Since this is the week of Halloween I have been thinking a lot of past experiences that we had with our children.

In the picture above you will see Danny with Matt in the background. I had seen an idea in a family circle magazine about taking an old sheet and ripping it up and dressing your child as a mummy. I thought it was a really cute and inexpensive idea.

If I remember correctly Danny’s mummy costume was an old sheet that I ripped up plus another grayish purple cloth I ripped up too to give him some color. The one thing I did not even think of when wrapping him was to put shorts on over his underwear before I wrapped him.

We went along our merry way that night and with each venture in and out of the car, Danny’s wrappings became looser and looser.

We always went to Granny Poston’s, my Aunt Leretha’s, my co-workers, and finally stopped at several church friend’s homes as we returned to our house.

The last house we stopped at that night was a dear church friend’s home and Danny refused to get out of the car as he was getting more and more embarrassed as his underwear was starting to show as his wrappings were separating. I could see his frustration and let him stay in the car but then my friend with her camera in hand called from her porch for him to come on in so she could get a picture. He obliged her without complaining any more. Below is that picture:

Almost every article my kids have ever written about me includes the statement that …. Mom always made homemade Halloween costumes….

I have to chuckle to myself every time I read one of those statements. As I stated in my last blog, God gifted me to be taught to sew at a young age. I made the Halloween costumes because we were poor and it was cheaper for me to do that. You say, well those plastic outfits are cheap…. but when you are really poor even cheap is too expensive. Plus, I used to keep a costume barrel in my basement just full of costumes through the years and we could whip something together really quick if need be!

Mark worked second shift a lot of years on Halloween so it was left for me to make the rounds with the kids so I made sure that I did. We would usually leave home before it was even dark and go to Granny Poston’s first as she got in the bed early. Our second stop was usually my Aunt Leretha’s and she would usually have some kind of supper cooked there which really helped me out and kept the kids from getting sick on all that candy. We were usually back home pretty early so we could all get cleaned up and get in bed.

I think back on those days and it would have been so much easier for us to just stay home or for me to send the kids with someone else but that was memory making times and I wanted that for my kids.

Now that Danny has passed away I am really thankful that I have tons and tons of special memories with him and his siblings. It really means so much.

My grandma Hodges used to always tell me that she was like a squirrel and she would hoard up her memories just like a squirrel hoards up nuts and she would say when she got lonely she would pull out those memories and chew on them for a while. I guess I have been doing that very thing tonight as I remember Danny and this night to remember😊

For about 3 days now my husband and I have been carrying in our outside plants to store away for cold weather. I get so gung ho in the spring to plant all these pots and have lots of greenery on my decks but then in October I am at my wits end as to where to store it all and the plants are so gorgeous right now that I do not want to lose them. Some of the bigger plants were given to us when Danny died and I am really wanting to save them if possible.

As you see in the video the basement now looks like a jungle and plants are in most of the bedrooms too.

The Christmas cactus has only been in a couple of days but the change from cold to warm has already caused it to think it is time to bloom.

I think every year when I go through this process why in the world I plant so many things. I love plants and have a green thumb that is why. Ha!

Today as I was cleaning out spots and moving things around I had a completely different thought about what I was doing. I am bringing all these plants in to protect them because I do not want them to face the bitter cold and take a chance on dying out. I had fear after the first cold night because I had gotten lazy and did not bring them in until the next night. So what does this everyday scenario have to do with God?

I sometimes see God in comparison to a mother hen. Have you ever looked in the barnyard and saw the mother hen all plump and just sitting there and you know that she has baby chicks but where are they?

In Psalm chapter 91:4 it says this in the NIV: He will cover you with His feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. 

There is a lot going on the world today that signals that the end time is near and a lot of it makes us as humans fearful. I believe that God is calling us into Him as a mother hen calls her chicks to come and hide under her wings. Times are going to be hard and scary but we as Christians have no reason to be afraid.

In Acts 2: 37-39 (NIV) it says: When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—-for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

How does this relate to my plant story? I bring my plants in to protect them because I know that hard times are coming. God does the same thing with us. His desire is that each and every person be saved and baptized. I believe He is calling His believers into a closer relationship than they have ever had with Him because He knows that the end is near and that we need His strength.

