Thursday, April 21, 2022

Guest Author, Carol McClain, Hope for the Hopeless

Thank you, Carol, for this precious reminder.

 

Hope for the Hopeless

Have you ever fallen so low you know you’ll never find forgiveness?

I have. Fortunately for you and me, I’m not going to bore you with the silliness of my self-loathing. Mostly, I understand redemption, and we don’t need to revisit my tortuous climb back to reality.

I think many people have felt too unworthy to have God’s love. However, we have good news. Something you already know but need to be reminded of. Jesus loves you. Faith in him and his sacrifice on the cross redeems you. It saved me, and cleansed sinners like C.S. Lewis, an erstwhile atheist; John Bunyan; Simon Peter; King David, and Rahab, to name a few.

Even today, Christ’s love redeems the unredeemable. Here’s an incident that haunts me from a conversation I had with my husband. Neil, and I were discussing forgiveness and heaven. In my very self-righteous manner, I made a statement along the lines that I hoped Hitler never got around to repenting. He’d ruin my eternity.

Then Neil sucker-punched me with the following truth. “If Hitler repented, then he’d be in heaven, and you’d never feel this animosity toward him. It wouldn’t be possible to hate in heaven. God would love Hitler as much as anyone else.” Neil made the statement more intense. “Maybe you’d love him too. Heaven can’t hold hatred.”

I couldn’t breathe as this truth overwhelmed me. God’s love is so great, so inscrutable that he could forgive the unforgiveable. People like Judas, Hitler, Putin, and the guy who cut you off in traffic and totaled your car, are loved by our heavenly Father. Had they repented and truly turned to Christ, they’d be redeemed.

Trust me, no one’s fallen so low that God’s love can’t redeem.

In my book, Prodigal Lives, Book 2 of the Treasured Lives series and the sequel to Borrowed Lives, Pearl Solomon knows she’s destroyed her life. After years of lost contact with her sisters and foster mother because of her jealousy, she has nowhere to turn when her life spirals into the depths of hell.

It’s a novel filled with love, pathos, family, redemption, and my trademark humor.



Back Cover Blurb

Life keeps piling problems on Meredith Jaynes. She loses her second foster child—one she was scheduled to adopt. Then Parker Snow refuses to marry her. With only her goats and artisan soap to support her, life will get no better.

If she is honest, though, she still has Crystal. Her funny, happy, loveable toddler makes the sun shine and reminds her of the never-failing love of God.

Pearl Solomon loves her life with her grandfather Guy, but every one of her triumphs is overshadowed by her sisters’ lives. With Mama Meredith, they live a life she envies. Because of her jealousy, she refuses to contact them.

Years later, life for both families twist down paths they do not wish to travel. Pearl knows she’s lost what was most precious in life but has no means of fixing things. Left to her own devices, she spirals out of control.

Meredith finds it harder to mask the despair infertility has brought to her life.

Both families believe they must reconcile themselves to their fates as reality shatters their dreams unless they dig deep for the promise of love.

Buy now: https://www.amazon.com/Prodigal-Lives-Carol-McClain/dp/164949551X/ref

Bio




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 her prized goats. Buttercup will be a mommy around the time you read this. Welcome to the new kid on the block named Mousse or Moose.

You can connect with her at carolmcclain.com.

She also can be found on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/author.Carol.McClain

BookBub at: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/carol-mcclain

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14030286.Carol_McClain

 

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