29 | November | 2022 | the grizzle grist mill

(Yeah. Somebody spelled it wrong, and my grammar self is going crazy inside!)

Some people don’t really have to be crazy.

They’ve just committed themselves to being a certain way, and their stubbornness will not relent.

Others have lived undisciplined for so long that they have convinced themselves this is a good life.

Still others, have fully embraced their crazy, and they want everyone else to embrace it as somehow normal.

If you find yourself in one of these three categories, and you’re living life believing everyone is just giving you a hard time, or they’re all just so difficult to be around , or they never give you a break to be who you are, please hear me screaming at you across the cosmic divide.

STOP!! HALT!! RELEASE!! RELENT!! END NOW!

Stop right now, in your tracks, and listen a moment to reason.

Open your ears to wisdom calling to you.

No one accidentally becomes the “crazy one.”

No one stumbles into the pools of insanity.

It is a choice. And you make it everyday.

So, make the right decisions.

Choose the correct outcomes.

Your spouse will thank you. Your children will sing your praises. And friends will begin to visit again as you walk away from the crazies and embrace life!

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do,forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.
Philippians 3:13-16

But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
1Corinthians 9:27

The holidays always bring with them interesting family dynamics and semantics.

For some, it’s just simply dealing with the edges of uncomfortable scenarios and conversations, but nothing real out of the way.

No harm. No foul.

For others, it’s complete removal from the dysfunction and toxic environment which accompanies family, celebrations and traditions.

Survival of the Fittest or Crabs in a Barrel.

For most, it can just be learning to navigate between the two extremes.

The Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Wherever you find yourself during your yearly festivities, strive to do better.

Better yet, don’t just strive to survive.

Learn to thrive!

Your thriving isn’t going to look like another’s.

So, do what you can do to succeed.

Their crazies aren’t yours, and yours aren’t theirs.

They don’t have to understand.

Happy Crazy Holidays.

The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree,
He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.They shall still bear fruit in old age;
They shall be fresh and flourishing,
To declare that the Lord is upright;
He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.
Psalm 92:12-15

Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider thatthe longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they doalso the rest of the Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you know thisbeforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
2 Peter 3:14-18