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!

We attend a little country church right by our home. The people there are like family to us.

Last week I wrote about taking our little 8 year old grandson to see the Ark Encounter in Williamstown Kentucky and today a friend at church brought me this book to keep and share with my grandson.

Prayers from the Ark is a book of little poems that were written from the perspective of the animal passengers on the ark and from Noah. Here is the table of contents:

This book is just the neatest little gift! As I got the gift home and opened up the pages to look at it, I began to think about my church family and what all those people mean to me. We all come from individual homes but really are like a big ole’ family.

Today we took our youngest grandchild to church with us and everyone just made over her and told us how precious she was. Our tail feathers plumped up like 2 barnyard peacocks and we were so proud!

We have a time period at our little church called – hug time- and it is a few minutes before the preaching starts where we all walk around the room and hug, shake hands, or just speak to one another. No one shuns another or just visits their own little click for it is genuine affection that we share! The preacher calls us back to attention by ringing a big cow bell! It is such a fun time!

I cherish the love that we share in our little country church and the support system we have there. When our son died 4 years ago these same people were at our home to comfort and share our grief. Our life is so enriched by having all of these people in our lives.

When our preacher leads us in prayer he always asks God to be with us but never fails to ask God to be with the little church down the road and the big church up in town. That prayer means so much to me as that is how we should feel. Our God is big enough to go around and be there for everyone!

If you read my blogs and don’t have one of these church families in your life then I encourage you to find one and find one quick. I don’t know how we would survive without our little church family and the blessing that they are to us! It is a little piece of heaven here on earth!

We have had our youngest grandchild here with us this weekend and it got me to thinking about my own grandmothers now that I am one myself.

My dad had an accident while training a horse when I was in the first grade and the horse fell on him and broke his back. From first grade until he died when I was 18 he rarely had a day free from pain and was in the hospital a lot and had two major back operations.

Because my dad was sick a lot of the time us three kids spent a tremendous lot of time with our two grandmothers.

My dad’s mother was a real worker and probably one of the best cooks around. She was the matriarch of the family and lived on a farm and rose early in the morning before daylight and began the work of the day and the preparing of the meals for the farm hands. I learned my work ethic from her. She taught me so many things.

I used to love to sit on her front porch with the two entrance doors and help her break beans or just sit in that wonderful porch swing that she had and have conversation with her.

After my grandpa died she would come around ever so often and stay with us for a week at a time and that time with her was glorious. She never did learn to drive or have a driver’s license so we always had to pick her up and check on her and take her places. I loved spending time with her.

My other grandma, my Mom’s mother taught me just as many things but in different ways. She was a horrible cook and when we went to her house she had a cupboard full of food items that were instant like potato sticks in a can, Tang instant breakfast drink, and popcorn that popped on the stove in an aluminum pie pan and foil that rose in the air as the popcorn popped. And oh, the Campbell’s soup cans in that cupboard! Every kind of soup you could think of!

This grandma always had a little black stool that she would put over in the bathtub before bed and we would have to sit on it and wash our feet. We played hard at her house and I can only imagine the dirt that was on our bodies in different places but to her the feet was all that mattered. We also slept upstairs there and even though she had indoor plumbing we were told to use the slop jar while upstairs. Chamber pot to some would be the word. This grandma was very unique and she drove a car and loved to run around and visit and oh she could talk. She was a talker for sure!

This maternal grandmother of mine taught us all three how important that prayer was. She had made these little knee cushions and had one for each one of us and for herself too and each night that we stayed there she would get out those cushions before bed and place them on the floor by her big bed and we would all kneel down beside of her and say our goodnight prayers.

This grandma was also an encourager. I found a card recently in my family Bible that she had sent me when I was a young mother and in the card she had told me what a fine job me and my husband were doing.

Some people live far away from their grandchildren and sometimes that is just how it is but I am very thankful that I can be close and involved in my grandchildren’s lives just like my grandmas were in mine.

I remember one time when my Dad had his very first back operation in Nashville and my Mom stayed down there with him and they were gone for three months. My dad’s mother moved in with my Mom’s mother and the two grandmas took care of us the whole time. My dad’s two brothers also went to our farm every single day and fed the livestock, gathered the eggs, and milked the cow. As they returned home they would stop at grandma’s house and leave the milk and eggs there for us kids to have.

I had an uncle James too, my Mom’s brother that lived with my grandmother on my Mom’s side. He was born a blue baby and also had polio as a small child so he never married and was crippled for life and lived there with my maternal grandmother. My paternal grandmother was such a good cook that when she lived there for the three months my Uncle James cried when she left because he had never tasted such good food.

Last night I wrote about how older folk have so much to offer the younger generation and I know my two grandmas both influenced my life…..probably more than my parents did. Just about everything I am today I owe to both of them.

