Carol McClain

How to Have an Abundant Life

Carol McClain

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Matt. 5:4

In my youth, I really believed I irreversibly ruined my life.

I had fooled with drugs, married a man I shouldn’t have (But the second mistake is a lie–I birthed the most amazing daughter any mother could hope for, so that marriage gave me a gift.), and I lived a life I didn’t like. This life continued to lead me on a path I did not want to travel.

During the worst of my times during that period of my life, I’d cry and pray as I went to sleep in the evening, “God, if you’re real, don’t let me wake up.”

God did not answer my prayer. Here I am, alive and well eons later with no more hopeless tears. Jesus gave me life and that more abundantly–as promised in John 10:10.

How?

Much of my mourning was “worldly.” My life in shambles grieved me. I wasn’t happy with my circumstances. However, one day, years later, I understood my sins–whether “big” or “ordinary” brought me closer and closer to disaster–to an unhappy life.

I couldn’t change my past which was what I wanted. However, God could redeem the wreckage and make it beautiful. Find this takes two steps:

1. realize you are poor in spirit
2. mourn you sin

 

 

 

 

Doing this–you will be blessed.

Blessed, though,  is more than a temporary or circumstantial feeling of happiness. This is a state of well-being in relationship to God that belongs to those who respond to Jesus’s ministry.

The beatitudes proved Jeremiah 31: 13. “I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.”

---

Prodigal Lives–This novel illustrates how the poor in spirit find the kingdom of heaven. It’s a breathtaking look at forgiveness.

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.