I’m starting the new year with four funerals. Four good dads. Four beloved husbands. Men dearly loved by their family and friends. None of these deaths were connected and yet I know at each funeral I will probably see people from the last funeral. My heart has been so heavy stepping into 2019.

One of these men was only a couple of years older than my daughter, Cami. I will never forget the day I shared a Bible verse with this boy. It was at his high school and he looked so surprised but responded so sweetly. Michael was an amazing kid. I just can’t believe he’s gone.

Sometimes people ask me why I always bring up Jesus. I get this. I remember back when people like me got on my nerves or just plain made me really uncomfortable talking about their faith or their Bible or their church. I got away from these people as fast as I could. I didn’t want to go to their church or open a Bible. I didn’t want to think about God. I just wanted to live my life and have fun. I did that until life wasn’t fun anymore. Until I found myself at about 30 years old needing a real God and undertaking a journey to find Him.

The years have gone by. God has been so faithful. Because of my love for Jesus, friends have fallen away, but others have come and encouraged me to not only grow but to grow up. To love when I’m not loved. To serve when nobody sees me serving. To be a gentle and quiet spirit in my husband’s home. HAHAHAHAHAH!

Okay, I no longer laugh at this Bible teaching, I try to embrace it. I get on my knees and ask the Lord to make me gentle and quiet in our home. God parted the Red Sea. He can change me into this kind of wife too. But do I want to be changed? Do I want to become more like Christ? This is the question for us all.

I have settled into a steady walk with the Lord. Sometimes I stumble, but the Lord always picks me up. Dusts me off. Says get back in the game. Play for the Kingdom of Heaven, you’re no longer on an earthly team. I am more humble than I used to be. And quieter with my husband. And just when I think I’m going to step back a little and stop making people uncomfortable about Jesus, here I am attending all these funerals instead of celebrating the new year.

Life is fragile. Like the fires that hit Paradise in November, all you know and love can be gone in a day. In an hour. In an instant. But God will never be gone. I have learned he is real. And eternal. And he’s waiting for you to turn to him for comfort and love and freedom and healing and hope. If you aren’t ready yet to awaken your faith, God isn’t going anywhere. He waits for you. God is so patient with us hard-headed sinners.

Yesterday I drove by where the fire had burned the Sutter Buttes right down the road from our house this past fall. I’ve been watching the burn for months. Charred and black, then dusty brown, then the first sheen of green on the hills when the rains finally came in December.

Today the buttes are an emerald island like Scotland. Mist wraps the peaks and sheep graze on the slopes once more. New life has come to our burned hills just as I knew it would because God brings the rain. The sunshine. The sheep that return here every winter.

This is really what Jesus offers, new life. And the thing about Jesus is he went from death to life in just three days. It’s amazing how fast your life can change when God steps in.

Happy New Year, friends.