Author: maryanncrum

    What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made? The dumbest thing you’ve ever done? Your most humiliating failure?    Well, how would you like to have that remembered and recounted by millions of people year after year, for hundreds of years? Pretty awful, right?    Well, that’s what happens to the Apostle Peter every year around Easter… Continue reading We All Fall … But What Then?

    My husband and sons are professional computer guys and compared to them, I am truly a technological ignoramus. My hubby has, on occasion, even accused me of being a Luddite – someone with an extreme aversion to new technologies.    But I reject that label. I’ve actually learned to use all kinds of high-tech… Continue reading Don’t Settle for Chatbot Love

    “Here we go again.”    That’s what was pounding in my head and propelling the needle on my stress-o-meter into the red zone when I learned I was going to have to endure some unpleasant medical tests related to my digestive system.    I went around this mountain in a big way about 10 years… Continue reading I Can’t Even … But God Can

    Did you hear that someone recently paid nearly $100,000 on eBay for a Cheeto that looks like a gorilla?    (Yes, I did too say a Cheeto that looks like a gorilla.)    Well, it WAS a Flamin’ Hot Cheeto and the gorilla it supposedly resembled WAS Harambe, the PETA poster-boy ape killed in a… Continue reading Lunatic, Liar, or Lord?

   “No, Bailey, the nice chicken doesn’t like it when you put her head in your mouth.”    Welcome to my world, as I try to teach a puppy that chickens aren’t chew toys. It’s not going well, even though Bailey is a full-blooded Great Pyrenees, a breed known for protecting farm critters.    Perhaps our puppy… Continue reading The Best Protection

    As I prepare to wave bye-bye to my 50s in a few months, thirty-something doesn’t seem old at all. But in the world of professional tennis, it’s nearly ancient, which is what made this year’s Australian Open Tennis Championships so captivating and memorable.    Tennis geeks like me were mighty stoked a few weeks… Continue reading All the Way Home

     There we were, sitting in my living room, patting ourselves on the back because we’d successfully gotten a donkey to an appointment at a vet clinic.     It wasn’t as easy as it sounds and several times during the process I thought to myself, “Well, this is definitely something I never pictured myself… Continue reading Doubt is Harder Than Faith

   Christmas is over, but I seem to have one particular carol stuck in my head. It’s a fine song and all, but it’s mid-January, for crying out loud.   Let me say that I certainly don’t assume God is trying to “talk” to me through every little thing I hear or think. No way would… Continue reading Hopes and Fears are Met in Jesus

    I’m so thankful it happened … and so thankful it’s over.    That probably sums up how many of us feel about the long and complicated season we’ve let Christmas become.    I’m thankful for the many blessings of the season—time with family and friends, the reprieve from routine, laughter, wonder and excitement experienced vicariously through the children… Continue reading Imperfection is Okay

    Eavesdropping on half of a conversation can be dangerous thing.    I was recently at a party and was telling a friend about our new Great Pyrenees puppy, those fluffy white dogs that grow up to be ginormous and awesome guardians of farm critters.    This friend has a couple of Great Pyrenees, so I was picking her… Continue reading Let’s Get the Whole Story