Thin Places: A Memoir

By Mary E DeMuth

In her moving spiritual memoir, Mary DeMuth traces the winding path of “thin places” in her life—places where she experienced longing and healing more intensely than before. As DeMuth writes, “Thin places are snatches of holy ground, tucked into the corners of our world, where we might just catch a glimpse of eternity. They are aha moments, beautiful realizations, when the Son of God bursts through the hazy fog of our monotony and shines on us afresh.”From losing her earthly father to discovering a heavenly Father who never leaves, from singing Olivia Newton-John songs to the sky to worshiping God under a French sun, from surviving abuse as a latchkey kid to experiencing the joy of mothering three children, DeMuth’s story calls readers to a deeper understanding of their own story. With unusual spiritual wisdom, she looks for God in the past so that she might experience him more profoundly in the present. Her powerful words invite readers to know God in a new way—a God ready to break through any ordinary day or extraordinary pain and offer a glimpse of eternity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jan 13, 2010
• ISBN: 9780310564744

Mary E DeMuth

Mary DeMuth is the author of several southern novels, including A Slow Burn, Life in Defiance, and the Christy award finalists, Watching the Tree Limbs and Daisy Chain.  She’s also written four parenting books and a memoir, Thin Places. She’s passionate about the written word, teaching, and mentoring writers. Mary lives in Texas with her husband, Patrick, and their three children.

Book preview

Brave, moving, and poignant. An important story, honestly and beautifully told, of pain transformed into hope. The world is in great need of courageous voices like DeMuth’s.

Tosca Lee, author of Christy-award finalist Demon:

A Memoir and Havah: The Story of Eve

This gifted memoirist writes like a woman at the well: Thin Places reads like rivers of living water. With her incantatory language, Mary DeMuth describes both the burden of suffering and the weightlessness of redemption. If you’re carrying past wounds, read this book. It will change your life.

SIBELLA GIORELLO, Christy-award-winning novelist

Author Mary DeMuth has lived up to readers’ expectations of exquisite writing from an exceptional author. She has also opened herself and allowed readers to see inside—all the hurts, disappointments, violations—in order to escort the readers on a painfully joyful journey to healing. A rare memoir from one of the best writers of our time!

KATHI MACIAS, author of more than thirty books, including

Beyond Me and Mothers of the Bible Speak to Mothers of Today

Mary DeMuth’s latest work, Thin Places, is a true example of courage. Seemingly without holding back, Mary has exposed to herself and to those who read her work the thin places of her life where God showed up. In doing so, she helps others realize the thin places of their own lives and how God moves in and around them.…Every word is beautifully penned and sincerely written.

EVA MARIE EVERSON, author of Things Left Unspoken

Thin Places is strong medicine for every reader who ever felt hopelessly damaged or desperately inadequate. Mary DeMuth shows the way back to innocence and wonder. There are too few books like this, too few authors so courageous.

KATHLEEN POPA, author of To Dance in the Deser

Women today are hungry for words that narrate life as it really is. We’re dying to know we’re not alone. In Thin Places, Mary DeMuth tells the truth about loss, pain, sin, and redemption. Thin Places sets the table for readers to see, hear, and taste God’s unfailing nearness. Enjoy the feast.

MARGOT STARBUCK, author of The Girl in the Orange Dress:

Searching for a Father Who Does Not Fail

Mary’s memoir is real and raw and beautifully written. She shows the ugliness of humanity and the beauty of redemption. I laughed and I cried, and it made me want to be a better writer. Thin Places will be put in my waiting room to help others find hope and see that Jesus loves and God is present, even in the loneliest and most horrific circumstances.

LESLIE VERNICK, LCSW, licensed counselor and international

speaker, author of The Emotionally Destructive Relationship

Of the many gifts God has lavished on Mary DeMuth, one I admire most is her courage to go to the raw places and help us look for God’s presence there. In this unflinching look at her own story, DeMuth offers us vulnerability and hope that God is relentless in His love even when we doubt it the most.

CATHERINE CLAIRE LARSON, author of As We Forgive:

Stories of Reconciliation from Rwanda and senior writer

and editor for Break Point

With brutal honesty, Mary paints a vivid picture of the cruel blows life delivers to all of us. But her ability to shine light on what God does through pain and difficulty is a revelation of His infinite love and grace. Thin Places reminded me that beauty really does come from ashes. I’m not the same after reading this book.

TOM DAVIS, CEO, Children’s HopeChest,

and author of Red Letters: Living a Faith that Bleeds

In Thin Places, Mary DeMuth gently takes your fingers in her hand and guides them across the breathtaking mosaic that is her life. I felt every sharp edge, each rough and aching path, and marveled at the startling beauty of her brokenness. Savor this book."

