my friend elizabeth - part one

Elizabeth Edwards.

 She is my friend.

 No, she isn't the dead exwife of a former embattled presidential hopeful. She is an Amish lady who fell in love with a young man who came from the "English" and joined the Amish as a young lad and later went on to marry this fine lady. 

Along the way Mr. Edwards completely mistreated my friend and after some years and many a battle and trial, she found herself to be all alone, no husband, no children. He had taken all four of their children away from her, citing her to be unfit. The courts did not agree with him, but because her church forbid her to fight it in court, she was found in contempt of court and lost everything. 

How is it possible that her church would not allow her to fight for her children? How is it possible her husband would be so cruel? 

Over the years I've had to forgive her husband and her church over and over again for causing my friend so much pain. 

How could they? 

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This past Sunday night Elizabeth and I found ourselves in my study, relaxing on my couch and reminiscing our friendship. 

I had wondered if she would remember the first time we saw each other. I was amazed she remembered, it was at a vitamin and mineral meeting. She had come in to the meeting with her hired maid because that day a nail had flown into her eye and she wondered if the folks who were holding the meeting would be able to recommend a remedy for her eye. 

Elizabeth is a lady you will never forget if you get a chance to talk with her one time. She is unlike so many Amish ladies, she is vivacious, she does life with gusto and admits very quickly when things are not going very smoothly. She is not too prideful to ask for help, but she is very handy with a lot of things, in a lot of ways, and sometimes I wonder if there is anything she cannot do. 

The other day she called me, she had just returned home from her home health care job and she was laughing in the phone and she said, "What do you think?!" I said I didn't know and asked her, "what's up?" She said, "I just came home from my job and my back door had been blown open by the wind, probably yesterday already, and there are snowdrifts all the way in my kitchen and hallway and the bathroom pipes are frozen." She giggled some more and then she told me what she wanted and said, "Well, I have to go get rid of this snow." 

She was NOT daunted in the least of the snow in her house, or the mess it left, she just cleaned it up. She told me later it took her two hours to remove the snow from her house.

Two hours people! That is a lot of snow...and a lot for her to do all by herself. She is so used to doing things for herself, she never gave it a thought. 

My friend is jolly. She is always smiling or laughing. If you are in the dumps, just go visit her, you will feel better instantly. She loves to play games and she loves to win. She is competitive beyond anything I've ever seen and she figures the games out and how she has to play so that she can win. I get a kick out of watching her. If she is losing, she is more quiet, because she is figuring things out and more than not, she comes up from behind and wins. More than not, I say. 

We have done so many things together, but the times I cherish the most are when she has invited us to her home to meet her children. I fell in love with her youngest daughter, the first time I met her. She was dressed like a girl out of "Little House on the Prairie" and she was a young lady with substance. I believe her mother's prayers found their way to this young lady's heart and soul. 

I cherish the times I've sat in her workshop and we made basket's together. She has trusted me to help her weave baskets that she sold! She has also patiently helped me make a couple of baskets for myself. I basically did everything, but she had to couch me along and I am sure it took a ton of patience, but she didn't mind at all. 

There is one thing I can't stand is when I know someone is alone for a holiday. So, Elizabeth has spent several holidays with us over the years. Somehow those times I remember were more happy and cheerful than when she isn't celebrating with us. My extended family all receive her with open arms and we always talk about the times Elizabeth has celebrated with us. I think each holiday someone asks me, "Is Elizabeth coming this year?" We all enjoy her so much. She had plans to join us this year, but then got a ride to Tennessee to visit her children, so there was no way she was missing that chance. I was so happy she got to spend Christmas with her grandchildren. She just beams when she talks about them. 

After Elizabeth's husband destroyed her life and all she knew as normal was gone, she found herself living with her sister and sister's family. During her stay with her sister she had a vision, a vision how to make a basket. When she woke up she thought it might have been God speaking to her and so she did some investigating, found some catalogs to order basket weaving materials and a long story made short...she started to make baskets and that began her career of basket making.

She had a little store at her home, but then she also found wholesalers who gave her large orders for baskets and she started a really lucrative business for herself in our area. She has told me that since then she has taught many Amish of her kind, Swartzentruber Amish, how to make baskets so they could also make money. She has a heart of gold and will help a person out no questions asked. She doesn't live with an agenda in her heart. She lives each day with zeal and purpose. Firstly, she needs to survive, she needs food and shelter and her basket business has largely been that source of income for her. In the past couple of years she has moved into home health care and it has been a more lucrative income for her. Her baskets are now the side business and she works on her orders as she can. 

