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A Grain of Salt Posts

Gratitude Every Day

It’s an American season of giving thanks! I know that it doesn’t seem to be true if you only listen to the cultural beat or the daily news. You may argue Mary it is only one day, not a month or more. I would remind us all that that one day we call Thanksgiving came out of the discipline and practice of a people who modeled daily thanks in the midst of life we can…

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You asked

When I was young, I had the answers but nobody asked me questions. Now that I am old. people ask me questions but I don’t have answers.  Elizabeth Elliot I loved listening to Gateway to Joy when I was a younger mom. And although it stopped airing in 2001 you can still listen to the wisdom of Elizabeth Elliot using the link provided. Her words and this particular quote so resonates with my life. When…

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Call home!

It was 1982. I was in the Navy and living in the Philippines. I still remember the call. With a twelve-hour time difference between Manila and Washington DC, it was a surprise to hear my father’s voice on the other end of the phone line. Yes, phones used to have cords that connected them to the wall. Dad knowing my love for current events and politics started the conversation. “Mary, good politicians know to keep…

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Redeemed pain?

“Redeemed pain is more impressive than removed pain.” Philip Yancy Redeemed pain. While this resonates with what I know to be good and true it’s still such a hard pill to swallow. I can look back in the rearview mirror of my life and believe that God redeemed the pain in the loss of a child, in living through cancers, in the loss of relationships and death of loved ones. But it is in each new…

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Doing it scared

I am at the stage of life where the weddings I am honored to attend are our friends’ children. At the most recent wedding I attended, I was sitting with couples who were all finished with their direct participation in educating their children. One woman stated that those years were particularly joyful. What she said next made me pause. She said, “I would do it over again, and this time I would know what I’m…

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