misery...i've been in bed for three days with a killer cold. and now my throat is all swollen and sore - looks like i'll be paying a visit to my doc tomorrow. waste of a good half a week, if you ask me. i'm a terrible patient. and of course today in the mail something had to appear like the samaritans purse newsletter - a full color magazine showing picture after full blown picture of skinny, dirty children from the poorest countries on earth clutching brightly wrapped shoeboxes, grinning like mad. we'd helped the boys participate in this project over christmas, and the meaning very nearly got lost in all the other holiday shuffle, shopping, and travel - but here it looked me in the face again, in the midst of my grouchiness over having to have spent some time resting in my warm house and comfortable bed and feeling a little bad - here it was, this reminder of children dying of aids, children living in orphanages with dirt floors and one meal a day, children who were hearing for the first time ever that Jesus loves them very much. and i wasn't amidst the hustle and bustle of anything at the moment to distract me. i looked into their bright eyes, i read their stories, i cried at their innocence and their pain. oh, i wondered - when will i learn to disentangle myself from the preoccupation of self, here and now? God have mercy. *cough*