CLAUDIA MAIR BURNEY, author of Zora and Nicky:

A Novel in Black and White

When I get my official copy of Thin Places, I’m thinking of having it bound in a gold-embossed bonded-leather cover with gilded page edges. Yes, it’s that much of a treasure to be cherished for a lifetime of reading. I’m tempted to request a zipper for its custom binding. That would symbolize DeMuth’s success at unlocking and interlacing her innermost story and soul with the Scriptures in a way that opens us all to the thickness of thin.

LEONARD SWEET, Drew University, George Fox Evangelical

Seminary, www.sermons.com

I’ve never read a more authentic and real account of trials turned to hope. Thin Places will open your eyes to the beauty of seeing through those heart-wrenching times and grasping our Savior’s hand. DeMuth reminds us that our great God sees us where we are, and He loves us unconditionally. Thank you, Mary, for sharing the depths of your heart with us. This book is a treasure.

KIMBERLEY WOODHOUSE, author of Welcome Home:

Our Family’s Journey to Extreme Joy and seen on Extreme

Makeover: Home Edition

Thin Places, a memoir by Mary DeMuth, has captured my heart. Mary is a fun and happy person, so her vulnerability in telling this painful story of childhood abuse is deeply moving. Mary writes beautifully, even poetically, and leaves the reader with a sense of hope and courage.

HEATHER GEMMEN WILSON, bestselling author

and international speaker www.heathergemmen.com

ZONDERVAN

Thin Places

Copyright © 2010 by Mary E. DeMuth

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

ePub Edition November 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-56474-4

This title is also available as a Zondervan ebook. Visit www.zondervan.com/ebooks.

This title is also available in a Zondervan audio edition. Visit www.zondervan.fm.

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

DeMuth, Mary E., 1967—

          Thin places: a memoir / Mary DeMuth.

               p.    cm.

          Includes bibliographical references.

          ISBN 978-0-310-28418-5 (softcover)

          1. DeMuth, Mary E., 1967—2. Christian biography—United States. I. Title.

     BR1725.D4A3 2009

     277.3'082092—dc22                                                                            2009020798

---

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920. www.alivecommunications.com.

Interior design by Michelle Espinoza

To Jeanne Damoff who dances

in Jacob-shaped thin places with joy.

And to Pam LeTourneau who sings

and marvels in new thin places.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction: Amazing Grave

1. Studebaker

2. Mary Jane

3. Snapshot

4. The Crib

5. Envy

6. Pickets

7. Write Away

8. Like Me

9. Slow Dancin’

10. Kiss

11. Raggedy

12. Narcissism

13. Singing

14. Divorce

15. Suicide Poetry

16. Shame

17. Reactionary

18. Conan

19. Bob

20. Material Girl

21. Signs

22. Children

23. Jim Elliot

24. The Blythe Constitution

25. Running

26. Investigations

27. Liquor

28. Marked

Conclusion: Amazing Life

About the Publisher

Share Your Thoughts

Note: Some names have been changed

and situations altered to protect privacy.

Amazing Grave

Growing up, I find myself housed in a scrawny sort of body—legs thin as broomsticks, interrupted by knees so knobby they bang into each other when I walk. My doctor makes me drink whole milk so I’ll fatten up. Kids use words like rail, string bean, or stick to describe me.

I, myself, am a thin place.

The Celts define a thin place as a place where heaven and the physical world collide, one of those serendipitous territories where eternity and the mundane meet. Thin describes the membrane between the two worlds, like a piece of vellum, where we see a holy glimpse of the eternal—not in digital clarity, but clear enough to discern what lies beyond.

Thin places are snatches of holy ground, tucked into the corners of our world, where, if we pay very close attention, we might just catch a glimpse of eternity. Legend has it that thin places are places for pilgrims, where ghostlike echoes of those gone before can be felt and heard, where the Ancients whisper their wisdom near the ruins of a church or the craggy outcropping of a rock. In this way, a thin place is an ancient doorway to the fairy-tale netherworld—a fanciful notion that children embrace and adults find preposterous.

Maybe it’s my own imagination that hopes for real thin places on this earth. I’m a storyteller, after all, prone to wander in make-believe worlds. I’d like to believe in portals to eternity—Narnia doors beckoning me onward and upward. Even so, I’m broadening the metaphor a bit. Thin places are snatches of time, moments really, when we sense God intersecting our world in tangible, unmistakable ways. They are aha moments, beautiful realizations, when the Son of God bursts through the hazy fog of our monotony and shines on us afresh.