So if you are scurrying around and trying to beat this cold front that is coming in and get all of your plants inside today just please think of this story and take it to heart.

God loves you so much and wants each person to be saved and baptized and dwell in the shelter of His wings until whatever day He decides to call us to our eternal home.

Have fun carrying plants today and rejoice for we have a Father who loves us that much and that is amazing!

Don’t you want to feel love and protection like this little chick has?

Bless It!

I told you a few nights ago a little about my life and have introduced myself to you but tonight I want to introduce you to our children and my greatest blessing.

I have always loved children and before Mark and I married I wanted 6 children. My most lively and hardest to handle child was born first so then we lowered our desire of children to just 2. God had a much different plan in store.

We found out just 3 weeks beforehand that we were having twins for our second pregnancy. We had already made a cute little nursery in our home and everything was all set and then twins showed up! Whew! As I said, the first child was a handful and then we had twins when Danny had just turned 3. Danny had been the very first grandchild on both sides of our family and his little world was totally rocked when the twins came along…..plus they were girls!

When Danny was born Mark was still in the Air Force and I was a stay at home mom. We moved back to Livingston in 1976 and I went to work at Berkline and Danny stayed with a babysitter for the very first time at the age of 18 months. When the twins were born I was working at Union Bank. I had to return back to work at the bank when the twins were 6 weeks old. We had scurried around trying to find babysitters for all of the children but nothing was working out and I really needed to work as we had bought our first home and had lots of bills.

Nearing the end of the 6 week period I went to the bank officials and asked if I could come into work an hour earlier than everyone else and leave an hour earlier than the others. Mark had been working as a welder but had gotten laid off and he had landed a job in Cookeville at Dacco but it was second shift. The bank officials agreed for me to do this and Mark stayed with the kids during the day and as soon as I got home from work I was there with them until he returned home after 11 pm at night. A lot of afternoons Mark would be backed up in the carport of our house with the engine running and I would pull into the drive and he would pull out and we would wave at each other in passing.

Our fourth child came along when Danny was 7 and the twins were 4. Danny had been rooted out of his position of all the attention from the family and he longed for a brother. He even prayed for a brother.

While we were at the hospital having Matthew, my Mom kept the 3 older kids and she taught them this Bible verse because the new baby was going to be named Matthew which means “a gift from God”:

Matthew 7 verse 7…….Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you….. (KJV)

We had our four children, 2 boys and 2 girls. I felt complete!

The other day I heard a sermon and instead of saying they were blessed the person said they were gifted. I have thought a lot about that. I believe that God gifted me with a lot of things since birth and I will explain.

I was gifted with tons of energy. I was gifted with 2 living grandmothers that stepped in and helped raise us three kids, I was gifted to learn at a very young age how to cook, clean, and sew. I was gifted to learn a strong work ethic. I was gifted to respect the elderly and the feelings of other people. I was gifted to have an uncle that was the most patriotic person I have known. I was gifted to know and reverence God…..the list goes on and on. You see, I believe that God was setting me up from birth to be the person that I am today. My only desire in life was to be a wife and a mother. I had no desire to go to college or land an awesome career. I have always worked but pretty much left the job there in the afternoons when I walked out the door.

God had his hand on my life and prepared me and gifted me in a way that later I could handle having 4 children, handle having very little money, needing all that energy, handle having 3 men in my family that were soldiers, and needing God desperately to lead me.

I am so very thankful for God caring enough about me to gift me with all of that knowledge and instinct to do the things needed to raise the 4 blessings that He gave us.

In the picture above it is L to R, our youngest son Matthew. Next is our twin daughter Rachel and then our twin daughter Melinda, and to the far right is our oldest son, Danny.

One time years ago at church an elderly lady told me that most large families always have one ugly duckling in the bunch but she said that all of our kids were beautiful. I feel that way too. All four were so different but so unique and each special in their own way. I always encouraged each of them to be the person that God created them to be and if that meant walking to the beat of a different drum then so be it. Even the twins were encouraged to be individuals.

I could have gone to college, I could have striven to land a high paying job and live in a fine home but all of that was never important to me. I am not knocking it but it was just not my priority.

My greatest blessing in my life has been to have these 4 children and to be gifted by God to be their mother. Time has passed so quickly and now they are all grown and I am a grandmother and really cherishing that role. God has been so good!

