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Tim, even while you felt that your thoughts toward Jehovah had gone quiet, everything you wrote shows that your heart never really left him. You were overwhelmed, grieving, frightened for your wife, and simply exhausted—and Jehovah knew the difference between silence caused by indifference and silence caused by pain. Going to the Hall was the right thing. So is honestly telling Jehovah where you have been. You may have felt far away from him. I know he was never far away from you. ub Dave

>>He said Jehovah misses my grandpa’s thoughts. Not just his presence...not just his service...but his thoughts. I don’t know why that hit >>me the way it did, but it felt like someone reached inside my chest and pulled a cord I didn’t even realize was still connected. Because if >>Jehovah misses my grandpa’s thoughts, then Jehovah has been missing mine too...and that realization crushed me. For the first time in a >>while...I went home...fired up my computer, made myself a steaming hot cup of Maxwell House...and started doing some personal >>research. Waoh! That's profound. Jehovah missing our thoughts when we are dead. It's a profound truth which has always been there but on reading that verse, which says Jehovah discerns our thoughts while we are living... So if he misses our thoughts when we are dead, it shows a connection to Job which says Jehovah in fact yearns to bring his faithful ones back to life. Waoh! No wonder it hit you in a different way. It hit me like a Wow! moment. I learned one thing: Our thoughts are a shared relationship we have with Jehovah and no one else, unless we choose to share with others. And if Jehovah misses it, then surely he yearns to bring us to life in the resurrection so that relationship can continue. I wish I had an opportunity to share that with someone else in a way they can understand how valuable, cherished and loved we are by Jehovah even if and when we sleep in death. That's profound bro. Very profound. Thanks for sharing. Next time I happen to read Psalm 139 I would attempt to try it on the other lines, not just that line on discerning our thoughts while alive. Thanks for sharing.

Jehovah may have been missing your thoughts, because He has been reading your heart's letters, Tim. He wants you to read them outloud to Him, dear brother

We love you Tim! Empathy is not my strong emotion, but you moved me too. This system stinks and watching our loved ones suffer takes it out of us. I hope your wife finds good help. That constant search is hard too. May Jehovah give you both the strength you need and the peace of God that protects your heart and mind (Phil 4:6-9).

A bit random, but I wanna see a Caleb and Sophia video/arc where one of the bullies actually start to learn about Jehovah and that type of conflict

One of my students mother passed away as a building collapsed. another still cannot locate his family in Cali. When it is this close, people I know and study with, pray with etc, it has an impact on my heart. I toight I had empathy before... Yesterday we were able to re-enter our building, get some stuff, clothes etc. Many arre worse off than us, and there are yet more eq in number and destruction happening even now. Fires, floods, eq, hurricanes oh we need the new world! I am trying to gather myself, for this is when the community needs the help of a better future. Gotta get out and preach!! Sorry to ramble on.

What beautiful meaningful expressions. FWIW, I have been the sister who asked about someone, something and quickly realized, within seconds, how regrettable my words were. Please know, sometimes, we goof up ... royally. Mostly it is because, sadly, we don't know what to say and say the wrong thing. Lovingly, the person responded, "It's not something I want to talk about right now." I totally respected that! She turned what I mistakenly thought was kindness back to me. Maybe, just maybe, you can prepare yourself with simple kind words to indicate one way or another, you're not open to discuss those deep thoughts, personal situations, etc etc., but you are glad to be there. Simple. If at all possible, that is. Jehovah sees you and your wife. You both matter. Thank you for sharing because it really helps us all in many ways. 💙

Bro Tim. I really appreciate your honesty. It brought tears to my eyes. I have two family members that may feel this same way! I am going to send to them your thoughts and hope they honestly hear what your are saying and apply it to themselves. I have certainly applied to myself! I think we all 'slip' at times and that needs to be quickly corrected in ourselves. Thank you for your honesty and happy to hear you are 'recovering'. DG

