Greatly Blessed and Highly Favored

     On the car radio this morning when I was driving back from taking Mom to the airport, the Gaithers were singing "Greatly Blessed and Highly Favored" about "a forgiven child of God" and I am that, but the title also expresses my feelings about my weekend with my mom and my two sisters. I am absolutely "greatly blessed" and I am absolutely "highly favored" with these three women in my life. 
   Once a year we four get together and call it the "Girls' Weekend". Last year we met the day after Christmas in Florida and enjoyed a condo, the ocean, the sand, and sunrises while bundled up under blankets. Boy, it was windy and cold! Inside we ate candy from Len Libby's in Maine, played Banana Gram and Hand and Foot, ate out, and totally enjoyed laughing and hanging around together. This year, we spent the week after Christmas at Mom's and shared the week with our two brothers, doing our fair share of eating, laughing, playing Scrabble, and telling stories.
   This long weekend was just for us girls and we spent the time at my new home. We'd planned to divide the time between my sister's home and my place, but she decided to leave everyone here and not make our out-of-town guests pack up and move to her house. So we ate here, we ate out, (a Mongolian Grill was fun and a new experience for our guests), we went to antique stores, and we put two jig-saw puzzles together. We worshipped together at my church on Sunday. Greatly blessed. We watched videos on youtube and laughed our heads off! We skyped with my two grandchildren and my sister's granddaughter. We told stories of our childhood and asked Mom about her childhood days. We prayed together for a cousin who's very sick. We took turns cooking. We made peanut butter fudge and ate it warm off spoons while doing the puzzle. We stayed up late and no one wanted to go to bed before the others for fear of missing something to laugh about. We barged in to another's room in the morning, again, for fear of missing the conversation. We laughed over silly things. We laughed over familiar things. We laughed over old stories and new stories and just about everything else.
 We shared serious parts of ourselves. Bodies growing older. Medical needs. We shared our concerns of hair loss, memory loss, and hearing loss. We consoled each other with "it's not that bad", or "I do the same thing", or "you can't really tell". Sharing lightens the concerns. "We're in this together" is our chant.
   We shared hopes and dreams and plans. We listened to new business ideas. We listened to wants and needs. We asked questions of each other. We are each other's compass. We are each other's sounding boards. We are in our 50's, 60's and 80's, and we travel this life together, listening, encouraging, loving and laughing together. We are single, married, divorced and widowed. Three of us are mothers. Some of us are mothers-in-law. We are all readers. We are each creative in unique ways. We are similar in looks, and different in personalities. Most like strong coffee. One didn't have a coffee maker to make said coffee. Ugh. One needs it perfectly dark when she sleeps. One stays up late. One goes to bed early. We all like putting puzzles together, though one of us talks about each piece she's looking for and the others tell that one to stop talking! One likes to do the edges. One likes to do a subject within the picture. We all like to finish and be the one with the final piece! 
   We are different. We are the same. We laugh together. We sometimes cry together. We love each other and like each other (there is a difference!) and enjoy spending a weekend (or more) together. We would each say we are "Greatly Blessed and Highly Favored."