All Activity

Patience produces lasting spiritual growth. You’re not convinced. Patience never feels finished when you’re inside it. It usually feels like delay. Like being asked to slow down when everything in you wants resolution. Wait! That word can tighten the chest. Waiting feels motionless, but it’s not. Waiting requires something of you. It exposes what you want fixed now and what you are willing to wait for. Patience begins there, not as something we admire from a distance, but as something placed right in front of us. Wait!! That second time feels different. Now it feels personal. Now it is inconvenient. Now it feels like it is taking longer than it should. You feel the frustration growing. The longer it takes, the more frustrated you are. This is where we start wondering whether waiting is doing any good at all. Are you missing something? Look closely at Jehovah. When he described himself to Moses, two expressions appeared together. He is “slow to anger” and “abundant in loyal love.” Those thoughts appear together again in the Scriptures. Jehovah’s loyal love does not disappear when people disappoint him. He remains involved. He gives time. He warns. He corrects. He forgives when there is repentance. He waits. — Exodus 34:6; Psalm 103:8 Israel certainly gave Jehovah reasons to stop waiting. They repeated mistakes. They forgot what they had already learned. At times they turned away after experiencing his care firsthand. Yet Jehovah kept reaching out. He sent prophets. He gave warnings and comfort. When they cried out, he heard them. Year after year, generation after generation, his patience remained active. Not because the wrong did not matter, but because the people still mattered to him. — Nehemiah 9:30, 31 Take note of this. Patience is not weakness. It is love staying involved when it would be easier to give up. Now look even closer. Love is part of the fruitage of the spirit. So is patience. But when the Bible describes what love actually does, it begins with something interesting: “Love is patient.” The study note gives another way those words can be understood: “love is long-suffering.” — Galatians 5:22; 1 Corinthians 13:4 Long-suffering. There is something in that expression that simply saying “wait” may not fully capture. Love can be called on to wait when waiting hurts. It may have to endure disappointment. It may have to see the same weakness again. Yet love does not immediately decide that the person is finished. It stays long enough for patience to have time to do its work. Maybe that helps us understand why Jehovah’s loyal love and his being slow to anger fit so naturally together. Loyal love stays. Patience gives it time to stay. We do not need to separate the two thoughts too sharply. We can simply watch what Jehovah does. And then watch Jesus. The night before his death, when the pressure on him must have been enormous, his apostles argued again about who among them was the greatest. Again. They had been with Jesus for years. They had heard him teach humility. They had watched him live it. They had even argued about greatness before. And here they were, doing it again. — Mark 9:33-37; Luke 22:24 Jesus corrected their thinking. But he did not treat their repeated weakness as proof that they were beyond help. He did not confuse slow growth with rebellion. He did not give up on men simply because they had not yet become what he knew they could become. He stayed. He taught. He waited. That patience looks familiar, doesn’t it? Jesus was showing them what he had seen in his Father. Jehovah had patiently dealt with imperfect people for generations, and now Jesus patiently dealt with imperfect men sitting at the table with him. Their weakness was real. So was his love for them. And because the love remained, so did the patience. Later, those same men did change. Men who had argued about greatness learned to serve. They endured hardship. They cared for congregations. They spent themselves for others. The growth was not there when Jesus first corrected them. It was not even complete the last night he spent with them. It needed time. So perhaps there are moments when we see a weakness in someone and immediately know what needs to change. We may even be right. But knowing what needs to change is not the same as knowing how long change should take. Wait! Not because wrong does not matter. Not because correction never has a place. But because Jehovah may still be working with someone who is unfinished. Patience leaves room for counsel to settle, for an example to be remembered, for a heart to soften, for spiritual growth that we cannot yet see. Love is patient. Long-suffering. Sometimes love stays long enough to see what impatience would have walked away from. Patience does not resolve things quickly. It leaves… unfinished… still in motion. And maybe that is the point. Patience keeps us close to Jehovah long enough for his work to continue — in others, and in us. Wait.

That's the weekend of the AM. My guess would be next Friday.

I wanted to experience serving Jehovah free from financial worries. I'm not talking about high food or fuel costs. I'm talking about having bills to pay, not expecting to earn enough, having to decide what you'll have to cut to pay the rest. Reaching the end of the month with no money left over for anything. Not being able to go to the grocery store to buy everything you need. Depending on transportation and not having it. Along with financial problems come anxiety, stress, fatigue, and discouragement. Never give up! As the song says in Portuguese: "I am persevering, without fear of fighting, with Him supporting me, I know that nothing will defeat me!"

