Finding Faith and Joy in God's Timing: A Story from Joyana
Have you ever wrestled with God’s timing? How about finding joy in the midst of your trials? It’s not always easy to accept and come to peace with God’s plan instead of our own but it is worth it. Come listen and be strengthened by Joyana’s story of finding faith and joy in God’s timing.
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Discover Joyana’s beautiful Instagram account @templesbyjoyana or purchase one of her temple prints in her Etsy shop.
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Camille: Welcome to Chatting with Camille, helping you share the gospel of Jesus Christ at church home, and beyond.
Welcome, welcome, today is story week and I am excited to introduce you to Joyana. She is an artistic photographer and creator of Temples by Joyana. With years as a portrait photographer, she wanted to create a project that gives back. In January 2021, she dumped all her creative ideas on a piece of paper. Using airline points, family support, photo clients, and lots of hard work. She now has more than 350 temple images, scriptures and sayings. And she says, she's just getting started. Such a fabulous project that you're working on. I love it. I'm so glad you're here today.
Joyana: Thank you, Camille. Glad to be here.
Camille: I have loved looking at your Instagram because that's where you share a lot of your beautiful temple photography and scriptures and sayings. Such a great account. I'll make sure that we link to it in the show notes because people need to see it.
Joyana: Thank you.
Camille: Come and share your story.
Joyana: The story, Camille, that you've asked me to share is just something that maybe brought me closer to the gospel. A gospel principle that I've been able to share with my family- with my children, my husband, that kind of thing. I think all of us could have multiple stories that we share but one of them that you kind of hinted with me is maybe something that made a really big difference. It's been a long-term change and especially to my testimony, I think faith is the big thing that a lot of us rely on, but this would be mine for today. And specifically, one that I don't enjoy is faith in God's timing. That's been long-term. Has that been for you ever?
Camille: Definitely.
Joyana: Right.
Camille: That's a good one.
Joyana: Yeah, so faith is one thing, then adding that faith in His timing of what He wants to have happen and trusting that that is right, or okay. That can be really tough to do and why there's been several opportunities to view that, the specific story that can combine also with how this beautiful temple project even started is back in 2003.
I was pregnant with twins girls and I tried to have kids for about five years and did infertility and all that beautiful journey that it's tough, but it ended up in those gorgeous girls. At 23 weeks pregnant, I went into full labor. I got life flighted then went to Phoenix Children's Hospital in Arizona. We got to hold on for about 13 days until they were born. They were born at one and a half pounds each, and they have had ongoing challenges ever since. The challenges they could have had, we don't. And we're humbled by that a lot because there's a lot that they could have faced.
Today they are 19 years old and in college and doing great. I think that it's all the people that have had faith in them, all of their therapists and doctors, and the priesthood blessings and the things that have allowed us to support them and grow. They've had so many people over the years that have loved him, whether they were two months old or 19. They've had people in the gospel, out of the gospel, people that have challenged them, people have challenged me and then people have supported and reeled this back in when things got really hard to have that faith.
Where the story started with the photography is that I became a portrait photographer after a doctor told us in the NICU with them that probably should get a camera and take pictures, because that was most likely the only thing we'd be taking home. Why that's incredibly hard to hear as a mom, I can say it 19 years later without as much emotion, because I am grateful to this day that we had that little coax from our doctor. We took a number of pictures. In the NICU, you could study medical terms to even understand what was happening. You feel you're in a whole new world that you don't understand and that's scary. But then in this NICU, there was 59 other beds. There's other families that were going through things just as much as we were just in different ways.
I started taking a lot of pictures and then another family asked, “Hey, can you take a few for us?” And then another family asked, “Can you take some for us?” because what if they don't get to take anything but photos home? That brought the passion of wanting to provide something that makes people feel loved and feel the Spirit and feel what has been blessed to us by our Heavenly Father, whether it's our child, our family, our pet, or a temple. That started a photography business that went in and out for the last 19 years.