So if you are reading this and you have a passel of children and you don’t feel so special then believe me, someday you will look back and see your greatest blessing as I have!

I just finished watching the 10 o’clock news on Channel 5 and they were interviewing Heather, the wife of Sonny Melton who was killed during the Las Vegas shooting and how she is starting different memorial foundations and scholarships to honor his memory.

I got to thinking about this picture of my three younger children and how they ran the Country Music half marathon in April of 2013 after Danny had died in January of 2013.

The Country Music marathon in Nashville is held each year around the last week in April which being that Danny’s birthday was April 29th it seemed a good way for all of us to be together and to honor his memory. The money raised from this goes to fund the St. Jude Hospital for children.

I also participated in this event and walked the 5k with my friend Barbara. Most of our family was in Nashville that weekend and we spent the weekend celebrating and thinking of Danny.

My friend Barbara and I stopped along the route at this one turn and waited for the half marathon runners to pass by because we knew that my kids would be in that group. We waited for so long that our feet became numb from the cold rain. It had been a horrible forecast and it had rained a cold bitter rain during the whole event.

We did get to see the kids and then we walked on. We probably placed last in our division but we didn’t care.

After we got to the finish of the 5k we still had to wait a long time as the half marathon was still going on so we positioned ourselves to where we would be able to see the finish line when my kids crossed over.

The above picture was taken as they ran towards the finish line and they all three held up 4 fingers on one hand and 2 fingers on the other hand as the number 42 was always Danny’s sports numbers when he played ball. I cried so hard during the taking of this picture and I could not have been more proud of my children and how they honored their brother in this way.

Melinda had a company make us all these special shirts that we wore and on the back it says Running for Danny. They later told me that during the race an older man ran past them and said, Who is Danny? They replied that he was their brother and the man replied that that was his name and he smiled as he ran along. They felt like their brother was right there with them.

Tonight, I got to thinking about Heather Melton and about our family and other families that I know that have suffered death of a close loved one and I have thought of scholarships at graduations, motorcycle rides, marathons, and different events that these families do to carry on and honor their loved one.

None of us want to forget our Danny and the more we share of him and his life the more it passes his legacy on.

I write the things that I write for that reason too. I believe that our hurts need to be channeled and turned from the bad things to something good and constructive.

1 Corinthians 15 verse 58 in the NIV says this:

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

Satan would be so happy if we just lay down and quit when bad things happen to us and our families but to me that is letting him win. Of all the families I know in this home area of mine that have lost loved ones they have honored and pressed on in some way the memory of their loved one.

I am not saying that it is easy because it is not but we love talking of our loved one and sharing about them and keeping their memory alive. Plus, if this is a help to someone else then it makes the hurt so much easier.

I always tell my kids when they are down in the dumps about something to go out and find someone to do something nice for and it is a way of channeling their hurt into something good. There is always someone out there that is worse off than we are.

The little girl holding onto the huge doll is me. This picture L to R is my baby sister, my Dad holding my brother, me, the doll, and my Mom.

My parents both married at age 17 and I am their first born. For the first few years of my life we lived in a little red rent house that was on my Grandpa and Grandma’s farm.

At my age of 3 we moved to our own farm on the Upper Hilham Road in Overton County Tennessee.

My Mom was a stay at home Mom and my Dad worked during the day and farmed in the afternoons and on weekends.

We had all kinds of animals on our farm and it was such a good life. We grew up drinking milk straight from the cow and making butter from the cream and had our own eggs from the hens and our own hogs for meat. We participated in the work of the farm and raised a garden every year and worked in that too. We had hands on experiences that helped our parents but also gave us very many life lessons that we still use to this day.

Our Mom read to us out of only 2 books that I can remember. One was the family Bible and the other book was Mom’s high school English literature book and is probably the reason that I always wanted to become a writer. I loved the stories from the Bible of David and Goliath and Daniel in the Lions Den but also loved the many plays of Shakespeare and the poetry in the English lit book.

And I also loved country music. We had no TV in the young years so we listened to music a lot. Our Mom was the piano player at church so we grew up on the hymns but she was also a huge fan of Patsy Cline and the country greats. Music was a big part of my growing up years.

