Miss you already, Anna!

"Hannah, do you want to do a duo on The Phantom Tollbooth?"

"I don't know... Sure!"

And with these words, a friendship was started between myself and the lovely Anna Cantor. In 2009, Anna and I competed in NCFCA with a duo interpretive speech on The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. With many practices, performances, and lots of fun, we ended up becoming wonderful friends. Anna's family moved to Connecticut last year, so in July I boarded a train and visited for a fun-filled week. This summer it was Anna's turn to visit me, so this past Sunday she flew up and stayed with us up until this morning. We had five fun days together, visiting Williamsburg & Jamestown, exploring the Norfolk Zoo, shopping, hanging out at the beach, and spending time in an adorable tea shop in Smithfield. I think my favorite adventure was going to tea with Anna and Jordan.

It was sad to say goodbye this morning, but I'm sure I'll see Anna again soon. Hey, next summer it's my turn to visit!

~Hannah Grace

Reunion

About five years ago my family moved from North Carolina to Maryland, leaving behind one of the most wonderful churches we have ever attended. It wasn't a great church just because of the beautiful music or the excellent preaching. It was the church that it was because of the people and the fellowship they/we shared.

Over the past five years, we have kept up fairly well with some of our friends from that church, but last night we were able to have a really lovely reunion with two of our favorite families, the Selfs and the Brennans.

At the end of the evening, it was sad to say goodbye to everyone AGAIN, but I'm certain that we'll see Amy, Katy, John, Lizzie, Christine, Randy, Mike, Jessie, Steven, Trey, and little Josh again, along with the rest of our NC church family. Praise God for happy reunions! I look forward to the one that all brothers and sisters in Christ will share one day.

~Hannah Grace

A few more pictures...

It's the little things

I'm convinced that God is trying to teach me how important even the little things are to Him. It feels as if half the time I think God doesn't notice the things I do, and the other half of the time I believe the world and God's plans revolve completely around me.

It took watching a couple videos of Louie Giglio speaking during Chris Tomlin's How Great is our God tour, to show me exactly how small I am in God's spectrum. Here's a link to the first part of one of the videos on YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCIyBxPBJXw.

But on the other hand, even though God is enormous and has created an incredible, vast universe for us, it's important to remember that He does see each one of us and keeps an eye on every little thing happening to us. I was reminded of that this morning...

We decided that today would be a good day to go pick blueberries and blackberries at a farm out in VA Beach. It's a bit of a drive from our house, about an hour, so when we got out there and realized that this place is closed on Thursdays, we were more than a little disappointed. However, we had seen a sign for another farm a little way down the road, so we decided to check it out. We weren't thrilled with what we saw. All of the plants in view seemed like they were definitely "in retirement" and when we asked the person in charge what the deal was, he said that there were blackberries, but that they were not plentiful at all. We went to see the bushes anyway, hoping to gather a few. When we reached the blackberry portion of the farm, we found the bushes absolutely covered with plump, juicy berries.

God does care. Even about the little things. And if He cares that much about giving us small joys like blackberries to pick, how much more must He care about the big things in life?

We serve a great God. But in His greatness, He chooses to stoop to earth in order to give us pleasures, both big and small. So today I choose to thank God for the little things.

~Hannah Grace

27 Days

27 days. I feel like we're in the midst of a slightly morbid countdown as my sister, Jordan, prepares to leave for college. As the oldest child not only in our immediate family, but on both sides of my parents' families, it's a pretty big step to have Jordan getting ready to go.

Jordan and I have always done everything together. We learned to play the piano together around age six, our mom taught us to cook when we were 10, we took violin lessons together for three years, we took the plunge into speech and debate back in 2007, we've been shopping together probably hundreds of times, played with beanie babies when we were little...the list goes on and on. It feels incredibly strange to have her getting ready to go do something without me.

I know she's excited~ this makes me happy and sad at the same time. I truly want to her to have a wonderful time, to make lots of friends, and of course, to learn; but at the same time, I want her to remember all of the times we've spent together, I don't want our relationship to change.

Praying that God will give me the absolute strength and courage I need to get through the next month and the weeks after that, missing her and rejoicing in her success at college. For now, my prayer is that God will help me to enjoy every minute we have left together and not to spend it arguing over unimportant things.

~Hannah Grace