"You should know I'm crazy"

This is what a friend of mine said when this guy asked her out for a first date. "You don't want to go out with me. You should know I'm crazy!" He looked at her quizzically. "I'm telling you the truth," she continued.  "It runs in my family. We're all nuts! Grandparents, aunts, uncles, all of us." "I think I'll take my chances," was his confident reply. That was in the mid-eighties. They're still married.

Anyway, I'm borrowing her line to tell you, readers, that you should know I'm crazy!  Please don't hold me to any standard of normalcy, because I can't cut it.  I think differently than you, and I have a ton of faults and hang-ups.  More hang-ups than a Christmas tree, as my Mom used to say. I can be critical and judgmental of people and things for no good reason.  I often overreact to situations that most people would slough off, and I cry way too easily. Sometimes I complain too much and forget to be thankful.

Also, it makes me crazy when someone messes with my spices -- they're in alphabetical order.  I want to hurt people when my stuff is borrowed and not returned.  And I feel compelled to line up all my pens and pencils in order going the same direction in my top desk drawer. Like I said before, I'm crazy.

I think grammar's important and spelling is crucial, but don't tune me out if I split an infinitive.  Don't stop reading because I use too many semicolons; I will.  I love them. I will misplace a comma now and then.  So sue me.  And I have had a love affair with the run-on sentence since first grade, and I don't care who knows it! Oh yeah, and I love writing sentence fragments.  So there!

In addition, I have thought seriously for some time that I have a mild form of tourettes syndrome.  No kidding.  I can give no other rational explanation for some of the stupid and thoughtless things that come out of my mouth sometimes.  You know that "valve" they talk about in your brain that tells you that a thought shouldn't be spoken?  Mine has a leak.

There are really too many more things to list, but if you email my husband, he'd be happy to send you a spreadsheet detailing all the others! Just kidding.

Thankfully, most of us are a work in progress and we need the Lord to keep progressing the work!  Bear with me!

So this is really new and vulnerable and risky for me to write these and put them out there for God and everybody to see. There is fear involved, make no mistake.  I am afraid I'll say the wrong thing and offend you; I am afraid I'll say the right thing and offend you; and I'm afraid I'll say too much. Reveal my sins, my life, my privacy too much.  I have to keep my family in mind. I want to write about them, but they have a right to privacy too. Such big concerns for such a little blog.  But I want to take a risk (Read my post called Baby Steps), and stretch myself and communicate.  Whether or not anyone reads it.  Okay, that was a small lie. I do want people to read it, but I am determined to write whether I am read or not.

Just getting thoughts in writing provides clarity.  Expressing feelings helps us process them.  And putting our observations down aids us in making sense of this crazy world. And so I will write.

One more thing, I love God and all that He is and does, and I will write about Him and to Him often, with no apology and no explanation.  If you are an unbeliever, keep an open mind and a soft heart and practice some of that tolerance we all keep hearing about.