He has come near to my life. I will tell you how.

When I learn of my grandmother’s cancer, how it ravages her body though it spares her mind, I fly out to visit, knowing it may be our last time to clasp hands on earth. The feisty woman stares back at me, her body visibly shorter, her eyes holding a flicker of sass but mostly sadness. I want the evangelical gumption others furiously possess to share with my grandmother the beauty of Jesus with a flurry of perfectly scripted words. But the words don’t spill out. Instead, I play cards with her. We reminisce about our summers together, laughing. I enter her world, hold her hand, tell her I love her.

I accompany her to Bingo, enduring the choking smoke and grilling despair that seeps into the Bingo Hall. While the caller shouts out letters and numbers, and folks near death stamp card upon card, I know that if Jesus walked the earth today, He’d hang out in a Bingo Hall, loving on folks whose only hope is a five-hundred-dollar jackpot.

I panic before I am about to fly home. Billy Graham shouts in my conscience, You have to share the gospel. You have to share the gospel. I pray, keep quiet. I listen to the Holy Spirit’s sweet voice. Pray for her, He says.

Do you mind if I pray for you before I leave? I ask.

Not at all. Her voice sounds small, needy. I’d like that.

I pray that she will understand Jesus’ winsome love for her, that she will be relieved of pain, that she’ll know beyond a doubt that God sees her there, hurting. I ask Him to please shoulder her burdens, whatever they may be. When amen leaves my lips, my grandmother’s shiny eyes stare back at me. The Scripture comes to mind about doing things unto the least of these and how, in serving those who were needy, I serve Jesus Himself.

I cry.

She cries.

We embrace.

When I leave, I am haunted. Why didn’t I spell out the entirety of the gospel? What if she wanted to know? I pray again when I arrive home, clearly sensing God wants me to write her a letter, share my heart about my life, Jesus, all the healing He’s done inside me, the forgiveness He offers even now. Though I feel like I’ve flunked Evangelism 101, I send the letter.

A little later I call her.

Thank you for the letter, she wheezes.

You’re welcome, I reply, still hesitant.

You don’t understand, she says. I love that letter. I read it over and over again. Thank you for writing it.

I choke out an I love you and hang up.

A few days later she lets out her last breath.

I stand above my grandmother’s grave, a gaping, muddy hole in the Ohio earth. The casket holding the shell of her body teeters on top as the wind blows through me, around me. Barren trees reach stark limbs to the sky as if to beckon it to send sunshine.

I remember Bingo, the prayer, the letter. I have no idea if my grandmother met Jesus, but in that sacred silence, I am stirred to sing Amazing Grace over the coffin, though the wind blows and the trees creak branches together.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

Sobs warble my voice just as others join in.

A thin place, this Ohio graveyard. I can nearly see Jesus’ smile as I catch a paper-thin glimpse of heaven on the November breeze. God’s fingerprints are everywhere—in the sacred intersection of melancholy and joy. I feel like Jacob, himself akin to thin places. Head pillowed on a rock, Jacob dreams crazy ladder dreams where angels dance up and down, to and from God’s presence. God shouts covenant words in the dream, words establishing Jacob as a patriarch and promising Jacob His presence. Jacob wakes up and utters these words: Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it (Genesis 28:16 NASB).

Surely God is in the nooks and crannies of my life, stooping to earth to woo me. Sometimes I recognize Him, but usually I continue on the mundane path, not realizing a breath of a veil exists between the Almighty and myself. Margaret Becker’s song Cave It In beautifully captures this:

I know the wall between us

Is just paper-thin

Why can’t I, why can’t I,

Why can’t I just cave it in?

So porous these walls may be

But I’m still clawing at the seams.¹

That’s me. I live in the midst of holy moments, yet only in retrospect do I really see them. I claw at the seams of life, questioning God’s ways, seldom realizing that if I’d stop clawing, I would capture new glimpses of Him through the thin places. God woos me from behind the veil through the tragedies, beauties, surprises, simplicities, and snatches of my life I might overlook.

I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.

1

Studebaker

At four years old, long before seat belt laws, I crouch down on the floor of my father’s dying Studebaker, pressing my left eye to the rusted floor where a convenient hole the size of my kneecap beckons. From time to time I look up from the floor, spying Jim—I never call him father—who wears a thrift-store cap over a bald head, dark brown fringe curls spilling out. It’s the way our weekend visits go, an endless supply of quirky adventures with Jim at the helm. He nods at the hole, encouraging me with his smile to watch the street. I notice the wrinkles around his eyes.

