Texas? Really?

If you had told me last year that I would be marrying a Young Life area director and moving to Texas, I would have looked at you as if you had told me that Stephen Spielberg wanted me to star in his next movie- thrilled that a dream was coming true mixed in with a bit of shock. Marrying a YL area director? That I would have believed. YL has been such a huge part of my life for so long that it seemed sort of inevitable that my married life would be wrapped up in it in some form or fashion. But Texas? Really? That I hadn't counted on.

However, our God is one who loves surprises, this I have learned. And so it was that on June 15, 2005, I was handed the biggest surprise of all when I met the man I would marry. I now find myself preparing to move to a state that I know nothing about, yet have come to love already in just a few short visits. Fabulous sunsets, wide open spaces, blue bonnets in the spring, and a climate resembling a perpetual summer. And before you say it, yes, I know it's going to be hot. Very hot. And I will become tan. Very tan.

Still, it is a daunting thing- this moving, this joining of my life to someone else's, this becoming part of another family. I'm finding that there's a whole other process smack beside the process of planning a wedding and it's one that I didn't count on. Leaving my home, my church, my friends, my family has prompted a grieving process that has caught me by surprise. Surprise because I am so ridiculously happy and eager to marry Jason, plan our wedding, look forward to a new adventure, move to a new place, embrace a new family (an amazing one, by the way). I didn't expect for there to be sadness on top of it! But I am told that this is normal. Wise ones assure me that this comes with the territory of being engaged because I am leaving one season and moving into another.

So I'm okay with it. And lucky for me, I have an amazing fiance that's ok with it as well. Jason has lovingly supported me as I've called him in tears, lamenting something else that I'll miss. He's laughed with me at the things that I won't miss. And he understands that during basketball season we'll either have to invest in an amazing sports channel or spend serious amounts of time at a sports bar so that I can still watch my Tarheels play. And when I get to marry a man like that, it makes me say, "Texas? Really? Sign me up!"