As I sit here this morning, I think about how many things have changed in the last year.  After all, Christmas is around the corner, and soon after that, New Year's.  The time when you think about things you want to change, how you're going to do it, and what you hope to accomplish.

Almost a year ago - December 19th, 2006, to be exact...I came across a website that started the countdown to the death of my old life.  It was a Christian website that I stumbled upon while trying to look for something unrelated.  What I read started the tumblers turning in the lock that held the answers I so longed for.

My lifelong fear of nothingness or worse beyond the grave started to make sense.  We all have to deal with death and pain because of sin.  If you never sinned, you'd never die.  But all are born into sin, into a sinful world - all except Christ.  And he faced, and conquered death so that those born into Him would never die ,but have everlasting life.

In the last year, the old Paul died...and was reborn in Christ.  I found a church, was baptized, my wife was baptized, and things are great in God.

I laughed to myself this morning, realizing that my vocabulary, and my experiences had grown so much from the seed that was planted almost a year ago, in the profound ways as mentioned above, and in some more common ways - with a whole new world that my Christian walk has presented to me...that I learned about new things like "bible study", "prayer groups", "daily devotionals".  "Missionary Week", "Fellowship", "evangelism"...all things I never knew or experienced were brought into my world this last year.