Photos from Temples by Joyana
Back in, like you said in the intro, back in 2021, just spurred an awesome idea. I went to my husband and I showed him literally scratch papers everywhere. I said, “Babe, can we do it? Can you follow me?” And I think he saw my face and knew that there wasn't much of a no option in that. With my parents, my siblings, their families, and my four children and my husband here and all our friends, this journey of photographing temples has become a way that I can have faith in every trial that's come from before then and after the NICU and all of the 19 years of things that have been sometimes easy and then sometimes incredibly hard.
Like a lot of us, we have a lot of hard. Some is public. Some is private. And even when it's public, people- they only hear or see what they want to. Going to the temple grounds became my place. Even if I just sat on a bench. I sat in the grass and I just enjoyed the view. And I thought that was the place where I get joy. I get happiness and I get peace when I'm struggling to find the faith in His timing.
All I could think was He's blessed me with this opportunity to be able to take photos. What can I do long-term to bless other families? And instead of continually asking why, why is this happening? It's easy to do that for sure. The better question I should have been asking is what. So cry for a minute in the corner. Go for it. But then what can I do? Like your awesome podcast, like everything you provide for these families, the fun ways to remember the gospel, to learn the gospel, to build our faith in His timing.
It's a way for me in a very small piece of people's homes or their office or their children's bedrooms, that type of thing to bring a temple to them. So far, we've shot 29 temples since we started. The journey's been fun. We've had a good time. It’s a little stressful. Lots of embarrassing moments and lots of successful moments. I took a couple of amazing Etsy courses. I was familiar, but not really on Etsy, more of the shopper. Now having the Etsy page where people can go on and buy the digital images and allow them to have that creative control over what they want for their home, to be able to feel that spirit. Just for a second. When they come walking down their stairs is my goal and what I'm hoping for.
In the meantime, every time I get to go, I feel blessed that that super hard and awful trial that I went through was Heavenly Father's way of saying, but look in 20 years, you're gonna be on Camille's podcast. And you're gonna tell people that look at a temple, whether it's one of mine or somebody else's, look at it every day and just feel that peace. Heavenly Father is there even when you feel He is not. And when your testimony is skyrocketing or the bottom of the barrel, that temple doesn't change. And His love for us doesn't change. And that has been a rock of faith for me over the years.
Camille: I absolutely love that. What a beautiful mission. And it's been these 19 years. That's incredible. When you started taking photos of your babies in the hospital, let's see, 19 years, I'm assuming it's not going to be a phone camera, right? Did you go out and buy a nice camera, right at the beginning? Or did you just buy whatever was there?
Joyana: No, there was nice camera purchased and I had to learn how to use that too. I didn't know what I was doing.
Camille: That's overwhelming. I mean, you just had these babies way before expected and now you're learning to do a camera. Wow. That's quite the experience just right there- learning all of that and how to take these pictures because you want to get them just right. Because that's all you might have had. How long did you end up being in the NICU then?
Joyana: 107. We were there 107 days. We had a lot of time to sit there and read, mostly, you know, medical, then photography, then medical, then photography. A lot of other things mixed in between. I think that's where the grace was. Well, if you're gonna sit then might as well learn something.
Camille: Yeah, that was probably a lot of good benefit. Keeping your mind busy, huh?
Joyana: Yeah, that was probably. Almost more of it at the beginning of what can I do to not focus on the sad and that helped a lot, have something different to focus on.
Camille: I've seen a lot of your photography through the years. They're always beautiful pictures, especially with your families, I love it. These temple projects have been so fun to see. What was the first temple that you ended up choosing? Was it just because it was close or did you choose one in particular?
Joyana: The first temple was. in San Antonio, Texas. I had clients out there that wanted me to come out and shoot some family photos. Then they had a friend that wanted senior photos then another family wanted family photos. What the heck let's make it happen. Because of COVID, the pandemic, the flights were very cheap. I had to be extra safe, of course, and take a lot of precautions. To be able to go for a very inexpensive cost was the blessing. It started at this first temple with a dear friend. This is the temple where one of my most embarrassing moments almost happened where I was squatting down to take a picture, to get the right shot for you guys. Behind me was like this 10-12 foot drop down to the parking lot and I was squatting down. There was a cactus right in front of me, like between my legs and knees and I almost fell and I went to grab the cactus then I had to let go, because I was holding the camera. I didn't fall. Let's go there.