If you are a grandma or grandpa, I salute you and oh what a mission field you have with those grandchildren. You do not have to serve in a foreign land because you are needed so much here at home.

Little things my grandmas did or said are just fried in my brain. Hardly a day goes by that I do not think of one or both of them or something they taught me or said to me.

Psalm 71:17-18 NKJV

O God, You have taught me from my youth; And to this day I declare Your wondrous works. Now also when I am old and gray headed, O God, do not forsake me, Until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to everyone who is to come.

Several weeks ago, I was out on my deck watering my flowers and I looked down at my pot of Hen and Chicks and one of the huge older plants had shot up towards the heavens and had bloomed! I had never in my lifetime seen one of these plants do this. I called to my husband to come and see and asked him if he had ever seen this and he said no as well.

The blooms on this plant were so beautiful and because I was so curious I asked on Facebook if any of my friends and family had seen this before. Most of my contacts replied that they had not but there was this one friend that said that the plant will do this right before it dies. I gasped and asked, “My whole pot will die?”. She replied that the pot would be fine but just this one plant would die.

We went on vacation about that time so I kind of forgot about my unusual plant and when we got back I had to go out and see if my friend was correct.

The plant still had some blooms on it but was beginning to fade and as you can see parts of the life of the plant were already gone.

A few weeks later this is what I saw:

My friend was absolutely correct! The entire plant had died even though all the rest around it was just fine and healthy as could be.

This process that took place in my plant got me to thinking. I am 61 years old and compared to a basketball game I feel like I am in the fourth quarter of life.

My husband and I are both retired now after raising 4 children and working really hard on our jobs for years. Are we to just sit down and quit and coast on out of this life? I do not think so. My take is that we are to continue to grow and blossom until the day that we die.

In Psalm 92:14 of the NIV version it reads: They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green,

That verse confirms what I already believe that we as older persons have a lot of knowledge and gifts that we can pass down before we die. We can be an encourager and a helper to the younger folk. We can lend a hand when they need us and we can love on little children and spend one on one time with them when young parents are in the rush of just making a life.

I learned a lot from my little plant that day and I hope that you do too. This is what it looks like now:

I marvel at this picture the most for as you see the dead plant left an empty space in the pot but I guarantee that by next summer all those little baby plants will grow in size and that space will be filled. So is the cycle of life. We grow to maturity and then we die and make room for the next ones following behind us.

I do not have any problems with aging because I feel needed somewhere everyday and look for the opportunities. I hope you do too older folk!

Because of sickness we have our newest little granddaughter at our house to care for. As I looked down at her precious face it got me to thinking of long ago and our very first grandchild.

Marlee Marie Poston was born while our oldest son was stationed in Korea. He had asked me to stand in for him in the surgery room as she was delivered by C-section.

I was very happy to do this for him and seeing her be born has always been a very special memory for me. She was also named after me as my middle name is Marie and my mother’s middle name is Marie. It is our family name handed down.

Marlee was a precious child and she looked a lot like our son did when he was a newborn. The picture above is a shadow box I have in my bedroom that is her first Easter dress and her funeral flowers that I carried in my hand on the plane ride back to Tennessee.

Our granddaughter was born April 6 of 2000 and died on June 1 of 2000. She died from SIDS.

After we lost her we have had only boys born into our family…..lots of boys!

This year we finally had another little girl and we are so thankful and proud to have her.

I speak a lot of trials and struggles in my life and I always say that I do not age by birthdays but by events that happen in my life. Losing Marlee was a huge birthday for me and it cut me to the core. Our son saw his daughter for the first time as she lay in her little casket. I also had a lady at church make her an heirloom christening gown and she ended up being buried in it. It was a very sad and sorrowful time in all of our lives.

I know a lot of people everywhere are reading my simple little blogs but if they can help just one person in the US or in another country then it is all worth it to me.

The picture at the bottom of this blog is one that hangs in my living room. When my husband and I were married we lay our hands on a family Bible as husband and wife and this verse is where the Bible was turned to. The words to this verse have very special meaning to us and that is why it is hanging in our home. Our lives have had many seasons, some joyful and some very painful but each and every time and season had a purpose and yours does too. You may not see right now if you are living in the bubble so to speak but someday you will be 61 years old like me and able to look back and see the seasons and it will all make sense to you.

God is like a master craftsman, He is working a tapestry with our lives and only He can see the beauty of the pattern but a lot of the time all we can see is the knots and tangles from underneath His handiwork and it makes no sense to us.

My sweet girl Marlee has her earthly daddy with her now but more importantly they both have their heavenly Father with them. That certainty gives me much hope and I always think about people that do not know the Lord and do not have that hope. How do they make it? I don’t think that I could.

Reach out today for that hope in your life, you will never regret it…….

