A New Chapter

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It has been a long, long time since I have posted anything.  There have been many, many changes since I last posted.  The last time I wrote Joshua and I were still in England.  We have since returned to the U.S. and have been living in Houston, TX, since last July.  We miss Bristol and especially our dear friends there a great deal.  Our time in England was very special to us.  But we felt we needed to return to the U.S.  And it turns out we were right.  Which leads to the other major change in our lives since I last wrote.

Six weeks after we arrived in Houston, we lost our precious Bentley.  He became very ill suddenly and his decline was very quick.  We buried him at my parents lake house - a really lovely spot - on my birthday.  I'll write more about Bentley and that time later.  I feel his absence every single day.  He is dearly loved and greatly missed.

Returning to the U.S. was not the easy transition I thought it would be.  I thought coming home would be like putting on a pair of old, well-worn sneakers.  You know, they just fit.  But coming home, back to the U.S. didn't just fit.  It wasn't easy and comfortable.  It was hard.  And I began to realize that it wasn't the U.S., that comfortable well-worn sneaker that had changed - it was me.  I was seeing things differently and experiencing things differently.

This is not a bad thing, though.  It is a very good thing.  It's kind of like what Paul said, "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I gave up childish ways."

Our time in England was challenging in that it pushed us (me especially) to get out of what was comfortable.  It pushed me to think about things differently, see the world and see life from a different perspective.  I drank tea - lots of tea.  And I grew to love people who are like me and yet so different from me.  I made deep lasting friendships with people from another country... again.  I was reminded of things I'd forgotten.  "For God so loved the world..." and not just "God so loved Jenna." (although it feels like that - in JennaLand sometimes).

Now in Houston I'm having to re-learn all those lessons again.  Because a lot of the Houstonian population is really, really hard to love - I'll just be real and say that.  It's true. And American culture is no longer lovely or something of which to be proud - I see that now, and it has been shocking to me. I'm having to look for the lovely and the good - looking for God here.  And I do find Him, and I find His people - they just look different than they used to.

So, as I have been taking in all these changes and seeing things so differently and adjusting to being in a new place and grieving Bentley's loss - I just haven't had much to say.  But I do now.  I will be sharing some of my thoughts with you more:  my thoughts on Bentley, what Joshua and I are up to, life in Houston and even maybe some thoughts on Once Upon A Time (which is a really great show, btw). For now, I'll leave you with a picture of the newest addition to our family:  Frazier - our rescue boxer.