I know I need to write this to you, and I don’t want to because it makes me so sad. I have been desperately avoiding my feelings about climate change, for many years, but especially and with greater intensity every year since you were born.

I want you to be prepared for the world that the generations before you are creating for you. I love you Lucienne, and I will not give up. I will push you and teach you not to give up, either, even if others around you do.

I will do my part to help ensure that there is an Earth left when we are done borrowing it.

I hope this year is a real turning point and by the time you’re a teenager, your life is powered almost entirely by clean energy like solar and wind.

There is a promise in the Bible: ‘I shall restore the years that the locusts have eaten’ and that points to a promise of complete healing and restoration. But until that comes I intend to do my best to ‘save the planet’ in whatever way I can, and I encourage you to do the same.

Each of us only has so much power and the problem is HUGE, but I worked at this every day.

As I write this, our world is slowly giving way to climate change.

When I asked you why the purple Violet called to you, you told me it was “magic”. I hope that you can still find the magic of life. I hope, despite everything, it is still in abundance.

If we could all slow down, look around and connect: with each other, the Earth, the sky, the plants and rocks and animals, then maybe we can all remember to treat everyone and everything with respect and live in love.

I can now see that the solutions are there, that a transition of the magnitude that is needed, is possible.

I promise to wholeheartedly live my life with an awareness of my personal impact on our communities and our planet.

More importantly, what are we doing to better our planet and everyone who lives in it?