8 hours

I thank God for His protection during our trip to neighbour country and the best thing I could ever thankful is 8 hours journey long from Singapore to JB.
I know that everything happens for a reason and as we have expected there will be traffic jam, we still go ahead with the plan.
However, beyond what happened, God taught me a lot of things during the 8 hours journey

1. Start Early

 

We planned to leave home during sunrise, my bad, I was overslept. After morning preparation we left home around 8am, 1 hour late from the scheduled timing.

And guess what, that's where everybody started leaving house as well so the jam couldn't be avoided.
Our travel companion left 2 hours earlier than us and they took 5.5 hours journey to reach the destination.

Lesson learned : Start early so that we can arrive to the destination earlier. 
And it applies to every aspect in life either career, job, family, health, wealth accumulation. The earlier we start, the earlier we see the results.

2. Have a companion

We were fortunate to have travel companion for this journey. Our friends have gone through the journey earlier than us so they cheered us up when we were still stuck in traffic jam.

If we travelled alone, we might have given up right after we saw the jam. Companion was very essential to support and cheer each other. In the end, we could enjoy the moment together.

Lesson learned : Human is created as social beings, in every aspect of life - family, work, health or any goals, we need someone to help, support and cheer us up and we are also asked to help, support and cheer up others.

3. Positive Fuel Energy

It's easy to get negative emotion when we were stuck. We started thinking negatively and blaming ourselves and others

"What are we doing here?",
"How fool we are, we know that it will be jam during holiday".
"Why we left late?"

and in the end it may ruin everybody's mood and holiday became disaster.

Then, I learnt a lot from our children. During the journey, they were always happy and excited. They created their own entertainment. They laughed as if nobody's business.

It may be annoying sometimes, but learning from them, despite unfavourable situation, they were still able to hold positive mood.

Lesson Learned : I remember law of attraction, when we start developing negative thoughts, all other negativity starts coming, inconvenience after inconvenience. However when we feed the positive energy, everything that's positive starts to put in place too.

4. Enjoy the process

It's not easy to enjoy the process and journey if we are in negative energy. Therefore, to be able to enjoy the journey, we need to equip and surround ourselves with positive energy.

During the journey, we passed by Kranji MRT and I believed it's not coincidence.

We were able to go to proper toilet twice and had quick lunch while in the jam.

The kids were eating in the bus stop while observing the jam. We saw different people with different kind of moods and characters too.

Some were emotional, some were relax and enjoyed the journey too and some even left the car in the middle of the road :P

Lesson Learned : When we enjoy the process, along the way we may find the opportunities. We also may learn from others too how they handle the pressures during the process.

5. Faith over doubt

During the journey, we relied on GPS to guide us because we believed that GPS had overall traffic views better than us. However, there were times we were doubting GPS. We have lots questions

"If we take other roads, would it be faster?"
"How about other checkpoints, it may not be so bad, right?"
"What if GPS was wrong?"

In the end, we still took the recommended route by GPS even though its timing may not accurate.

Lesson Learned : Sometimes it happens in real life. Whatever current situation we are right now, we may have doubt with our Creator. 

Is God always right ? What if I take other job or other opportunities? Why God puts me to this situation ? What if ....?

The basic question we need to ask ourselves is Who are we? 

We may not even know what will happen in our life 3 seconds from now? But Our Creator knows ourselves better than we are.

Instead of having unending doubt, we should take a small step of faith trusting Him.

6. God's providence

During the journey, God provided us with proper toilet break, proper food. And even near the checkpoint, He provided us with faster alternatives by using lorries' lane.

Lesson Learned : When God has chosen and called us to do His mission, He will provide for whatever we need if we stay faithful in Him. He will always be with us.

7. Victory over the defeat

In the end of 8 hours journey, we managed to arrive and checked in the hotel.

The hotel room was spacious, comfortable and the kids enjoyed them.

We had scrumptious seafood dinner. 

The next morning, we enjoyed the hotel's facilities. The kids were swimming while we were in the gym.

Breakfast was good with lots of variety. After that we went to indoor playground and the kids were having fun. While waiting for them, we indulged on chendol.

Before leaving Johor, we dropped by Desaru Coast. Strolling and having dinner there.

 

 

We left Desaru after dinner and the traffic was smooth. We only queued for 30 minutes at Second Link Checkpoint.

Overall, we enjoyed our short getaway despite 8 hours jam in the beginning.

Lesson Learned : When we put our positive thoughts together, everything starts coming into the place and in the end, the enjoyment overpowers the suffering in the beginning.