Author: maryanncrum

 Everybody lives by faith. Everybody.     Don’t believe me?     Your alarm goes off and you roll out of bed – the bed you trusted all night long to hold you up. It’s dark outside, so how do you KNOW your clock is accurate? You don’t; you trust.         You stumble to the bathroom… Continue reading Everybody Lives By Faith

    My dog, Winston, recently did battle with a wire fence. The fence won.     They say that one symptom of insanity is to continue doing the same thing over and over while thinking, “Oh, maybe this time it will turn out differently.”     If that is true, then insanity, thy name is Winston.    … Continue reading Life is Better Inside the Fence

    If life were like a television commercial I saw recently, overcoming life’s problems would be as simple as pushing a magic “easy button.” Unfortunately, this “easy button” will only hook you up with a nice assortment of office supplies, and most of us need more than staples, printer cartridges and paper clips to deal… Continue reading Where’s the “Easy Button”?

Just a couple of months ago, ’twas the season to be jolly.     Now ’tis the season to pay for all that jolliness, so some of us are dutifully walking, jogging, lifting and stretching in an effort to unearth the abs and buns of steel we desperately want to believe are hiding under there somewhere.… Continue reading Simple Can Be Good

    My husband says I may be the most amazing question-asking machine in the world.     I have an insatiable desire to know…anything…everything. It’s been a blessing and a curse, propelling me down the path that led to God, but also occasionally overwhelming and exasperating the unfortunate people in my world.     Oh, if only… Continue reading “Why?” Isn’t Always the Right Question

    Just before Christmas, I read an article about “re-gifting” – you know, “blessing” others with gifts that didn’t turn out to be such a blessing to us. I have to say it made me a bit paranoid, as I was smack dab in the middle of holiday shopping.     “I wonder if any of… Continue reading God Won’t “Re-gift” Your Heart

    Another holiday season has come and gone. Like “Thing One” and “Thing Two” in Dr. Seuss’s “Cat in the Hat,” the holidays burst through our doors and stirred things up. So, what do we have to show for our month of mayhem? More than a few extra pounds and some hefty credit card bills,… Continue reading Only One Well Has Living Water

With all of the warm and fuzzy Christmas greetings floating around this time of year, I feel it is my duty to expound upon the one traditional holiday message that perhaps most intensely stirs the hearts of parents scrambling to get gifts ready for their precious children: “Some assembly required.” This message, so small and… Continue reading Jesus Knew … and Came Anyway

            When our son, Ryan, got married last summer, we got more than a wonderful daughter-in-law — we also got a dog-in-law. His name is Ritz and he is a sleek bird dog, pretty much the doggy antithesis of our own bag ’o wrinkles, Winston the shar-pei.             Jessi, Ryan’s bride, decided awhile back that… Continue reading First Impressions Can Be Wrong

           Ladies, let’s pretend for a minute… A delivery person from a florist arrives at your door to bring you five dozen beautiful roses. (Is your imagination stretching almost beyond its limits already? Yea, me too.)  All you can do is stand there speechless, sniffing the gorgeous roses and wondering, “Who in the world sent… Continue reading Enjoy the Gifts and the Giver