For this month’s report, I just want to give you a copy of a post that I made on Facebook this past Tuesday, on my 73rd birthday. Some of you will have already seen this. I just wanted to make sure that you got a copy of the “birthday” post.
* * * * *
Today, by God’s grace, I complete the first seventy-three years of my sojourn in this world. It is a time of transition for me, and although I don’t post very much on social media anymore, I want to say a few words today.
To say that my life has been a mixture of good and evil is a considerable understatement. I have been able to help a few people, but I know that I have hurt far more than I have helped, and that grieves me. I hope that you can forgive me. I am chastened, humbled, and broken. I am not the man I used to be, and I pray every day that God will give me a few years to take all of the bittersweet experience of my conflicted lifetime and use it to produce writing that will resonate with readers who, like me, have misused the gifts they were given and are desperately longing for the rest that can only be ours in eternity.
I am planning to move (if possible) to a place that is my favorite “writing place.” I have rented a loft in an old building right beside the railroad tracks on Front Street in Meridian, Mississippi (pictured in the photo below, from a time when I lived there in 2017). Before I move back there, I am going down for a week or so each month to see if I can handle the rigors of life in that place. It may be that I am just not physically capable of living there anymore, in which case I won’t move. But if it looks to be possible, I hope to move there before the end of this year, perhaps in late summer or early fall.
Today, I am reminded that the years are running away from me, and my strength is failing. So I feel a sense of urgency. I have a very definite idea of the work I would like to finish before my life is over, and I pray the Lord will grant me the privilege of finishing this work. But, of course, I will gladly yield to whatever His will in the matter turns out to be.
I want to place on public record how grateful I am to the congregations and individuals who endow my work financially. I am blessed to be supported by the most patient, longsuffering, and gracious people in the world. They have stuck with me through thick and thin, and without their steadfast support, I could not continue to do what I do. So if you have profited from anything I’ve written, I hope you’ll say a prayer of gratitude to God for those who make it possible financially. These folks are a group of very, very special people.
So, after pausing today to ponder being 73 years of age, I’ll get back to the writing desk (I leave for Meridian again this Saturday, Lord willing), and I’ll keep scribbling away, as the Lord gives me strength.
May we all think of each day as a gift and do everything we can to “redeem the time.” As an old country song put it, “It’s a mighty world we live in, but the truth is, we’re only passing through.”
Gary Henry – WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
WRITING GOALS
Pray with me that I will be given the ability to finish these works
- Walking in Christ — Book 6 in the WordPoints Daybook Series. Target: November 2025.
- Going Home — Book 7 in the WordPoints Daybook Series. Target: November 2028.
- Seeking God in the Psalms — a 52-lesson study — theme for each week, studies for Monday-Friday.
- Ecclesiastes — a full-scale commentary on the text of Ecclesiastes.
- Encountering Christ — what the Scriptures teach about Jesus Christ . . . and why we should believe it.