Camille: Okay. But ouch either way.
Joyana: Yeah. Behind the scenes video would've been beneficial.
Camille: Would've been a viral reel right now, right?
Joyana: Yeah. for sure. That's yeah, it would've been really sad.
Camille: Oh, wow. I'm glad you didn't fall. My goodness.
Joyana: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's just who I am. It's whatever. It's expected.
Camille: One of the things you mentioned was the timing, faith and the timing. And I love the question that you ended up asking instead of the why, like what, that's a great transition. How have you found joy in those 19 years when it was during the struggle parts, where it was more difficult to feel the joy, how did you turn towards that joy?
Joyana: That's a really great question, because it's one that doesn't, for me at least, it didn't just come. I think throughout the years I've learned, especially through a big trial that you have to give- I have to, let's go there- I have to give myself grace. Because if I think I'm not supposed to be sad, I'm not supposed to be mad, I'm not supposed to have whatever motion comes with that trial. And such as the NICU, I'm a brand new parent, brand new mom. I had an incredible amount of list of tragic things happen in the last 13 days. Then my babies are born. We don't know. There's the list is long and a lot of parents can relate to that. They've had babies in the NICU and, trials, and we were blessed to bring them home.
I think that is where one of them is. You focus on someone worse than you or someone better than you, not in a judgment way. But what I mean is you're focusing on, in the NICU, a family that has something harder than you do. And you thought, man, how can I support them today and not feel sorry as much for myself today? Easier said than done. I had my days where it needed to be me. And then there was days where families got to leave and it was important to celebrate them being able to go home. Celebrating the wins for people you love. Being able to support the people when they have the losses. It has been a big thing, I guess, for me over the years of the grace of just feeling what I need to and not holding back and knowing that how Heavenly Father's just gonna support me.
I know that if I had a piece of advice is make things easiest on yourself. I think that there's a lot of ways we can be really hard, especially in the gospel on ourselves. Something is supposed to be a certain way or supposed to be like this, or be like that. Guess what? I love my Heavenly Father, and I love my relationship with Him, wherever that is today. It's been all over the place throughout the years. If we can give ourselves that grace and the faith, it can only do us good. I dunno if that's a magic, prophetic, anything, but for me it's been important.
Camille: Absolutely. I love what you said about giving ourselves grace and finding the beauty, even in ourselves, in our journey. It doesn't look the same for all of us and being okay with wherever we are right now because that is so true there's no need to compare our journey to somebody else's and that's one of the reasons why we share these stories. It’s not so that we can compare, but so that we can be strengthened through these stories and realize my story is a good story too, and I love it. And I'm okay with where I'm at right now.
Joyana: I love, love that.
Camille: Let's move on and share more about your business right now. Like I said, I've loved your beautiful photographs. Tell people where they can find them, where to follow you and how they can get their own beautiful creation.
Joyana: Thank you. I have an Instagram page. It's at Temples by Joyana and Joyana is J O Y A N A. It's an Instagram page that highlights some of the temples that we've been doing, but there's a big project coming up that's gonna be promoted on there, hopefully, this fall. I'm excited to show all of you that right now, all of my images are sold on an Etsy page also called Temples by Joanna. I sell images that are modern and white and with a very artistic aesthetic that has as little distraction as possible. That was my goal to be able to do something a little bit different than what was out there, even though all the temples are so beautiful, but I wanted to keep the integrity of the temple itself, but give it a little twist for a modern and simple and just beautiful look. That's what I'm hoping for all of you
Camille: And they are, it's just this pure. I don't know. You just feel it differently. I agree. I love your twist on it. It's so beautiful. Thank you for coming on and for sharing your story with us, sharing your journey, faith and the timing. That is such a good example, because like you said, you've been doing this 19 years of faith in the timing, at least for this particular part of the story. I love that. Thank you for coming on and sharing. I will link to you in the show notes. Please go and check her out. Absolutely wonderful.
Joyana: Thank you, Camille.
Camille: Want to have more gospel conversations with your family? Come to my market and check out my gospel games at cknscratch.com, where you can have all kinds of fun, simple conversations while playing a game. Because the more we talk about the gospel, the easier it is.
