In the fall of 2005, as Hurrican Katrina plowed through the Gulf States, Gary Morris found himself in a one-bedroom apartment on the north side of a Mississippi town that was proving to be a site for his painful demise.  Everything he once held dear was now gone – his family, his ministry, his financial security, and most of his friends.  Although he had grown up in a pastor’s home, and had become a pastor himself and served in five different churches, Gary was now on rock bottom, underneath the weight of sin, guilt, and debt.  There was no way out.  His income had been greatly reduced due to the economic fallout from the hurricane.  His utilities were slowly being disconnected.  Every day his phone rang with bill collectors hounding him.  Each night he cried himself to sleep as some country song played in the background.  Thoughts of his son’s grave thirty miles away, his family now living under another roof just as far away, and sunrise would only bring more pain.  His survival tactic was simply rereading the list of reasons why he should not take his own life.   On his birthday in April 2006, he grasped a vision of a better life.  Without any lights or air conditioning, he fell across his bed and wept before God.  The weight of his sin began to lift, the hope of a miracle took root, and a still small voice spoke a verse from the Psalms to his heart.  “Be still and know that I am God.”  Psalms 46:10 Gary grabbed and hung on to that promise because his entire life depended on it.  Within two months he was hired on with a large investment company.  Through his new job and the local church, he met a beautiful girl that soon became his wife.  Together they prayed that God would prepare them and use them for whatever he could possibly use them for. In November 2011, Gary and Karol walked into a new church plant in Meridian.  By January, every sermon in that church was on forgiveness.  Every song he heard was on forgiveness.  Gary could not get away from the message of forgiveness, and then he realized God was leading him through a time of pulling hatred and bitterness from his closet. He spent nearly the entire month calling people that he had bitterly hated.  He asked everyone of them for forgiveness.  In the process, he forgave each and everyone he spoke with.  It was a time of coming clean in every area of his life. One year later, Gary and Karol were again seeking God for guidance, but this time, they were praying about the decision to accept the call to pastor the congregation of the church in which they had been restored.    Gary now serves as pastor at Life Church Meridian, a growing life-giving congregation with a special ministry to those who have found themselves searching for a reason to live.  Gary shares a life-changing message of forgiveness and hope that he has experienced firsthand, one that offers a vision of a better life.   Learn more at www.garymorris.co, or email him at gary@garymorris.co.