I hover again over the hole while gray cement speeds past, blocks and miles whirring beneath my rapt gaze. I glimpse something of eternity—the ongoing universe passing me by, slowing to stop when Jim applies pressure to the brake. Later, when I share this memory, well-meaning adults spoil it by launching into a diatribe about how I could’ve lost an eye, wondering why in the world Jim didn’t have

Reviews for Thin Places

[jenniferrobb · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I put this book on a "to be read" list many years ago--so long ago that I no longer remember where I saw it or why I wanted to read it. The title refers to the author's belief that at times in her life there have been "thin places" that allowed her to glimpse lessons from God more easily than she might at other times. Her memoir is an attempt to recount those times and the lessons she's learned.

[homeschoolmimzi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Really enjoyed this 'spiritual memoir' I loved the stream-of-consciousness writing style, and usually I *don't* like that at all. I'd love to read other books like this one. DeMuth's other books are novels though, so .. I'm not sure I'd read that genre right now.








Just started this book yesterday and I'm loving it already. The author goes back and forth between the present and the past and makes it work beautifully w/out it seeming too jumpy and disconnected. I have a feeling I'll be finishing this in a short time!

[birdsmath · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don't think I have ever read a book by a Christian woman who is so honest, open, and raw with her life. She experienced sexual abuse at 5 years, was devastated by the death of her biological father, saw her mother divorce 3 times, was saved at 15, struggles with trying to earn her way into God's love rather than accepting it as a gift. She married a Christian man, had 4 children and served 2 years in France in a church plant. Each chapter has a different theme of a crisis in her life that she directs to see hope in God. A thin place is holy ground where she experiences God.

[ldrumm16 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In this heartbreakingly raw story, Mary DeMuth delves into the painful details of her past, including the loss of her father, the emotional absence of her mother, and the sexual assault that still plagues her to this day. Her honesty and her faith are refreshing and uplifting, proving that through God all things are possible.

[sheiladeeth_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don’t know how I got so lucky, but a pre-release copy of Mary DeMuth’s Thin Places arrived in the mail, together with a request that maybe I could read and review it and join in with the “social media tour.” So this is me, joining in.Thin Places is billed as a memoir, which isn’t really my kind of thing. But I already knew (from reading A Slow Burn) that Mary DeMuth is a really excellent writer. She has the knack of writing about seriously sad and difficult topics with a lightness that’s more to do with creating light than making light of anything. With words as beautifully constructed as her stories, she pulled me straight into the second book of a series and kept me so entranced that I wished it wouldn’t end. But a memoir?The “thin places” of this book’s title are made from those times when the world around us grows thin, where glimpses of heaven slip in through those cracks in the clouds. And the author leads her readers fairly quickly to the sort of thin place that we might not wish to go—except, of course, so many of us have been there, been nearly there, or been comforters to others who’ve been there.As in her novels, Mary writes about deep and painful subjects. But her writing has a beauty that allows even the most agonizing tale to let in the light. She shows how God takes those cruel memories and paints eternal glory and forgiveness into their fabric, transforming that which we’d rather forget into a source of curious blessing.There were parts of this memoir that resonated with me, and left me eagerly looking for God’s light in my life. I too have chased after signs, delighting in those days when it seemed like God really spoke to me, and mourning their loss when I should be rejoicing in the fact that God gave, God takes, God is sovereign, and God might give again. I too have lived with my inner critic declaring I’m never good enough. I too…But Mary’s not me, and in some sections I just felt frustrated with circumstances that dictate I can’t be more like her. The cynic in me asks, but what if this, or what if that lets Mary down. But I know that as God is in all of Mary’s thin places now, He’s here for me too, not making the tough places smooth, but making them thin, if I’ll just let Him in.Thin Places is more than a memoir, and more than a teaching moment. It’s a series of essays, built on the author’s memories, and bound by their message of God’s faithfulness. It’s a call to readers to see things differently, to recognize healing, and to look for God breaking in through an ordinary day. It’s a beautiful book, and however it was that I got lucky enough to receive it, I’m really glad I’ve read it.

[detailmuse · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thin Places is a spiritual memoir, although not a typical coming-to-Jesus story nor solely Mary DeMuth’s story of childhood rape and loss and their ramifications in adolescence and adulthood. Rather, it’s a memoir of her realization that, while she found God at age 15, He has always been with her.She relates what she calls the “thin places” of her life -- moments of God's presence that nearly erase the distinction between spiritual and physical. Looking back, she finds thin places long before she knew God; looking ahead, she strives to recognize and appreciate them now as they occur. She organizes her experiences as a series of vignettes around incidents and themes -- some heartbreaking; a few veering toward testimony; all empathic and inspiring. Reading them created thin places of my own.