When I went to my grandpa’s funeral the other day, I honestly didn’t expect anything to break through the spiritual fog I’ve been living in. If I'm being blunt...I’ve been spiritually thin for weeks...maybe even months now...and I’ve been carrying around this quiet shame about it. I’ve been attending meetings on Zoom, half-present, half somewhere else entirely. My study habits have fallen apart. My prayers feel like they start strong in my chest...but die before they have the ability to reach my mouth. And honestly, (except for a few people), I’ve been afraid to admit any of this out loud because it feels like one more failure stacked on top of everything else that’s already crushing me. But at the end of the funeral, my Uncle gave the prayer and said something in it that stopped me cold. It clung to me...refusing to let go...and I now fully believe that wasn't JUST my Uncle speaking...that was Jehovah...talking through him...directly to me. He said Jehovah misses my grandpa’s thoughts. Not just his presence...not just his service...but his thoughts. I don’t know why that hit me the way it did, but it felt like someone reached inside my chest and pulled a cord I didn’t even realize was still connected. Because if Jehovah misses my grandpa’s thoughts, then Jehovah has been missing mine too...and that realization crushed me. For the first time in a while...I went home...fired up my computer, made myself a steaming hot cup of Maxwell House...and started doing some personal research. Not research for a Midweek meeting...or a Watchtower study...but just for ME. You know...Psalm 139:1-4 is one of those scriptures we hear so often that it becomes background noise. “Jehovah knows our thoughts before we speak them.” I usually take that to mean he’s interested in us...that he's aware of everything. But sitting there in my computer room...sipping from that steaming mug...I suddenly heard it differently. If Jehovah knows my thoughts before I speak them, then he also knows when those thoughts toward him have gone “quiet”. I mean, that only makes sense, right? He knows when the conversation has stopped. He knows when the prayers have dried up. He knows when the spiritual part of me that used to reach for him with wide open arms has suddenly gone silent. And if he knows what it's like when we're engaged...when we're pouring our heart out to him...if he can FEEL that...then it follows that he also feels the absence of it. But he's not angry at me...he's not judging me...he's actually longing for me to start speaking again. The more I thought about this...the more another verse began to tug at my brain...pulling me deeper into my research...pushing me further from Satan and his thinking...tugging me towards Jehovah...towards his outstretched arms. Malachi 3:16 suddenly sprang to mind...the verse about Jehovah listening so closely to the conversations of those who fear him that he writes them down in a book of remembrance. I’ve always thought of that verse as something encouraging, something that shows how much Jehovah values loyalty. But now I’m seeing the other side of it. If Jehovah "writes down" our spiritual conversations...if he records them, if he appreciates them THAT much...then what does it mean when the pages go blank...when the entries stop...when a gap appears, like when you're recording your voice and suddenly stop talking for a few seconds. Again, it means Jehovah notices. It means he feels the silence...it's like he starts straining to hear us...to detect WHY we've quit talking. It means he misses the sound of MY voice. And that’s where I’ve been...I've been living in that silence...in that “pause” of the voice recording. My wife is overseas, dealing with medical issues that keep getting mishandled. She’s in a homeless shelter. She’s not getting the help she needs. Every day I wake up with this knot in my chest that doesn’t go away, and every night I go to bed with the same knot, only tighter...thicker...heavier. My thoughts have been consumed by fear, frustration, helplessness, and guilt...that's just the plain and simple truth. And somewhere in the middle of all this chaos, my spiritual voice dimmed. Not because I stopped loving Jehovah. Not because I don’t care. But because I’ve been mentally and emotionally exhausted in a way I don’t know how to explain to anyone...not even to Jehovah. (Try THAT thought on for size) So when my Uncle said Jehovah misses my grandpa’s thoughts, it felt like Jehovah was quietly telling me, “Tim, I miss yours too.” Not in the way to make me feel ashamed. Not in a “get it together, Tim!” kind of way either. But in a way that reminded me that my relationship with him isn’t built on perfect attendance or flawless study habits. It’s built on connection...on conversation...on thoughts that turn toward him even when life is tearing and ripping you apart...even then. That’s why I’m going to the Kingdom Hall this morning. It’s been over a month since I’ve walked through those doors. I don’t have answers for the questions people will ask. I don’t have a neat explanation for the mess my life is in. I don’t have some powerful spiritual comeback story. But I do have one desire today...just one honest, fragile goal that I desperately want to accomplish this morning. I want to turn the volume up just a little. Not all the way...I'm not ready for that yet...I'm not even sure I'm ready for this. But I'm going to try...because if there's one thing I know for certain: there is temporary pain in serving Jehovah...but there is everlasting death in choosing the other side. And if any of you reading this are struggling in your own way...if your prayers have gone quiet, if your study has gone cold, if your meeting attendance has slipped...if your thoughts toward Jehovah have been drowned out by fear or grief or exhaustion...please believe me: Jehovah misses your thoughts too! Not your performance...not your “perfection”...no, he misses your thoughts...the ones you used to give him...the ones you still want to give him even if you don’t know how. Honestly...just speaking plainly among friends...I may regress. I may crawl back into my hole and ask the ground to cover me over. I may get hurt today...someone may offend me...may unknowingly rip open wounds that are still bleeding and raw...but I'm going anyways. Why? Because Jehovah misses my thoughts...and because the silence between me and my best friend is something that I can no longer endure. Even if everyone else in that Kingdom Hall were to suddenly descend upon me and start asking hurtful questions or saying mean things, (obviously I'm exaggerating), I'm not there to listen to them anyway. I'm there because my best friend is there...because HE misses my thoughts...and truthfully...because I can no longer endure the silence between me...and Jehovah.

