‘My Greatest Days Are Ahead!’ Christine Caine, 59, on Why You Are Never Too Old to Flourish (Exclusive)
Nearing 60, the Bible teacher reveals the one truth every woman needs to hear to rediscover her purpose
Key Takeaways
- Christine Caine, 59, says God doesn't do 'next'—He does "new" for women of all ages.
- Authentic flourishing requires addressing past wounds to find freedom from shame.
- Even in hard times, we can hold onto hope that we will flourish again.
Over nearly four decades, Christine Caine has poured into the lives of women across the globe through preaching, writing and her work as founder of A21, one of the world’s leading organizations combatting human trafficking and restoring survivors to freedom. Her life story is marked by profound hardship due to abandonment, abuse, adoption and adversity, but also by an unshakable faith that has carried her through every season.
That lived experience is what gives her voice both authority and compassion. In her new book, The Faith to Flourish, she invites readers to rediscover purpose, healing, and hope, reminding them that flourishing is not reserved for the easy seasons of life, but is often forged through the hardest ones.
Here, the beloved Australian-born Bible teacher, author and force for good shares with Woman’s World how we can dare to flourish in every season, the ways God promises to restore our years and the one thing she would tell all women her age.
Faithful in small beginnings
Despite now amassing over 1.4 million followers on Instagram and regularly preaching to congregations of thousands, Christine’s journey into ministry didn’t begin with a title or platform. It began with a simple, persistent calling she couldn’t shake.
“While we’re still alive, our primary calling is to Jesus, but I think sometimes we’re waiting for ‘the thing,’” she explains. “I didn’t start A21 until I was 40 and I had my second child. So when I felt called to full-time vocational ministry, I was 22, but I didn’t even know human trafficking existed.”
Instead of waiting for clarity, she leaned into what was right in front of her. “I felt called at 22, so I started serving in church. I started serving in youth ministry. I just did whatever was in front of me,” she says, and she couldn’t ignore the pull on her heart. “You don’t know how to explain a call. You just know you can’t stop thinking about anything else or you want to do nothing else matters.”
Looking back, she sees how each step built on the last. “Nowadays, it’s a challenge, because with social media, we kind of scroll through everything and go, ‘Oh, that’s what I want to do.’ In my day, there was no internet, no social media. So it wasn’t that I was scrolling. I was called to Jesus, and whatever door opened, that’s what I would walk through.”
And while her life today may look very different, the heart behind it hasn’t changed. “When I was 20, I was driving 14-year-olds to youth group. But that same girl that was faithful doing that then is the same girl that speaks to 65,000 people in the Mercedes-Benz arena. God doesn’t make numbers. He makes people. So until you value the one, you can never value an arena.”
Your best years are ahead
As Christine reflects on turning 60 this year, her words carry honesty and hope. “I turn 60 this year, and what I find is women my age actually think their life is over.” She’s seen it again and again—women quietly believing their purpose has passed them by as the world tells them to retire.
But she speaks directly into that lie. “I’m sitting here going, No, our greatest days are ahead of us. Because I’m more secure in my 60s than I ever was. I’ve got, by the grace of God, more wisdom, more understanding.” There’s actually a shift that comes with time that she is embracing. “Part of why I wrote the book, The Faith to Flourish, is because I want women my age to realize they have so much more to offer.”
Her sense of purpose has only grown stronger with time. “This life is a vapor. So the older I get, the more urgent I get.” And she refuses the idea of slowing down spiritually. “Imagine getting to my age and going, I’m going to stop now. I’m closer to the finish line than I am to the start line. I want to be less fruitful…” Instead, her deepest desire is clear: “When I get to the other side, I want to hear ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’ I do not want to hear, ‘Well, Chris, you’re done.’”
She leaves women with a powerful reframe: “The world is like, ‘Who’s the next?’ God doesn’t do next. God does new. He says, Behold, I do a new thing. I want readers to reawaken and not think, ‘I missed it.’”
Christine’s truth for all women
For Christine, flourishing isn’t about pretending everything is fine — it’s about facing what’s real. “You have to get real because flourishing is an overflow of who you are,” she says. But she knows that can be difficult for women who’ve spent years holding everything together.”
And yet, she gently calls women toward freedom from shame. “This is what I want to tell women my age: God loves you so much that He wants you, even in your 50s and 60s and 70s, to find freedom. The purpose of healing is freedom. It’s not to shame you.”
Christine has never shied away from sharing the whole truth about her past — as painful as it may be. Her commitment to authenticity is for this very reason. “The reason I talk about my past of abuse, abandonment and adoption is because I want people to know that Jesus came to take shame off us, to heal us, to free us, and so then we can be fruitful. You can’t be fruitful if you’re harboring wounds. God says, ‘Let me heal that so that you can then flourish.’”
Her encouragement is deeply freeing: “We have to care more about what God knows about us than what people think about us. We take it to Him and allow Him to heal it and get freedom.”
Dare to believe you can flourish again
Christine’s main message meets women wherever they are. Whether thriving or barely holding on, she says, “I’ve written The Faith to Flourish for the person that’s in the midst of the most unbelievable pain, to the person that has plateaued, to the person that’s flourishing.” And at the heart of it all is one hope: “That person finds the faith to dare to believe that one day they can flourish again.”
With The Faith to Flourish now available, Christine Caine delivers a timely and personal call and invites women to step out of fear, regret, and limitation and into a life marked by purpose, healing, and renewed faith. It’s a message that reminds every reader: no matter your age or your season, you are not finished. You are still being called to flourish fully in who God created you to be.
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