GRUMPY GRANDPA SPEAKS GRAVELY--FROM THE GRAVEYARD OF HIS STORY

From Oswald Chambers:

"I want to give you a strange warning: beware of the' gospel of cheerfulness'. Many well-meaning people tell us to ignore sin and gloomy people. What are you going to do for such a person? Tell him to ' cheer up?' Urge him to spend several weeks by the seaside? Give him iron pills?"

More on this later. But I am indeed one of those gloomy people, as most of you know all too well. This has been since babyhood--ask my Dad. But I do come by it honestly or should I aver, genetically/constitutionally. I had (have?) many appellations: such as "gloomy Gus" and the most memorabobble, "grumpy grandpa." (At least it beats Calvin's comic strip about his father: "Dopey Dad".)

"It's not me talking, it's the Prozac." --or the caffeine, which by the way is still getting rave reviews medically speaking, as the poor man's Ritalin just for starters, and is a good adjunct to serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine enhancers. "All Natural," don' ya know.

Actually there are really only two things (persons, actually) that work consistently for me, and both are based on "acceptance" of Puddleglums qua Puddleglums. May I add, fearless and complete Acceptance.

Flo is the first; "bless her heart"; but she introduced me not only to Jesus but to His Holy Spirit, about Whom I cannot say enough...obviously.

But if there is a purpose to all these "scripts" I write, the goal is to glorify the Triune God and to trace the traces of the Holy Spirit in history, including my history, which is the only story I can really tell.

It's also obvious that I get distracted easily, proof positive that I am not the Spirit and cannot speak for Him, nor can any religion. As Joyce said, it keeps constantly coming back to humility, which one gets only through repeated humiliations and rebukes; the source of these "big hurts" does not matter--God has used Assyria and Babylon just to name a few, without putting his imprimatur on either one. One of millions of apparent paradoxes about God; which as I said earlier, should be obviously expected if God is what/Who He states He is. We assume we know what this means, but when we do so, we are instantly wrong, dead wrong, and if it were not for the dyad of mercy/grace, we would not be here, "No, not one."

"Analyze THAT!!!!"