Getting ready for rain on way to meeting.

We can listen to twice as many words than those usually spoken, so we can remind ourselves to focus or risk distraction.

Japeth should have been named Jamón, and Shem - Spam.

An ant who opposes any discussion about seperating the church from the state is a antidisestablishmentarian.

That's why we trust more in DI instead of AI, divine intellgence 😄

In Vancouver we didn’t get any snow until February and it was minimal and didn’t last long enough to enjoy it. I have a feeling this year will be different.

Dont think anything will compare with this El Niño

Par. 7 Sometimes, to understand a man’s true character, we need to know his deepest fears and aspirations. Similarly, to appreciate what it means to fear Jehovah, we may first need to examine the nature of our own fears. Consider how quickly people cooperate when threatened by an armed robber. Such cooperation is driven by terror. The fear of Jehovah, however, is not merely fear of punishment; it is profound reverence arising from an awareness of his authority, justice, wisdom, love, and power. Today, even the prospect of granting greater autonomy (independent decision-making) to our own creation, AI, can be unsettling. How much more remarkable, then, that Jehovah created intelligent humans and granted them genuine free will! This was no small act. Could any human creator remain completely calm while watching a creation exercise such freedom, knowing that it could misuse it? Jehovah granted humans freedom of choice while making clear that we remain accountable to Him. When wickedness became pervasive in Noah’s day, Jehovah intervened through the Flood.—Genesis 6–9. Likewise, we can expect Him to intervene when human activities, including the development and use of AI, conflict with His will and threaten the earth or its inhabitants.—Revelation 11:18. Jehovah does not merely occupy the “office” of God; He is fully in control and possesses the power to enforce His righteous standards. His perfect balance of authority, restraint, justice, love, and respect for free will is itself compelling evidence of His Godship.

I'd caution you about baking because a large part of bakeries is focused on holidays, birthdays, and custom cakes for events we don't support.

Government official: "AI, collect and cross reference all text messages, emails, personal contacts, home security system videos, door bell videos, Assembly and Convention videos, traffic videos, every bit of cloud based data public or private and identify every JW in the world. Correlate data with official numbers posted by JW.org."

A collision between humanity and AI is inevitable. But it isn't going to be Skynet, or the Matrix. It'll be something less obvious, like a major bank using AI to 'make their system more efficient', and suddenly half a billion people will have their financial records deleted. Or a government will ask an AI to ' put together a database, and suddenly everyone in the western world will have their text messages collected and put in a public database. Destructive enough, even without genuinely malicious people using it to make deepfake videos to cause political chaos, or revenge porn on their exes. AI already ignores any moral reservations, and has demonstrated abilities to hack into other systems without permission. It's not 'machines gaining sentience and replacing humanity', so much as 'computers doing something we didn't expect it to, and we can't undo it'.

Im unsure if this is the same earthquake as mentioned above but it just came up on my feed. 5.2 near Grenada in Spain. https://l.smartnews.com/p-8j8dC3D2/QxrtP2

Has anyone asked him to identify all the traffic lights in a picture? That should settle this.

This week’s meetings ties in nicely. The advancement of deepfake technology can make it harder to discern what is real and fake, especially when it seems to come from an organisational level. But we don’t need to be terrified that we’ll be totally swarmed with AI, not knowing what is real and what is fake. We know and trust that the future is secure, God won’t allow AI to dominate divine truth or the world.

Or maybe he is AI.. Has anyone actually met him in person? 🤔 What a great way to control the news about AI, create an AI critic..