Ask Elnora-- about friendship--Lenora Worth

Darlings, I am at the beach at beautiful Orange Beach, Alabama with a group of ladies I call the Surf  Sisters. You   have heard me mention them before. They are my dear friends and I'm happy to be back with them for the weekend. That got me to thinking about what true friendship means. I can tell you what it means to me:

It means laughing until you cry. It means crying when you pour out your heart then crying until you can finally laugh again. It means fighting like sisters but defending each other like warriors. It means shopping until you drop, then modeling what you bought and comparing notes to see who got the best bargain. ( I once got a suede coat that was priced at $250.00 for $1.08. Yes, one dollar and eight cents!!)  It means life, death and birth. It means carrot cake and coffee and trail mix and happy trails. It means knowing someone is in your corner even when you've painted yourself into that corner.  It means no matter how far away you are, when you get back together you are home.

What does true friendship mean to you?  Let's discuss!!

A Time to Laugh; a Time to Mourn

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;"
Ecclesiastes 3 1-4

All of us know the truth of these verses in Ecclesiastes. We've read them and heard them sung. This week our family is preparing for "a time to mourn." My dh's mother is in an ICU. I won't go into the details but my mother in law is almost 90 and her body is slowly failing.

This is the mourning and weeping part. She is the last of her generation in her family and the last of our parents.

Yet this is sad and happy at the same time. We live a 6 hour drive from most of our family. So we are getting time to see and show love to them.

It has also been good to see our children and nephews show such love for their grandmother. The three grandsons who live in the area have all made the trek into the city to visit their grandma--even though she may not even be aware that they have come.

My own son who lives a state away sent a card. Those of you who have adult sons know what a gesture of love this is. When I saw it on the bulletin board in her hospital room, it touched my heart . He called again last night to find out how Gram was doing.

While my dh and his brother have been driving into the city every morning to be with her and talk to the doctors, my daughter and I have been sorting through all the family "stuff" in the house. We have begun the task of preparing the house to go to another family.

As we go through 1920-1933 high school year books and old scrapbooks and photo albums, it has been a good time of sharing. And telling her family stories and history, most of which she had never been told.

I don't know when Gram will go to be with the Lord, but it is comforting to know:

"Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."
2 Corinthians 5:5-8