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A Grain of Salt Posts

In the dark

 I could never have imagined the darkness that lay ahead on what was just an ordinary day several years ago. Following our daily habit of rising early, my husband began to rouse our crew for our morning time together. Life went from rising expectations to an abrupt fall into darkness in a few short minutes. Gary called out, “Mary, she’s gone!”  One of our children had left the house in the dark hours. I didn’t…

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Returning from Sabbatical

Today I am returning to my work with the Institute for Cultural Communicators after taking a sabbatical during February. All of our leadership team participated! I am thinking of you and hoping you are seeking and finding rest and renewal for your life too! This version of Mary’s Meanderings is focused on books I read during my sabbatical. On sabbatical, I also took a silent retreat, spent a long weekend with my husband, dreaming about…

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Cold vs Cancer

Friends are Friends Forever part 2 of 3 A year into our time on Oahu, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I was also 16 weeks pregnant with our seventh child. I was grateful then that I had a year to make friends and weave our family into the Navy community before I had to make a “withdrawal” from those friend-accounts. Looking back I can see now that, I hadn’t yet learned what Henri Nouwen…

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Friends are Friends Forever

Part 1 of 3 And friends are friends foreverIf the Lord’s the Lord of themAnd a friend will not say never‘Cause the welcome will not endThough it’s hard to let you goIn the Father’s hands, we knowThat a lifetime’s not too longTo live as friends Michael W. Smith I wasn’t on Oahu one week before the connection with Cathie was made. After talking to an Air Force family that used the same homeschool curriculum I…

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A Greekish Gunther Tragedy

When my children were young, we had a very generous neighbor who gave each of our NINE children bookstore gift cards at Christmas. We were booklovers, and the gift was a generous $25 per person. This was pre-Amazon. Shopping for the selection and purchase meant going in-person to the bookstore. I don’t recall why I felt the rush to go while the Christmas holidays were still in full swing. Likely I knew that the longer…

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