More like in 2 weeks

This is a really good idea! Because anytime we hit the little copy button for a paragraph on WOL and then paste it on Obsidian or any word document, the citation is always like this: *** w26 March p. 5 par. 10 *** So if you implement this citation format, that means in Obsidian --- ALL of our already copied sentences or paragraphs from WOL (and I have hundreds) will suddenly have a direct link!! That would be so very helpful

And don't forget Eurovision! Canada is already joining Eurovision for 2027. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest

Friday, September 18 Happy is the man who is always on guard.—Prov. 28:14. How can we guard ourselves? Consider what we can learn from the young man discussed in Proverbs chapter 7. He committed sexual immorality with an immoral woman. Verse 22tells us that the young man went after her “suddenly.” But as the preceding verses show, he had taken several steps before this that gradually led him to sin. What led up to his sin? First, in the evening, he “passed along the street near [the immoral woman’s] corner.” Then, he marched toward her house. (Prov. 7:8, 9) Next, when he saw the woman, he did not turn away. Instead, he accepted her kiss and listened as she spoke of the communion sacrifices she had offered, perhaps in an attempt to make him think that she was not a bad person. (Prov. 7:13, 14, 21) Had the young man avoided the dangers that led up to the sin, he would have guarded himself from the temptations and from the sin. w24.07 16 ¶8-9; 19 ¶19

Tomorrow?🤷‍♂️

Russia is escalating its attacks on Europe. The risk of a misstep is growing every day https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/17/europe/russia-attacks-europe-misstep-analysis-intl

Canada may draw closer to the European Union as the EU has proposed a new class of membership status which it is calling an “associate member” if Canada joins, and the category is fully fleshed out in EU law, could we see the EU grow on an international scale? Canada and the EU are expected to flesh out the proposal further around their summit next month in Montréal, October 29–30 (Reuters)

Berkeley Prize: Project UNCOVER Release date: 17 Sept 2026 12noon ID: 2026-407 STScI Scientists Part of Collaboration Receiving 2027 Berkeley Prize UNCOVER project revealed JWST’s “little red dots” as mysterious, dusty black holes in the early universe. Scientists from the Space Telescope Science Institute are members of the collaboration that has been awarded the 2027 Lancelot M. Berkeley–New York Community Trust Prize for Meritorious Work in Astronomy as part of their work with the UNCOVER project. The Berkeley prize is awarded annually for highly meritorious work in advancing the science of astronomy during the previous year. UNCOVER is a Cycle 1 Treasury program on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. This program conducted ultradeep imaging and spectroscopy of and around Abell 2744, a massive group of galaxies also known as “Pandora's Cluster.” Article link: https://www.stsci.edu/contents/news-releases/2026/news-2026-407/ Pic Description: Astronomers estimate 50,000 sources of near-infrared light are represented in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Their light has travelled through varying distances to reach the telescope’s detectors, representing the vastness of space in a single image. A foreground star in our own galaxy, to the right of the image center, displays Webb’s distinctive diffraction spikes. Bright white sources surrounded by a hazy glow are the galaxies of Pandora’s Cluster, a conglomeration of already-massive clusters of galaxies coming together to form a megacluster. The concentration of mass is so great that the fabric of spacetime is warped by gravity, creating an effect that makes the region of special interest to astronomers: a natural, super-magnifying glass called a “gravitational lens” that they can use to see very distant sources of light beyond the cluster that would otherwise be undetectable, even to Webb. These lensed sources appear red in the image, and often as elongated arcs distorted by the gravitational lens. Many of these are galaxies from the early universe, with their contents magnified and stretched out for astronomers to study. Other red sources in the image have yet to be confirmed by follow-up observations with Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument to determine their true nature. One intriguing example is an extremely compact source that appears as a tiny red dot, despite the magnifying effect of the gravitational lens. One possibility is that the dot is a supermassive black hole in the early universe. NIRSpec data will provide both distance measurements and compositional details of selected sources, providing a wealth of previously-inaccessible information about the universe and how it has evolved over time. This image was taken as part of the UNCOVER Cycle 1 Treasury program. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Ivo Labbe (Swinburne), Rachel Bezanson (University of Pittsburgh) Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

