I have not written anything for some months now and I have reasons or explanations. I used to write to sort out my issues, but this time around I have had little to speak about.

I have reached the age of seventy. Another decade. I have written before of my dad’s pronouncement I would not live past sixty. Yet, here I am. Alive and well and have reached the goals that I put upon myself. Not I alone, but by God’s grace and setting up in His time. I did not buy into his family curse of no male Rowes lived past sixty. It was a true statement he spoke of, but I rebuffed him and said I live according to what God ordained.

I thank God every single day that I am still here with life and enough to keep me busy with physical activity and spiritual as well, as directed by Him.

Every step that has come to pass in my life has been by the recognition of others. Of course I did the requisite studies and practical use of such, but I never made a motion to promote myself. That is the honest truth. I’ve told God if I move up it will be on His command.

At the age of thirteen, I heard His voice tell me I would be a minister. At sixteen years of age I finally relented to Him in confessing my sin nature and gave my life to Him. Yet that took almost another decade to solidify into a firm commitment.

At twenty-six, I told God I will serve. All I wanted was to serve with a people that had the same drive as I did. He led me to a Pentecostal Assemblies of God church where He sat me for a season. Not long after I heard a deeper Word and sold my home and moved to a new area where I have lived for the last thirty-nine years. Thirty of those years I served in a very aggressive learning ministry that caused me to be pushed when I was slack and never let me be comfortable. This is where I went to school for ministry.

While there I was in the music ministry, ran the printing ministry, which was part of a larger ministry with a half million dollar a year budget. During that time I was ordained as a deacon and care pastor with my own small group of members in the larger body of believers.

I also was tasked to begin the networking of computer systems in the church in the early stages. I kept it simple, yet functional.

Then I crashed from overworking and lost my marriage to my own indiscretions and I fell out of the ministry. I fell into what was diagnosed as severe depression with anxiety attacks. During this time I met my now wife. A beautiful woman of many talents, intelligent, curious and as my brother described her as quirky. I’ll let that stay right there. The least I can say about her is she is the woman I dreamed about in my youth and I would have to say searched for all my life.

We married in 2015, on July 24th. We had already been walking together since 2009, but the walk with God began to intensify from this date. She got hungry for more of God and began to seek Him with a fervency that was unrelenting. Over the next two or so years we saw a strong reawakening in her life and mine.

Then after a church issue arose, God plucked us out and put us in the home church we are in now. In a few months the ministry recognized the call on my life and approached me about ordaining me into the ministry in all effects both by the government of the land and before God. This occurrence provoked my wife to want what she saw in me. She has now completed her second year of a three year study process towards her full ordination.

Here we now sit. Yet what I’ve learned from all my 70 years of life is this one thing. I answered the call of God on my life, yet I concede to Him as a vessel for Him to fill with what He wants to say. I have nothing of myself to say other than I love my Father. I have relinquished my rights to give an opinion of anything or want to.

I will speak as He gives me utterance, but I have no itch to scratch when it comes to ministering. When I feel the unction I will, but only then. Others can clamor to appease themselves of what they perceive as a Word from God, but is only their need to be seen and heard. If I never minister again I know this one thing. I have fulfilled my calling to the best of my ability. I know I’m not done yet. I just simply stand and wait for my heart to receive a Word and I will move forward with it.