One Christmas when Sis and I were in grade school we got a little record player for Christmas and an album of the Mary Poppins movie with Dick Van Dyke. We wore that album out and love it till this day.

My sister and I always shared a room and part of that time had bunk beds. I always got the top bunk because she had very bad eyesight and Mom always gave her the bottom bunk. I didn’t mind though because I was never afraid of heights and enjoyed it.

Our neighbors were all good friends of ours but no one lived really close to us so we played outside and rode our ponies a lot and built a lot of tree houses and forts. We got along good together most days but sometimes had our fights with each other too.

I am 15 months older than my brother and he is 18 months older than my sister so my Mom and Dad had their hands full but they survived. They were both young and great parents and made simple things so fun for us. Mom had a huge imagination and played games with us when she needed housework done and we fell for it every time. Our Dad made sure that we were competitive as he was always having us do some kinds of feats when people came over. He made us feel very special.

We never felt bored or lacking because we didn’t have much money. We were poor but back then everyone else around us must have been poor too because it seemed all the families in our area was just the same.

During the winter months when we got heavy snows the neighbors would all congregate at our house and the parents would play a card game called Pitch in the kitchen while us kids would play monopoly or old maid or jacks or pick up sticks. We always had fun times with our neighbors. In the summer months after church the neighbors would gather in a cow pasture and play softball.

Fall was my very favorite season and still is. I love the beauty of all the colors and the cool and crispness in the air and also the knowing that winter is right around the corner which is a season that I love as well.

I wouldn’t trade anything for the childhood that I had and the farm life that I enjoyed. I have a great love for life, for nature, for our country, and for my fellow man.

I see the glass half full always and believe that we are placed here on this earth to leave our mark and that I am at present carrying my baton but will pass it on someday to someone else and it is an honor and a privilege to be in such a position to do so.

I love living in America and I often stand amazed at why God chose to let me be born here and raised the way that I was. I am so fortunate and graced to be in the life that I have!

I am trying to learn to write and share. I just wanted all of you to know a little bit more about my background and where I came from. I hope you enjoy the things that I write and I want to be a light in a sometimes seemingly dark area and I want to spread as much Joy around as I possible can.

My first day to start blogging was September the 28th and I stand amazed at how well things are going thus far. The outreach of the WordPress.com is a gift in itself. I can’t believe how I can sit here in little ole’ Livingston, Tn. and write and my words can instantly travel all across the world with the click of the publish button. It just blows my mind!

I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for making a little girl’s dream come true.

Bless you and Goodnight!

Yesterday I was visiting at my son’s home and at times he will play a YouTube video to soothe his sleepy toddler. I was in the kitchen at the sink and I heard the familiar words of a song and it brought back a memory that I had forgotten about.

One night when I was in my late twenties I was attending our church ladies monthly meeting. This particular night we were meeting at a private home and the meeting had ended and our hostess had invited us into her kitchen for some refreshments. I can still remember what I ate that night for that is how vivid this memory is.

It had to be around the end of May because the dessert I ate was in season. It seemed everyone there was excitedly discussing their upcoming vacation plans. The more discussion I heard the more sad I began to feel. Just a few years previously I had birthed our 4th child and we had never had the money to go anywhere on vacation.

I left that home that night in the pits of despair and felt like just sobbing.

The next morning as I faced the same chaos that I faced every school morning my despair turned into bitterness. I not only had four kids of my own but taught Sunday School, was in charge of Christmas plays, and babysit in the nursery at Wednesday night Bible study much of the time.

I am not writing this to brag in any way on myself but just to let you envision where I was in my life during that time.

After rushing all morning getting 4 kids ready for their destinations and herding them out the door I was driving into work and was having a deep conversation with God. I was telling God how unfair that I thought that He was to me because I was trying to work so hard for Him.

I had my car radio on low and I remember as I yielded from Rickman road onto Highway 111 there at the Farmer’s Co-op, the song Thank You by Ray Boltz came on the radio. Oh how my pity party tears began to roll as I listened to the words of that song. Especially the part of the song that the child came up and said Thank You for you taught my Sunday School when I was only 8.

I released my bitterness that morning as I drove along and realized that some rewards come after we die and when we reach heaven and my hurt over not giving my kids a vacation subsided and I went my merry way.

