The God Box
Sharing My Mother's Gift of Faith, Love and Letting Go
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
When Mary Lou Quinlan’s beloved mother, Mary Finlayson, dies, her family is bereft—until Mary Lou searches for her mother’s “God Box,” her private cache of notes to God on behalf of family, friends and strangers. To Mary Lou’s amazement, she finds not one but ten boxes stuffed with hundreds of tiny petitions that spanned the last twenty years of her mother’s life.
Note by note, Mary Lou unearths a treasure of her mother’s wishes and worries and insight. Mary asked God for everything from the right flooring for her daughter’s home to a cure for her own blood cancer. Her requests, penned on scraps of paper, were presented without expectation—the ultimate expression of letting go.
Follow Mary Lou’s emotional journey as she uncovers her mother’s innermost thoughts—nostalgic, surprising and even a bit shocking. As she recalls life with the woman who was her best friend, Mary Lou also discovers her own more empathetic, engaged self—the woman her mother had believed in all along.
Poignantly written and beautifully designed, The God Box is a gift for every mother, every daughter, every person who, regardless of beliefs, trusts in the permanence of love and the power of family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Quinlan's mother was a woman of strong faith who wrote notes to God during the last 20 years of her life, dating and signing many with "Love, Mary." Although her family was aware of these notes, when they discovered ten containers of them after her death, they were astonished at the revelations, hopes, and memories contained therein. An inspirational speaker, Quinlan reminisces about her beloved mother and details the pleas, prayers, and thanks she presented to God on napkins, scraps of newspaper, coasters, and business cards. The supplications span a wealth of emotions and quotidian concerns from asking that Oprah might pay attention to her daughter's writing (it worked), to begging God to "Please take care of poor, sick, gentle Mandy," the family dog. Interspersed with Quinlan's narrative are color photos of Mary's notes, which the author maintains helped her to understand the "breadth of her empathy," explaining that her mother "inhaled a worry" and "exhaled a prayer." Though sometimes overly sentimental, the book is saturated with Quinlan's mother's charming personality Mary would even caution family members that "if you think you can handle it better than God, 's coming out." Even for readers not inclined to bow their heads and pray, Mary's God boxes speak to the power of faith, hope, and family. Photos.
