I can tell you what led up to it: six months in a country layered in dust, poverty, and heat.  Four months teaching in one of the wealthier districts, four months of sliding back into home and holidays and extravagance.  One trip to the mountains with the two sisters and the voicemail waiting when we returned.  1369.4 miles in my little car filled with everything I owned and a signed contract for a teaching position at a small, private school in a small, not so private town.  I accepted on a whim.  I accepted and moved to the town my family had visited once a year for as long as I could remember.  Even when there wasn't much money and we had to travel all five of us plus the three pets in the minivan, stopping at cheap hotels or not stopping at all and just driving through the night.  My dad in the front with his sunflower seeds and his Dr. Pepper, my cat on my lap, the suitcases piled to the roof and also on top of the roof.

We traveled, drove, sat for days in the car because family waited for us at the end of the road and because if my parents taught us anything other than love for Jesus, they taught us that family is worth exhausting your resources, vacation time, patience, love, over.

She was in my class that first year with her springy curls and her always watching eyes and that strong brain.  She was smart as a whip, still is.  Also a little sassy, a little quiet, and a lot like me.  All of a sudden that teaching contract turned into something bigger: a springboard for cousin sleepovers, cousin soccer games, ice cream dates, bike rides into town and roller blading in the driveway, to youth group and mentoring Thursdays and college application essays to schools I would never dream of going.

She used to complain about the piles of books in the backseat of my car and in fifth grade we had our first really serious talk about boys.  I moved when she was in sixth and she flew to see me when she was in seventh.  In eighth she wore cowboy boots and a sundress and stood at the front with me while I got married.  I became a freshman leader when she hit ninth grade and together we extroverted through youth group.  Tenth was hard and so we spent a lot of time on the couch, a little bit of time running, and lots of emotions over friendships, relationship changes, life.  Something happened during eleventh.  That girl's spine stiffened, her brain quickened, and her confidence: it began to kick in.  She walked taller.  She wrote and we revised and Stanford accepted a brilliant essay, a brilliant student. Scholarships stacked up, colleges knocked, thankfully Summit roared.  Her faith began to match steps with her wits and now she is giving the salutatorian address to her class, now the twelfth year is over and she is headed to a Bible school with her calculator.

It is three days before she flies with her mother and her suitcases to the next state down and over.  I ran to the store last night and bought all of the candy, the ice cream, the pasta and the soda because we spent the evening upstairs with Miss Fisher and the pause button.  We drank from party glasses, we strategically switched between sweet and salty, and we added another layer to conversations that began almost a decade ago.

I have played hard with this girl.  I have cried and laughed and consumed baked goods like they were mana from heaven over and over with this girl.  But most importantly, I have treasured her soul.  I have prayed the armor of God over her countless times, prayed darkness down, prayed loneliness and doubt away.  I have hoped for her, schemed with her, cheered her.

I have warned her: you're going to fall, you're going to wander, you're going to slip.  And exhorted her: you lean on Him, you look up, you stand again.  Because what I love more than her introverted tendencies and sweet tooth and bookish brain is this: the good work He began a long time ago, the good work that grew when she learned the Old Testament in fourth and the definition of beauty in sixth and the God who loves science in eleventh, it is still happening.

I accepted a position in a small, far away town on a whim and what I didn't realize then is that He was stirring.  Moving a girl with a teaching degree and a bit of a broken spirit to a town where a curly-haired sister-cousin waited.  And I could not be more on-my-knees-thankful for the growing and recreating He has done, the weaving and building of story and faith in both of us.

On the days you feel a little out of touch, distant, blah even, you look at what He has done, Hannah, you remember and then chin up!  Expect more and pursue Him, always.