I am here to tell you that before that summer was up a series of events happened and we were blessed to buy a mini van and we took our children on their one of only two vacations we ever got to take them to.

We went to Washington DC and also to New York to the Statue of Liberty. As we drove across the Potomac I felt like a history book opened up and all that we had studied about in that book flowed out of the book and sprang up into real life. I think I was more excited than the kids were!

We toured all the Smithsonions and our oldest was probably 10 and our youngest probably 3 and I remember thinking how our older 3 children were studying all the visuals we were seeing in the museum of American History….. it was a site to behold!

And myself, I got to see the Statue of Liberty which had been a lifelong desire of mine but a desire that I thought I would never see fulfilled but would take to my grave.

We stayed 1 night on the way to Washington with my brother’s family, stayed 2 nights in Motel 6’s and spent another night at my brother’s on the way back. We were cheapskates but we didn’t care….. we were on our glorious vacation!!

God gave us that vacation and it WAS glorious! Yesterday, as I heard the Ray Boltz song drift into the kitchen I got a big sweet smile on my face as I remembered once again how God had taken my pity frown and turned it upside down into a smile of praise! My God loved me that much! He loves you too!

This morning I was standing at my kitchen window and it was around 6:30 and I saw the Overton County school bus going down our road and it wasn’t even daylight yet.

I instantly thought of our children and how I made them catch that bus at that time of morning and I thought, Wow! that was so early!

I was a Mom that loved and does love my children dearly but I am also a believer in teaching them how to stand on their own two feet so basically I was not much of a coddler.

I am not a real huggy, touchy, feely Mom and sometimes the twins criticize me for that but I think they have finally got used to me.

I remember when Danny was in 3rd grade and each student was supposed to make these little wooden cars and they were going to have a racing contest with them on a certain day and the winner would get a blue ribbon. Danny was all excited about it and we went down to Granny Poston’s house that weekend and Danny’s aunt Martha still had her wooden car from 3rd grade and it was on a shelf in the den. Martha told Danny that he could borrow her car to use as a model to go by in making his if he wanted to. I immediately saw the wheels turning in his little head so on the way home I explained to him that Martha’s car was just to be a model to go by and that he could not enter her car because that would be cheating. He said ok.

Several weeks passed and the car derby had been held that day and Danny came home with the blue ribbon and was bursting in the door to tell me all about it and show me his blue ribbon. I was proud and happy for him and told him so.

I don’t know if his conscience got to bothering him or what but before the night was over his countenance had completely changed and I began to suspect that he had cheated and entered Martha’s car. After supper was over I confronted him with my suspicions and he ended up telling me that he had indeed entered his aunt’s car. I sent him to his room to wait while I decided what his punishment would be.

I let him stew in that bedroom for a while and then I called him out and told him that we were going to walk into school early the next morning and before class started he was going to stand in front of everyone and tell them what he had done and give the blue ribbon back. Oh, how he cried at my words…. he begged me to spank him instead.

The next morning I kept my word and walked in to school with him and went to his classroom. I called the teacher out into the hall and explained what was going on and we waited. All the class finally arrived and were seated at their desks and then the teacher called him in from the hallway…. I stood outside the door and watched. My heart broke for him and after he lay the ribbon on the teacher’s desk he went to his desk and sat down and the teacher came to the hall to speak to me; she said Mrs. Poston I am not sure I could have done that. As I left there that morning I cried all the way to work. When I got to work my co-workers shamed me and told me how mean I was.

A few weeks after that Danny came to me while I was cooking supper and he handed me a book and asked me to read this certain story in it. The story was in the pioneer days and basically a boy had stolen a piece of candy from the general store and the Mom in the story had made him go back to the store and confess what he had done and pay for that candy. I looked up from reading the story with tears in my eyes and Danny was smiling and had a twinkle in his eyes…. I said I guess I am not the only mean Mom and he smiled and said yes.

I was rough on our kids and made them do chores, work through sicknesses, and be accountable for their actions. They weren’t too fond of me a lot of the time but I am so proud of them today and the fine people that they are.

The worst thing you can do for your kids is to do everything for them.

I watched that big yellow bus in the morning light this morning and I had compassion in my heart for my kids as I gave them a rough road to travel and I am not so sure that I could be that firm now that I am older and my drill sergeant ways have softened a lot but I am sure proud of them!