All my life people have wondered and asked my sister and I why we're so close, what is it we have that other sisters just don't get. No one seems to understand how we can be so tolerant of each other whilst being with each other so much, and wanting to be together even more. Even I don't understand it, to us its just natural, what we've felt for such a long time that we don't even give it a second thought anymore. Before you say it though, we were not always this way. I remember early in primary school, she and I pretty much had nothing to do with each other, I had my friends, she really didn't have many of her own. I thought it was a drag having to bring my little sister along to all our activities, the normal stuff really. I don't know when things started to change, after a while we just started doing things together. We used to at the age of, I think 9 for me, 7 for her, catch the bus to the local shopping center (still can't believe mum actually let us do that, then again ours was a new suburb no crime around as yet back then) and spend hours and hours in the library together, come home with our bags bursting with books (after using our pocket money to get as many sweets as we possibly could from our 1 dollar each xD) and make a cubby out of chairs and blankets, get flash lights and sit under there read, munch, giggle.

Then everything changed, we moved to the Northern Territory, Katherine to be exact. Both of us knew no one. Here we both had trouble making friends, but me more so, I was bullied beyond belief in high school and we hung out more and more. She became my best friend, we shared everything, we were there for each other. I started hanging out with my sister who was two grades below me at school. That was hard for me, people looked at me, I had no one in my grade level to sit with in classes. I was bullied...very badly people laughed at me and stuck notes on my back. I had the odd person I could sit next to but the bullies always seemed to follow. That was how it was, terrible but Liz was always there for me. As much as I resented having to sit with my own sister of two years younger. By year 10, I'd had enough, that's when things started to get serious. Bullies took it up a notch, it was gang up time and I'd put up with so much that I decided enough was enough. I finally stood up to her, and her gang of nasty creeps. Angry words were screamed, the usual big crowd you'd expect, fists were thrown, she slapped me hard on the face and I couldn't take it anymore being as I was out numbered, I ran. She and I were suspended, I still can not understand those damn teachers, knowing for so long what had been happening. They knew I had been the victim in the whole affair and yet we were both punished, she was laughing the whole way, smirking at me while I was in tears scared to death at what had happened. Liz was there, she was there for me when no one else was. In Katherine we shared adjoining rooms. Our rooms were side by side and had door access to the balcony on one side of the house, we could literally walk next door to each other, it kind of reminds me of 'A little Princess' in the attic, that was exactly how it felt.

Mum and Dad decided to send me away to school, I couldn't go back there, my grades were appalling and I wasn't happy, they made arrangements and I left for Darwin while Liz stayed behind. I spent 2 years at school in Darwin away from my little sis, I really don't even know much about what she did during those two years, I know my Dad moved away to Gove to work, and my brother went to the states for a while. A lot of the time it was justMum and Liz, together. I talked to her often on the phone but it wasn't the same as being together to hug, to comfort each other the way we had always. I hate to say it but, if I was honest, Liz was what I missed most of all about living away from home. Specially in the first year, with so much going on, I found it so hard on my own but I started to make friends, life long friends some of which I will never forget.

12 months ago, things were normal, Liz was a happy, smiling, confident christian glow worm. She knew what she wanted, how she would get it, that she'd succeed at anything, she was excited at what was to come, we were joined at the hip. We spent all our free time together, she and I were inseparable. That was until he came. That man who would steal my sisters heart, steal her away without my knowing, without my understanding, our relationship was broken, my sister was lost. I barely saw her, he did, I barely spoke to her, he did, I pleaded with her for time, she couldn't choose. In the end, I lost, I couldn't compete with him and his promises, empty promises about what he would do for her, what she had wrong. Where she needed to change, how naive she was, that her family, the people she had spent her whole life together with no longer mattered as much as he did. From my side, I felt lost, she's never had a boyfriend before, I didn't know if I was being selfish for time on my part, I thought she needed space.

In the end, he manipulated her to such an extent that she threw away aspects of her life and dreams, her love for her family, she was ready to run away and leave it all behind for him. God, was the one who brought her back to me, I will never forget that day. The day I saw the girl I'd known my whole life re-inhabit her body. She was back, we, were back it was a teary reunion and hard on my part, so many other things clouded that day, and still hang over our heads. A future that was never what I envisioned for us both. The last two weeks I've hugged and talked to my little sister more than I have in the last 10 months.

So, what does being a sister mean to me? It means, forgiveness, the minute she came back to me, she was forgiven. Trust, we can talk, tell each other anything, neither of us will judge, we will pray together, love each other beyond belief. We are together through the good times and the bad, together through Jesus Christ our lord and savior we are blessed to have each other, to treasure each other.

Last night we decided something, any man, ANY MAN, who wants one of us is getting a two for one special. Like it or lump it, we are a package no way you can have one without the other, with God as our center of gravity we will never be pulled apart again. I love my sister so much that no one who doesn't share these unique feelings for a family member could possibly understand. Sisterly love to me is the most beautiful gift God has ever given me my whole life. I will treasure her even after I die and go to heaven. I imagine living in houses a street away, enough that we are a stones throw from each other even when we are married. My sister Elizabeth is my soul mate and no one will ever steal her from me again.

- Elizabeth, Lizzy, Liz, you have my heart always, you are the most beautiful person on earth, joyful, bubbly, warm, passionate, godly women and you are my treasured gift from God. -