about 3:30pm. We found success at a bank and now had cash, we only needed food. Twenty minutes to our destination, no problem; we could make it. And then the biggest obstacle of all happened: traffic. I’ll spare you the details of moving twelve feet in forty-five minutes, but I will tell you the driver is kind and patient and really handled the situation well.

Three hours, yes-you read that right, three hours later we were finally at the front door of our new residence. We had bread rolls at 7:30am that morning and biscuits and 12:30pm and were now absolutely starving being that it was nearly 7:00pm. After getting a tour of the place and then left to ourselves, we bolted out the door as fast as we could to the mall across the street. We found the food court and all our bodies were once again restored with energy.

How Did We Handle the Situation?

Our attitudes during this time was surprisingly good. Yes, the children were hungry and they did mention that it was taking much longer to get to our residence than we said it would. However, they were quiet and didn’t make a scene about it. Jake and I kept assuring them that we would get them food soon if they just held on a moment longer. It helped that our driver was patient. His patience rubbed off on everyone else in the vehicle making the uncomfortable situation our bodies were experiencing easier.

Did we have joy? I can’t say we were feeling joy, exactly, but the complaining was kept to a minimum and in our book, that is a step in the right direction.  More joy was certainly had when we finally felt life come back into our bodies after eating.

Feeling Joy in Unfavorable Conditions

1. Be the positive influence so others can feel calm.
2. Look for the good that is happening. In our situation the concierge was helpful and kind, we were able to find a bank and get money, the driver was patient, we knew we would get food eventually.
3. Put a smile on your face. There is a fun song I would sing as a child:
   1. If you chance to meet a frown,
   Do not let it stay.
   Quickly turn it upside down
   And smile that frown away.
   2. No one likes a frowning face.
   Change it for a smile.
   Make the world a better place
   By smiling all the while.

   Words: Daniel Taylor.

4. Know that your circumstance will not last forever.
5. Stay busy doing good work; or, in our circumstance, stay engaged in conversation.
6. Look outside of yourself to help someone else who is in need. This will help you forget your troubles.

And Remember: