Margaret Terry - Dear Deb: A Woman with Cancer, a Friend with Secrets, and the Letters That Became Their Miracle

Praise for Dear Deb

A combination of On Golden Pond and Its a Wonderful Life, this inspirational and entertaining book will inspire you to embrace your flaws and strive for a deeper and more meaningful life. As Margaret Terry shares the defining moments of her life in letters to a dying friend, she uncovers vital lessons of strength, love, forgiveness, gratitude, and faith. You will laugh and you will cry, but mostly you will be roused to reach out to those you love, to share secret pieces of your own heart.

DARLENE GUDRIE BUTTS, AUTHOR, LESSONS FROM THEDEPRESSION

To anyone heaped in sorrow, the kindest generosity is not a meal or a gift. Its presence. Dear Deb is a beautiful testament to what can happen when one woman chooses to step into anothers story through faithfully sharing her own. As one who heard the word cancer and survived, I affirm it was the Margaret Terrys in my life who gave me enough courage to keep living.

MICHELE CUSHATT, INSPIRATIONAL SPEAKER, DYNAMICS COMMUNICATORS INTERNATIONAL

Margaret Terrys Dear Deb is that steady hand at your elbow at the moment you feel like running away. Its the voice of friendship that says, Lets be honest. Faced with losing her friend by inches to cancer, Terry went looking for miracles, and found them embedded in her own imperfect life. By pouring her secrets out on the page, Terry lights the path toward self-honestyand self-acceptanceone small candle at a time. The book is a contemplation of gratitude, a vessel of confession, and the surprise of being made whole even after irreversible loss. If you think, There has to be more to life, then pick up this book, and follow the fifty-five small candles of honesty to the place Terry leads you. That place, astonishingly, is you.

BONNIE GROVE, AWARD-WINNING, INTERNATIONALLY PUBLISHED AUTHOR OF YOUR BEST YOU: DISCOVERING AND DEVELOPING THE STRENGTHS GOD GAVE YOU

Over 400 years ago, Pascal wrote, The heart has reasons of which reason will never understand. As Margaret Terry courageously shared the stories of her life, she helped a friend face her death. The mysteries of eachlife and deathare matters of the heart. Dear Deb will do yours good.

GUY CHEVREAU, AUTHOR OF WE DANCE BECAUSE WE CANNOT FLY, TURNINGS, AND CATCH THE FIRE

Dear Deb is full of heart, love, and inspiring stories. Margaret Terry is a natural storyteller.

JENNIFER HAUPT, AUTHOR, ILL STAND BY YOU: ONE WOMAN SMISSION TOHEAL THE CHILDREN OF THEWORLD

In this honest and tender love letter about life, Margaret Terry shows us how real courage and faith are manifested. When I closed this book, I had one word to say: Amen!

ANN HITE, AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF GHOST ONBLACKMOUNTAIN

These letters to a dying woman demonstrate the power of stories to make us feel alive and hopefuleven at our lowest moments. Margaret Terrys faith creates a graceful frame for fifty-five small, shining portraits of love, loss, and forgiveness. (For fans of Anne LaMott, heres a kindred spirit!)

MARNI JACKSON, AUTHOR, THE MOTHER ZONE

Moving stories of one womans life that renewed her faith in friendship and in God.... The overall effect of these letters is that of faith, hope, and perseverance in the face of adversity.

KIRKUSREVIEWS

A book in a million. Dear Deb takes us over thresholds of truth and transparency rarely crossed.

LEONARD SWEET, AUTHOR, PROFESSOR (DREW UNIVERSITY, GEORGE FOX UNIVERSITY), AND SEMIOTICIAN

Margaret Terrys compelling and heart-revealing stories transfuse grace, strength, and encouragement to someone facing lifes biggest challenge. Reading the letters in Dear Deb is like having a cup of tea with a close friend, sharing a conversation about our deepest joys and sorrows, discovering meaning in our common experience, and coming away feeling love, hope, and affirmation.

WENDY ELAINE NELLES, AWARD-WINNING WRITER, EDITOR OF BEST-SELLING HOTAPPLECIDER AND A SECOND CUP OF HOT APPLE CIDER INSPIRATIONAL ANTHOLOGIES, AND CO-FOUNDER OF THE WORD GUILD

Good friends give each other the most precious pieces of themselves for safekeeping. This book contains the pieces Margaret Terry gave Deb when they both needed a miracle: pieces of hope and heart, faith and courage. Youll find yourself reaching for these pieces again and again, and like these friends, you will find, piece by piece, how miracles are everywhere, beginning with you.

JEANETTE THOMASON, OWNER/OPERATOR, WHITESTONE PUBLISHING: WORDS AND STORIES TO HANG ONTO

If you have ever wondered if God is real or if a miracle is possible for you, read this book! In Dear Deb, Margaret Terry says, When faith holds hands with trust, miracles can happen. This book is a journey of friendship and a journey of faith, and when you take this journey with Margaret, you will meet a woman who has been pursued and captured by God who will never again settle for less.

RUTH TUTTLE CONARD, PASTOR AND AUTHOR OF DESIGNERWOMEN: MADE BYGOD

dear deb

2012 by Margaret Terry

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Quotations from the children's book in the letter "A New Story" are from Christopher Paul Curtis's The Watsons Go to Birmingham1963 (New York: Random House, 1995).

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV. 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com

Scripture quotations in the following letters are from the 1984 edition of the New International Version: Rich, God Is Off-the-Wall, A Life Saver Day, Shopping Lessons, Delightful, Better Than Gumballs, Too Much Love?, Red Jacket Guy, and Going Home.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Terry, Margaret, 1952-

Dear Deb : a woman with cancer, a friend with secrets, and the letters that became their miracle / by Margaret Terry.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4002-0437-3 (alk. paper)

1. Christian life. I. Title.

BV4515.3.T47 2012

248.86--dc23

2012016248

Printed in the United States of America

12 13 14 15 16 QG 6 5 4 3 2 1

Author Note

We do not see things as they are.
We see them as we are.

Anas Nin

The stories in these letters are real events that occurred in my life. Outside my family, a few names and details have been changed to protect the privacy of those mentioned. Many people have asked me how I remember so much from my past. Theres no simple answer to that except to say if memory is a way our heart holds on to things we cherish or things we need, my heart was crowded. Once I opened the door to the past, a few memories jumped out like a jack-in-the-box excited to see the light of day; others wanted to stay put, and I had to chip away at their hiding place like a miner. I am grateful to my sisters, Lisa and Deborah, to my dad and my cousin Geri, who confirmed many childhood stories. They helped me stay as true as possible to time lines and dialogue while respecting that each of our perspectives was unique.