Ecclesiastes 3:1

January 8th, 2013 was the worst day of my life! I lost my son on that day at the age of 37….. and I was the unfortunate person that found him.

I had been given an IPad for Christmas just a few weeks before and did not have a clue how to use it yet. All the settings were set to public.

All of my life when I was disturbed or really happy either one I would write it down. On the night of finding my son I just did what comes natural for me and wrote all of my emotions down….. what I thought was only going out on Facebook to close friends and family was going out to everyone as a public post.

I was putting my raw emotions out there for all to read. I was pretty embarrassed about this at first until I began to receive private Facebook messages from lots of people, young and old and with them expressing to me how my words were affecting them.

Later I was asked to speak at a few places such as church ladies groups and elementary schools. What started out as my raw emotions became a personal testimony and a ministry and eventually led into me writing this blog. I am also working on a book entitled, Losing a Son and Living with it.

Like the picture above says the greatest test of my faith was losing my son. I miss my son dearly and did not want him to die and have asked myself a million questions with the word WHY in front of them but in the end I have to Thank God for loaning me my son for 37 years and I appreciate every second I had with him.

I don’t want to give away my book so I won’t go into a lot of details here but I decided the best way to honor my son is to let him live on through my written words.

Please pray for me in this endeavor as I am nobody special by any means but just a willing vessel to be used of God.

It has taken me years of hurts, tears, pain, and sorrow to get to where I stand today and I can honestly say without a doubt that I could not have done it without God being by my side.

So to God tonight I say Thank You Lord!

I love this picture so much!

It is fall of the year here in Tennessee and the foliage is beginning to turn to the pretty shades of red, orange, and yellow. The sunflowers are full of the seeds that the birds all love and the temps are beginning to cool down.

It has been another busy summer, one of my busiest as now I am retired. My children made such fun of me as I took an early retirement and honestly I think they were more worried about my financial well being than I was.

It has been 2 years into retirement now and I absolutely love it! I still get up early most every day and I busy myself with doing something, whether it is for someone else, for fun, or just for me. I love being able to make those choices!

I appreciate the life that I have and I thank God every day for letting me live it.

If you are in a rut or down trodden in any way I would suggest that you take a long hard look at your life and start listing all the good things that you have in it. If you need a good pick me up then go out and do something nice for someone. It will work every time to make you perk up and feel better.

You don’t have to do really big things in life but take care of the little details. Ask God daily to show you how to love others as He loves us. He will do it I promise!

Things will begin happening in your life and you will be so amazed.

Years ago we were really struggling financially. One of our daughters had just been diagnosed with a drop dead heart condition or so at that time we were told so. We went through agonizing months and months of trying different doctors and seeking a cure. Even though we had insurance our bills were astronomical!

During this trying time we got almost 3 house payments behind and to say we were struggling was an understatement!

On one particular day that I will speak of, our daughter had a doctor’s appointment in Nashville and I loaded up all four kids and off we went for the appointment.

On this day our daughter received a very good report on her doctor visit and I decided we should celebrate by going over to a sister hospital in Nashville and visiting with a family back home who was there with their daughter who had been in a very serious motorcycle accident and basically was having to learn to talk, walk, and move all over again.

We arrived on the floor where the sick girl was and both of her parents were there that day. The dad and I had been in the same high school class and as I saw him standing in the corner of her hospital room I had so much compassion for their family in my heart.

As I said before we were almost 3 house payments behind and we had our tractor and bush hog up for sale but no one had looked at it. Anyway, all the money I had to my name was in my purse and it was a twenty dollar bill. Without even giving it a second thought I handed that twenty over to the Dad and said something like, ” I have been where you guys are and it is so expensive and I would rather give you this than bring flowers or something.”

After we left the hospital that day I was flying high and had joy in my heart for what I had just been able to do for this family…..joy that is until we all got in the van and started back home. Our youngest child sat right behind the driver’s seat on the way home and he kept saying right in my ear……..”why did you do that Mom, that was all the money we have?:….”what are we going to buy groceries with and eat?”. The more he said that behind me right in my ear, the more I began to have doubts rise up in my soul. I began to get scared but I never let on to my kids. I kept telling them that it would be fine and everything would work out. I was trying to will it to happen I guess.

We arrived back home and I was feeling pretty low by then and I saw a white piece of paper sticking out from our front storm door. I went over and pulled it out and it was a note from a man that we had never met but a mutual friend had told him about our tractor and bush hog for sale and he had come by that very day and said in the note that he was very interested and for us to call him.

We called and the man came back out and bought that tractor and bush hog and we got caught up on our house payments. I let our doubting child in on all of this development and just smiled like I knew it all along and pretended that I was never in doubt about it.

