Meet guest author Carol McClain!
I’ve enjoyed getting to know my guest author today. Like me, she writes about tough, real-life subjects. Carol McClain is the award-winning author of four novels dealing with real people facing real problems. She is a consummate encourager, and no matter what your faith might look like, you will find compassion, humor and wisdom in her complexly layered, but ultimately readable work.
Aside from writing, she’s a skilled stained-glass artist, an avid hiker and photographer. She lives in East Tennessee. Her most recent interests are her two baby does Peanut & Buttercup. Like all babies, they love sitting on laps and being bottle fed.
You can connect with her at carolmcclain.com.
On Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/author.Carol.McClain
On twitter and Instagram: @carol_mcclain
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14030286.Carol_McClain
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/carol-mcclain
Borrowed Lives
God Only Lends Us Those We Love for a Season
Distraught from recent tragedy, Meredith Jaynes takes pity on a young girl who steals from her. Meredith discovers “Bean” lives in a hovel mothering her two younger sisters. The three appear to have been abandoned. With no other homes available, Social Services will separate the siblings. To keep them together, Meredith agrees to foster them on a temporary basis.
Balancing life as a soap maker raising goats in rural Tennessee proved difficult enough before the siblings came into her care. Without Bean’s help, she’d never be able to nurture these children warped by drugs and neglect—let alone manage her goats that possess the talents of Houdini. Harder still is keeping her eccentric family at bay.
Social worker Parker Snow struggles to overcome the breakup with his fiancée. Burdened by his inability to find stable homes for so many children who need love, he believes placing the abandoned girls with Meredith Jaynes is the right decision. Though his world doesn’t promise tomorrow, he hopes Meredith’s does.
But she knows she’s too broken.
Genesis of Borrowed Lives
Difficult questions with impossible answers always send me to my keyboard. I think, How can a character heal from this? I then write until I have the answer. This is especially true for Borrowed Lives.
At one time, I thought I understood addiction. Then I worked with addicts. This taught me how little I understood. I’ve heard testimonies of parents teaching their children to make meth. Parents locked their children out of the home until they sold the required number of drugs. Lost jobs, car accidents, broken families, homelessness, disease—all of these are the end result of addiction.
You’d think an addict would be sick of the life. But …
Even when sober for years and with a restored family, I’ve seen devoted Christians fall back into their addiction. It boggles my mind.
For years I’ve mentored addicts and worked with organizations dedicated to helping them recover. I’ve seen failures, but I’ve seen success.
I rejoice with those who have found new life and love and children and are relishing the years the locust had devoured.
I rejoice with children who’ve found love in foster homes. We need so many more good ones.
But more than those who’ve fallen into addiction, I’ve seen cruelty in the church or from well-meaning people who ladle on guilt when things go wrong.
How does one overcome tragedy?
Borrowed Lives works through pain with love and hope. It resonates with victory over despair. You will not be able to put down Borrowed Lives until the final page.
What people are saying about Borrowed Lives:
“Borrowed Lives takes the reader on a voyage of loss, hope, love, and faith from beginning to end.”
“Love, joy, triumph, despair, and everything else that paints the tapestry of human life are here in rich detail.”
“Borrowed Lives is a down-home, true to life story you won’t want to put down.”
Available now:
Addiction Cartoon
A lot of myths about addiction are believed by a lot of people. This video shows how addiction is no respecter of persons, & strikes almost at random.
One of the simplest, best explained animations/cartoons I have seen on the subject of addiction and recovery. Recommended.
Sobriety and Salvation
SOBRIETY
When I was a practicing alcoholic, I couldn’t bring myself to admit it. I knew I had a problem, but I didn’t want to stop drinking. I would tell people that I was “on the road” to alcoholism. I figured I’d become one if I didn’t stop drinking. Finally, the day came when I saw myself for what I was: an early middle-stage alcohol addict who wouldn’t live much past age 42 if I didn’t stop drinking. (I’m now well past that mark.)
While I was drinking, I often went to AA meetings. Once there, my craving for alcohol only increased because THAT WAS ALL THEY TALKED ABOUT. Imagine a food addict being surrounded by conversations about food. So, on the way home from meetings, I’d stop by the store and pick up a bottle of wine, finishing it off before bed.
In twelve-step programs, the first step to sobriety is to admit you are powerless against your addiction. Once I did so, I finally got sober, and life changed dramatically. I went from gloom to color. Beauty burst around me. The sky gleamed clear blue. I actually cried when an arsonist set a local school on fire. Life was now so vivid, the craving for alcohol diminished and gradually died.
SALVATION
When I was a practicing sinner, I couldn’t bring myself to admit it. I knew I had a problem, but I didn’t want to stop doing my own thing. Finally, the day came when I saw myself for what I was: a rebel against God who wouldn’t make it to heaven if I didn’t repent of my sins.
Prior to this, I often went to church. Since I was raised in church, I had no objections to it. What I objected to was fanaticism. I didn’t want to be like those churchy people. Yet they said things that baffled me. They seemed to care what God thought of them. They talked about their love for God and His for them. But I just didn’t get it. I’d never experienced that for myself, yet I’d been told all my life that I was a Christian because I’d prayed the “right” prayer as a child. And I certainly didn’t disbelieve the message. I simply didn’t care that much.
But once I admitted I was a sinner separated from God, and repented of my rebellion against him, life changed dramatically. I went from darkness to light, death to life. A new warmth filled my heart. God’s presence was all around me. I now cared what God thought of me.
Thus, in both sobriety and salvation, I found out the hard way that going through the motions doesn’t count.
Dawn V. Cahill - Hot Topic Christian Fiction 