When I was younger (1950s) I was nearly obsessive about keeping up with what each new model looked like every year, and could tell most car makes and year from just viewing a small part. In the 1960s I discovered Sport Cars and European Formula 1 racing. I bought every issue of every magazine. That lasted until my "hero of the time" Jimmy Clark (drove for Lotus) was killed. Then, in my "second childhood" I bought a Datsun 280Z. That lasted until my son turned 16 and I had to add him to listed drivers. My insurance agent called me as said: "Jim, do you realize with your 16 year old son on the same policy as your 280Z you are paying the same amount for insurance as if you had a Ferrari?" We deeded an older car to my son, and made him buy his own insurance. The 280Z has been gone for many years. The car I have now is almost 26 years old (according to the information plate on the door jamb it was built Oct 10, 2000. It has 149,000 miles on it. But, it has some very endearing virtues: (1) no car payment, (2) every time I get in, it will start up and run, and (3) it runs, drives, and rides, smoother (still at the age it is) than any other car I have had. At age 82, I do not plan on getting a another car. If I do not have monthly car payments, the price of gasoline become less important. Also, at 82, I do not "just run around" like 60 years ago. I put less than 3,000 miles a year on it now. Thanks, Jim

i've gone back to that. granted i grew up in the 80s but gardening, being sustainable, food preservation (canning, salt, and sugar or fermentation), making food from scratch (mayo- eggs and oil), and more came back to me during the pandemic. I've learned how to forge for food locally, alliums like garlic and onions or oregano and thyme for carvacrol and thymol to help for sickness and colds. any alcohol or fermented tea i make, saving some to make vinegar for basic household cleaners and more. what i love is being in a mature cong. where most of the friends are 55+. so i feel like collectively, aside from meat. we could survive quite well based on all of our skill.

Working can mean many things for different people and machines

Thank you for this.. 🤗

Sorry, Leslie—your writing is so vivid that it really made me laugh.Thank you😘

I have always thought this. Unfortunately I live in a very small seniors unit--total 550 sq ft with my two small companions. I have started prepping on a small scale but I have NO room to store. I go between buying some things I think will be necessary in order to share with friends. Then I think as I step over and move things around why am I doing this? Don't I believe Jehovah will provide for his people and recall the manna miraculously provided. Then I think well, we have been cautioned to have a few things ready because wouldn't we be short sighted not too? You can see this weighs terribly on my mind. I have no water saved. I live in a senior complex of 80 individual units and there are 9 of us that are witnesses. All the rest of witnesses here are in my neighboring shared hall. I think this will be my basement buddy scenerio. I have all ready shared special meals with them and am disappointed because no one has ever come by to see me. But I will be ready to share. I bought a sterno stove and 12 cans of sterno that will last 6 hrs each. I have life water straws and a hand crank radio, a solar phone and iPad charger . A back pack full of whatever came in it. I don't want to open it because I fear I won't get everything back inside. I am thinking about buying a bed tent. Google them. I lived in an RV which was very nice-FP, dishwasher , washer)dryer, etc for two years after Rick died. There was a whole winter I wish I knew about a bed tent. Propane does not last long, then everything would freeze. My hair on top of my head froze to the wall one night. Decided that would be the last winter I would stay in an RV. Not to mention living in tornado alley. I figure if I have no electric due to any number of possible reasons the tent on my comfy bed would hopefully allow my two furries and I an enclosed small shelter out of the weather and maybe we could possibly provide enough body heat to stay warm. Poppy is only three pounds so it is unlikely he will be much help but GOSH IS HE ADORABLE! MAGGIE MAE my 10 pound Boston Terrier well it just goes without saying. She is a snugglers delight . There are so many old hippies here I guess I could always open windows and breathe in the weed fortified air if I get to down and depressed. It's really eye opening to see three old codgers sitting around in camp chairs passing a joint around, they are honestly 12 feet from my kitchen window. I never imagined a senior complex looking like this! I have never smoked dope (except for two occasions when I was in my 30s) but I might be forced into changing that. If you ever want to check on me and I'm talking out if my mind just blame it on my neighbors.

😘😘

Oh my goodness, As I was reading this, I thought to myself, wow that sounds like cheryl speaking. And then I recognized the last name. Lol. Love you, My Sister. Yes, I do believe that some of the friends will choose to House share. Especially those who find themselves alone later in life.

@Dolce vitaThis was interesting. I didn't know there was a website dedicated to this Glacier https://thwaitesglacier.org/ Thank you @Lewis for bringing this to our attention. One more reason why we know we are so close to the end of this system.

What are the possible consequences, Brother @Lewis

FYI, I believe the citation format you had (*** w26 March p. 5 par. 10 ***) is what Watchtower Library uses when copying with caption. I am working on implementing that also.

Something big just happened in Thwaites, a large section of the ice shelf is on the move.

Forts are what you 'ave in cockney London when yer brains is working