Dear Carolyn,

Oh dear. "The great injustice of challenge and change."

Yes. It is injustice, isn't it? Even when you want the challenge and the change, are excited by it and know it will bring good things. It's never fun to be thrust into new, unfamiliar territory. All I know is that one day, maybe soon, maybe not, you will wake up and know you are home.

Maybe it will be the day that you finally nail driving that damned car and you realize you have the freedom to explore the city. It may be the day you find your place in your church community. It may be the day you have your first or fiftieth massage client. It may be the first time you have a dinner party or the first time you host a bible study. Or maybe it won't be a day of significance at all. Maybe it will be a Monday afternoon and you are getting ready for dinner and waiting for Jason to come home and a sense of peace and belonging will wash over you and you will know you are home.

It doesn’t make the "now" any easier, if anything it mocks the now, that knowledge that someday this strange place will be home but that day isn't today. It feels like betrayal to your old life to make a new one, but it isn't and those feelings will fade. God has gifted you with a kind and friendly heart. He gifted you and Jason with generosity, hospitality, leadership and teaching abilities and a desire to serve and love others. You had such a rich life here in Sacramento because of that and it will be what makes your married life in Tennessee full and rich and beautiful.

Find a church body where you both can be fed and renewed and encouraged. Find a place to serve. Jump in and use those talents the way you did here. It will take time, but you will find your place. When we serve God and his people alongside our spouses He takes that and makes it beautiful. Be patient.

Know and embrace and love that Nashville isn't Sacramento. I only mention that because I find myself sometimes in that deadly spiral of comparison. I have spent years of my life being discouraged and unhappy because I compared friendships, churches, homes, to what I had before and it blinded me to the beauty of what was in front of me.

There will be bad days (does it snow there? I'll wait for your phone call the day you have to drive stuck in the snow) maybe even bad weeks, but God is good and He has great things for you.

But you knew that already.

Love you to peices.

Claire