SPOILER ALERT: If you care about watching one of the greatest movies ever, you might want to stop now.
I love Pollyanna. It's a movie that just makes you happy. For the sad few who haven't seen it, it's older Disney movie about a little girl. Pollyanna is the daughter of two missionaries who die and leave her in the care of her wealthy aunt, Polly Harrington. Her aunt is not a bad woman, but she is stern, with most of the town under her thumb. Much of the town is emotionally broken, caught up in a negative world-view that is focused on hardship.
Pollyanna comes in and introduces the glad game, the way that she was taught by her parents to react to situations. Pollyanna believes that in any scenario, one can choose to pick out the bad parts or the glad parts. She encourages the townspeople to focus on God’s blessings and in this, frees the town and ushers in a new period of joy.
Isn’t that the way we should all live? We make a choice in every situation to react to God’s blessings or not. Many times it may be easier to look for the difficulties, complaining comes more naturally to most, but we can also choose to be thankful for the good parts.
It took us 68 hours to get from Atlanta to Cape Town. 68 HOURS!! 2 flights, a layover, a night in a hostel, a significant amount of time sitting in a bus station and a 19 hour bus ride later, we arrived in Cape Town. The greatest part about the entire experience was that our squad already functions under this Pollyanna mindset. Were we tired? Yes. Were we frustrated? Yes. Were we hungry? Yes. But we were also together and we were also excited! Instead of complaining, we sang, joked around and got to know each other. This is going to be an amazing year!!
