JOY.

A week has passed by and we've been doing italian lessons everyday for 3 hours this week. I'm finally starting to speak simple conversations and understand most of what is said. Even though I probably sound horrible, but the effort counts. And this week we've worked just 3 times doing the same thing: packaging soaps and putting stickers on the soaps...which leads me to my next experience.

A few days ago at work I was helping with carrying the finished soap boxes to this big table so that others could place stickers on each of the soaps. And being me, I was trying to do this "efficiently" as I call it, quickly, with as many soap boxes as I can carry, and without dropping any. So my supervisor saw me doing it this way and thought I was carrying too many, so she told me to only do 4 boxes at a time, as I was managing like 8 boxes each time. So I listened obediently, and then my boss comes in and she sees me carrying the boxes and with a rude tone of voice (in italian) you must do this "delicately," placing the boxes on the table. And of course I listened and tried my best to do it delicately.

Then 10 mins later she sees me again, and says in an angry tone "Can someone please translate for her because she understands nothing in italian." I understood that part of what she said and most of what she said but she thought I didn't understand her. I also understood that she said "fa male" which means I was doing my job badly. Inside I felt such a humiliation as she was speaking to me rudely in front of everyone, and everyone saw it. For 10 mins, my face was just so stone cold as I was really hurt on the inside because I felt that she was using her authority and the fact that I didn't understand everything in italian to her advantage. But I just couldn't allow myself to cry infront of her, I had to stand firm.

One comment after another within 30 mins, she was constantly speaking to me in a rude tone and telling me to do my job "with LOVE." In my heart I was thinking speak to me with LOVE, and then I'll do my job with LOVE. But right after I thought that, I realized that I need to love her first and see Jesus in HER, I thought maybe she didn't sleep much, or she is really stressed, or something else that made her speak rudely to me. As this was Jesus Forsaken (suffering) that came, I knew I needed to embrace it as soon as I could (always, right away, and with Joy). And then  as soon as I was able to embrace it; What remained was pure JOY, a joy that has such freedom - an indescribable joy.

Then later on in the day and 10 mins before I left, my boss got really upset at me because again I wasn't doing my job right. It was so hard to do what she said because one person was telling to do it this way and she was telling me to do her way. But when she got upset with me and said again many rude comments that I won't mention, I was so unaffected by what she said because I had let go of my anger towards her, I was just joyful. I was looking at her seriously, but when I turned to everyone else I was just smiling because I was actually happy. At the end of work, I looked to her with the biggest smile and said "Ciao!" She actually smiled back at me and waved goodbye.

And the next day I came to work, again with the biggest smile, I said "Ciao!" She looked at me with a smirk and said something like "oh, it's you, the one that made all the mistakes the other day." But this time I made sure I did or tried my best to do everything to perfection and nothing happened that day thankfully.

So in suffering, if we embrace it right away, always, and with JOY...suffering actually bores such supernatural joy that doesn't come from everyday happiness, or just doing acts of love/ kindness. It only exists when there is suffering.

:)