Elizabeth is also interested in painting "primitive" decorative items. She has boards in her work shop all ready for her to get to them when she can find the time. When she talks about this endeavor her eyes light up and you can tell it is where her passion really seems to lie. I hope that she can get this up and running, it would suit her well and she could take some of her work along to her home health care job and work on it when her patient is sleeping. 

The other night when we were talking about our friendship and everything under the sun, I asked her, "Elizabeth, what is your biggest challenge right now?" She paused for a moment and looked me straight in my eyes and said, "I get so lonely. I long for companionship, someone to share my home with and be able to talk with them." 

Loneliness is such a monster, I think. 

I thought to myself, "if her husband hadn't ripped her children from her arms and took them out of state to live, she would have less loneliness to battle with." 

Had to apply forgiveness, again. 

The interesting thing about friendships are that they are giving and receiving. As we sat on my couch and visited about our friendship she brought out things she appreciates about me and I was thinking, "my goodness, we have no idea how our lives touch others." I always feel like her life touches me so, her unselfish ways, her giving of herself, her laughter and having a way to look at everything in a positive way. How could it be that my friendship adds anything to her life, but I am learning, yet again, true friendship works two ways. 

God has been so good to my friend. He has helped her learn how to extend forgiveness and grace when others might not want to. She has learned to move forward and find fun in life. She loves to laugh and finds ways to do so in many ways. She loves campfires and camping. She loves children, and helping young girls. A young girl from Switzerland made her home with Elizabeth for a few months a couple summers ago. They are still close, writing to each other to stay in touch. Her heart is always to help someone in need. 

She sees her children and grandchildren periodically. They don't live in the same state, eight hours of road trip keep them apart, but now and then Elizabeth finds a way to the hills of Tennessee to visit with her children, or then they come to visit her. Her children could each write a book of their adventures living with their father and then moving away from him. Most of them now have driver's licenses and  can, more freely, come to visit her. 

There are many, many layers to Elizabeth's story, layers that will find their way inside the covers of a book. We are hoping to write her book together, my dream would be to co-author her book and let the world read her side and how she has had to do life alone and how she has found hope in God and how that looks for her. We talk about it a lot. I think we are more ready than not. So, when the time is right, we will start to put pen to paper and see what we come up with. 

This post is actually going to turn into a two or three part post. I took so many pictures yesterday. She made a basket, start to finish, and I have tons of pictures of the process. I also took photos around her property, so those will be in this post and the basket making will be in the second post. 

I really hope you enjoy this post, Elizabeth is in my inner circle of friends. We laugh so much when we are together. We relate with each other on so many levels, both having been hurt deeply in different ways. We can talk about the hurtful times, but we don't dwell, we are both similar in that we want to "live life", not just exist. 

Elizabeth's home.

 It is a rental, tucked back behind a row of houses in a local little town in Amish country. 

She likes to decorate. Here is her front entrance, there is a patio covered by snow, but her decorations still show through. 

Two things...her phone shanty..so cute...and her solar panel. It creates power for her to use in her home. 

This is her workshop. You will see the inside in my next post. 

Closer up of her workshop porch. 

She has a campfire pit on her property, the picnic table marks the spot really well. Love the trees in the back. 

Closer up, the campfire pit and picnic table. 

Her cat. 

Her peach tree. 

Her horse getting some sun. Beautiful setting. 

Later her horse had backed his backside up to the barn...she called his name and he turned his head to look for her. 

Her dogs, not a good picture, they didn't hold still very long. They are eating the cat's food here. They are another source of income for her. Long haired Chihuahua, pure bred. 

Her garden tools neatly in hung up on the barn wall. 

Icicles hanging off of her workshop roof.

On my way home from her house. 

Also followed this fellow for a little bit. Not the best picture. 

Sorry, loved this picture so much...here it is again. 

True friendships are hard to come by. I think Elizabeth and I have something really special. I cherish all my time I get to spend with her. We are both busy and sometimes it goes a long while before we see each other, but when we do see each other it is if there was no time between this time and the last time. 

I also wanted to point out one more thing. Elizabeth used to be Swartzentruber Amish. She grew up and lived a very strict lifestyle for many years. A few years back something happened and she was shunned by the Swartzentruber Amish church. Not to give everything away, that part of her story will be layered inside her book one day. Because of being shunned from her former church she then asked an Old Order Bishop if she could join his church and he agreed and so now she has learned to live among the Old Order Amish while being shunned by all her siblings and everyone else she knew and trusted.