As I have written in an earlier blog, we planned on having 2 children and only living in our first home for 5 years and then getting something bigger.

Fast forward to 1983 and 1984…we had our fourth child in December of 1982. Our little 1100 square foot house with no basement was bursting at the seams.

We begin our hunt for a bigger home. We had certain stipulations in mind. We both grew up on Upper Hilham road in Overton County and all we were interested in was finding a home on that road. God quickly shut that door.

We had started going to a new church when our youngest was 6 months old and since Upper Hilham road had been taken off the table, we began to look at properties on the road to our new church or somewhere near by. We believed that we could be more involved and effective at our church if we lived in the neighborhood and dwelt among the people.

I prayed consistently about this mission we had of finding a new home. It was hard to find the time to really look at houses and land but we finally found the house and property where we live today. As I said, we had stipulations, we wanted land enough to share with 4 grown children someday if the need arose and they were in need and wanted to put a mobile home on our land or something. We wanted to live outside the city limits but close enough in to the town to be near activities. We wanted woods, water, hills and hollows as we had both grown up with all of that and we wanted that for our kids.

The real estate lady brought us out to this home that we had found. I will never forget as it was spring of the year and the bottom near the river was all in bloom with yellow buttercups or daffodils as some people call them. I instantly fell in love with the house but it was not until we walked to the hill behind the house and saw those yellow buttercups in that bottom land that I really loved this place! God spoke in my spirit that day and said, “All of this will be yours someday”. I thought back, yeah right! We had already gotten the asking price and it was way over our budget so we had to tell the real estate lady that we would just keep looking.

Several months passed by and I got a call from the real estate lady asking if we were still interested in the property and I told her yes as we had looked and looked but nothing really fit our stipulations like that place did.

We went back the second time and looked again and also talked to the bank officials before we went out and made the lady what we felt like was a decent offer. The owner turned us down and once again we were forced to keep looking elsewhere.

Several more months passed by and the real estate lady called again and said that the home and land were going to go up for auction and was we still interested. Yes, yes, of course we were because nothing else was working out.

My husband had just taken a new job and he had to take a speed test at the factory the day of the auction and was not able to attend. I had never been to an auction in my life and was scared to death! I had a first cousin that was a lawyer and I asked him if he would accompany me and do the biding for me. We also had to make arrangements at the bank once again as we still owed for our 1100 square foot house. The bank then gave us stipulations…..we could bid on the new house but only up to a certain amount that they specified, we had to turn around in 30 days and auction off the little house and for just a short period of time we would owe for 2 houses and they agreed to let us pay interest only until our little house sold.

On the morning of the auction I was a nervous wreck and stood in the yard of where we live now as straight and still as a statue and let my cousin do all the bidding. My Mom and Step-Dad showed up to the auction and panicked because they thought that I was not there and my Step-Dad went inside to place a phone call to my employer to see if I had left yet. The auctioneer thought he was an interested buyer and it held up things for just a bit.

Anyway, when I realized that I had gotten the home for 2000 less than the bank had specified and 21,900 less that the original asking price and 7,000 less that we had offered the home owner on our second visit I was overcome with tears of joy! I went up to the owner as she stood on the front porch and kept thanking her over and over and blubbering like a crazy woman! I also bought the wood stove for 40.00 and the porch swing for 20.00. I was ecstatic!

We had a new home but there was still the issue of selling our old house at auction and selling it quickly. We were advised to only move the cluttered items to the new place but to stage the old house with furniture, drapes, and niceties to make it look inviting.

The auction on our old house was 2 days before Christmas of 1985 and only 2 families had shown up for the auction. My Mom had not slept a wink that night before and was worried sick about us doing this. Our oldest son had taken a screwdriver the night before and stabbed holes in one of the closet doors so we had basically been up most of the night too patching and fixing that door. Why he did that we will never know!

I had a strange calmness about me that morning of the auction as God had already proven Himself to me big time and I was confident that He would not let us down on this day either. One of the 2 families there bought that little house for 9000 more than we had originally given for it. We were going to be able to swing this!

After the auction was over we moved our Christmas tree out to the new place, decorations and all and we slept on the floor. We were so excited! One of my favorite memories in this house is the 4 kids sitting on the steps going down into the basement with smiles on their faces from ear to ear.

We finished moving everything on the 27th of December in 1985 with the help of my brother. It was snowing like crazy that day but we didn’t care. Our youngest celebrated his 3rd birthday here in our new home 4 days later. It has been home ever since.

You say, boy that was stressful! Yes it was! God was teaching us how to rely on Him and how to have patience. We were young and we wanted everything to work out quickly but it didn’t. We had to sweat for it and offer up lots of prayers and learn some things. But, you know what? That whole house buying experience was and has been one of our biggest faith building lessons.

We have had a wonderful life here on our little piece of ground and just 3 years ago my husband and I were thinking of retiring and we did some upgrades to our home and while in Gatlinburg we had one of those wooden signs made that says Poston Ponderosa and it hangs over our steps on our back deck. This place is so special to us, it has only 7.4 acres but has woods, hills, hollows, water, enough land, outside city limits, and close to town……for you see God had a plan!