One of the saddest stories I ever heard came from a friend I met when we worked with Celebrate Recovery, a Christian support group modeled on AA. Her husband battled cancer, and she cared for him, on her own, for a year. During that time, her son, a former marine, had come to live with her. Her husband consumed my friend’s time until the day of his death.
Exhausted, she fell asleep that evening after he’d been taken to the morgue.
When she awoke the next morning, she discovered her son had died of natural causes during the night.
The guilt of ignoring her son for a year dogged her with the grief of widowhood. Both threatened to destroy her.
After funerals and regaining some composure, she went back to church. Upon her arrival, the deacon asked her, “What sin had you committed that this happened?”
The cruelty.
The pain.
The stripping of faith and comfort and peace.
Her tale haunted me for years.
Mankind can be cruel. Daily we show our heart wrenching sinfulness in our judgment of others or our callous dismissal of our fellows’ plights or our plain-old greed.
Fortunately, most people want to do the right thing. Most Christians work hard to please God. And in our messy, sinful, passionate lives, we can find God’s healing and share it with others.
This theme—along with a healthy dose of humor and goats and romance and love—can be found in my newest release—out soon—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.
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, a budding potter and photographer. She lives in East Tennessee with her husband and soon will own two doelings who must be bottle fed.
You can connect with her on her website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram