So beautiful!

Because of the holiday and "fun days" in town Colton and Steph have been working like crazy.  Steph has put in 26 hour in the last 48 hours at work.  She is tired!  Last night she fell asleep early and slept like a rock!  I am glad as she sure needed it.  She hasn't had much time for anything else.  Today she is just working at the Merk from 11-7.  She would normally give a hand at DQ afterwords, but she is going down to Hertzners instead.  Her car should be ready to be picked up after work.  

Colton said yesterday he got to work (goes at 10am to get everything running and then opens at 11).  Well the owner was having a rummage sale in the parking lot and was there early and started everything up, so that Colton could just open at 10... alone (cause the staff wouldn't be there until 11).  He said, when he pulled in, the lot was full and people were in line waiting.  He said he called the staff to come in right away and he ran his buns off the whole day.  They had two working the drive through and two working the window (they needed more).  Then around 6 or so he left and Steph called him at 8pm and said,..."get here now!"  there were cars for the drive through down the street and lines for the window down the sidewalk.  too bad they didn't have a second to take a pic.  Colton said, poor Eli was so beat that all he wanted to do was to climb into bed the moment he got home.

My back is still broken.  The spasms are getting old.  Although it isn't as bad as the past few days, it is still limiting me from doing much.  Funny, it isn't screaming at me unless I move, but when I don't move, it just aches.  So that is better (sad but true).  And my lymph nodes are still swollen.  Last night they were throbbing so bad, that a few times it took my breath away.  On top of it, my ribs are hurting too.  Maybe some of the pain has to do with the weather, we are expecting some rain.  But tomorrow should be nice for the picnic.  

EO and Lauren are in service this morning.  I keep forgetting to take a pic of Lauren's hair.  She had it cut the other day.  I haven't seen it that short in many years. It is really cute!  She loves it.  I guess her plan is to let it grown down to the length she has wanted it, and then it will be easier for her to just have it trimmed.  She tries to tell them what length she wants it, but they never seem to get it right.  

I studied my WT this morning, put some time in the ministry and did my Bible reading.  I finished the book of Ecclesiastes...I have to say, I have never really considered how much vanity there really is.  More than just the physical appearance.  From property, material things, work or even hospitality or charity, which makes perfect sense being that is what it is, I just hadn't thought about it in the way (at least not that I can remember).  If what we do is to boost our own feelings about ourselves or give ourselves a "pat on the back" and we feel good about ourselves because of what we are doing... then it is vanity and a striving after the wind.  If we work as servants of Jehovah and we work to serve others not for our own glory but for Jehovah, then it serves it's purpose.  I have to say...I really see that a lot... "I'm doing this because it makes me feel good"... that is the world in a nutshell and it is wrong.  It isn't humble and it isn't for Jehovah.  

I have been thinking about this for a number of years now, I know I don't have the same kind of humility as so many in the Bible have, or today as the faithful slave has.  Or how about the Missionaries or CO and DO.  to give up material stuff (which is also vanity) and not even having a home... that is humility that I wish I had.   Not just humility but just always seeing things the way Jehovah does.  I know we all try to see things from Jehovah's perspective, but there are just so many aspect I don't even think about, and I just should put more effort into. 

I have been making more of a point to daily listen to the Kingdom Melodies.  Instead of just "from time to time", but daily.  So it is now in my routine that after I finish my Bible reading and ministry, I listen to them while I am on the computer, writing or taking care of my email or anything else.  My hope is, I will start to remember them.  I don't remember much since 2000.  This illness just doesn't let me retain much, no matter how hard I try to remember, i just can't.  Like I had no memory of the fact that Julie moved a few months ago.  I had been wondering where she was, but I didn't remember she moved.  EO told me what I said when he told me she moved, and it sounded like something I would say, but I don't remember saying it or hearing that she moved.  It is so awful to not retain anything.  Everyone says they are so forgetful.  But it is one thing to be forgetful, where they just "space" something out, but it is another thing to not remember anything.  People I have met, people I had a meal with, conversations, events.  Even when others are forgetful, most  things come back to them and it is sporadic what they forget.  I have memory of many things before I got sick, it is almost like I the past 13 years have never happened.  I remember all sorts of things from when the kids were little, of life before I was married and my childhood.  But as if I slept through the last 13 years and life went on without me.  I am often lost, dazed and confused by what is happening around me.  It shakes me up and scares me.

In a way I think I might understand what people will be going through when they are brought back to life.  How many years will have gone by for them, how many changes will have been made, how technology will have changed.  I can imagine they would be lost, dazed and confused.  The realization that they have so much they have to learn, may be intimidating or over whelming for them.  How about people who have never seen a car, or phone or electricity.  Oh, the other day I finished reading the yearbook.  And (I remember this) ...can't remember though the name of the country... it was the long experience in the back of the book, anyways, it talked about all those people who attended the district convention for the first time, it was not only the first time many of them experienced electricity, but also air conditioning.  I can imagine how strange that must have been for them.  They certainly will be able to relate to those resurrected who have never seen such things.