So, when you are feeling low, doubting the power of the good Lord, and have a doubting Thomas in your life, just put your face full force into your blessings and take in a deep breath as the little girl in the picture is doing. You will be amazed at the power of believing and trusting in God to work all things out in His way and His timing.

We make a choice each day and I say, CHOOSE JOY!

I wrote this article one day when someone that I had been really close to ended up not being the person that I thought that they were. I felt betrayed, fooled, angry, judgmental, and most of all disappointed.

I grew up in your typical Southern home and learned how to cook at a very young age.

God spoke to me several months ago while I was getting some dried beans ready to put on for supper.

I was LOOKIN my pinto beans that morning and getting them ready to be washed and put in the pot for cooking. What I mean by LOOKIN the dried beans is that I was going through them and would lay any half beans or dirt clods over to the side and put the good beans in the coriander to be washed and put on to cook.

When I finished LOOKIN my beans I looked at my pile of half beans and tiny little dirt clods that were laying there.

God spoke to me in my spirit and asked me why I put the half beans aside along with the clods because those beans are still good and not spoiled or rotten but just half of what they used to be.

I know about the dirt and God left that part alone but what I got from this was that sin is the dirt in our lives and we all have it. Yes, the sin does need to be purged from our lives but what about all the people that are half the person that they used to be?

Do we at times put these persons in the discard pile of life because we see no hope for them?

What does God see compared to what we see?……are we quick to judge, quick to give up, or quick to throw in the towel on these people?

God says that He is the creator and we are His creation (Genesis 2:7) In Psalm 139:14 it says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (not just a certain few of us but all of us).

I felt pretty ashamed of myself that day and also very judgmental. We are not the judge and also we never really know another person’s heart or their story. But by grace we could be that same person under different circumstances.

To this day every time that I look my beans before putting a pot on,  I think of this lesson that God brought to my attention that day.  I come up with the message that we are just supposed to love and pray for these people that hurt us and let the good Lord be the judge over them.

I have learned something in the last several weeks since starting to write this blog. My mind’s eye is always seeing things in the perspective of something to write about.

This morning when singing the song Near the Cross at church a certain line jumped off the page at me. Here is the song and the line that I will write about tonight is the second line of the refrain:

Be my glory ever! What does that mean exactly?

This song touches my heart every time I hear it because it was the invitational song that was sang on the Sunday night that our oldest son became a Christian. Every time I hear this song I tear up as our son passed from this life in 2013. Today was no exception to that fact and my mind raced to memories of our son and then the second line of that refrain jumped out at me like it had never done before.

You see our son was a high school football player and he was known for his tackling strength. He was tall, slim, and very good looking. His senior year of high school and his playing football became in his mind his glory days for the rest of his life.

My husband was activated with the Tennessee National Guard to go to Iraq at age 52 and his time in Iraq has become his glory days.

I know other friends and family that have accomplished such things as Fairest of the Fair, Ms. Basketball, Mr. Football, City Mayor, County Judge, Marathon runners, Photographers, Coaches, Doctors, Dentists, Veterinarians, and the list goes on and on.

I personally glory in birthing and raising 4 children and probably talk about that more than anything else. I wear the badge of motherhood proudly!

We all glory in something whether we choose to admit it or not. Today as I sang that song what jumped out at me was In the Cross, In the Cross, Be My Glory Ever!

All of our earthly things that we accomplish are all good and we should be proud of them but the ultimate glory in our lives as Christian people should be that we know Jesus and that we know that he died on a cross to save us from our sins…….that huge event should be the Ultimate Glory Day that we relish and remember forever!

Today, after spending the day yesterday with our youngest grandson, I am inspired to write about how we walk.

He is a new walker and just began to take his first steps at the first of September.

He still walks somewhat like a penguin and has a hard time balancing himself. He also tries to go way too fast according to his ability and is always running into something and getting hurt.

Last night what inspired me the most to write this was the fact that he was trying his hardest to walk forward but was holding a blanket and it was dragging under his feet and he was basically standing and stepping on it the whole time he was trying to walk forward. He was getting so angry because he could not walk but could not see that the blanket he was carrying was the culprit.

In watching his struggles it got me to thinking about how we as Christians try so hard sometimes to walk in God’s way. We really have the best of intentions but may have a burden we are carrying or unforgiveness in our hearts towards someone.

I remember a time that I had some really angry thoughts towards someone. The emotions were eating my lunch so to speak. I knew in my mind that what I was carrying around was wrong but in my heart I felt justified to be doing so.

I was in my office at work one day and a co-worker came in and asked me if I was alright. I quickly answered, NO! I said to her that I am so angry that if I can’t figure out a way to get this out of me it is going to destroy me.

After several weeks had passed of laying awake at night being angry I decided to ask God to help me. I basically said to God that I could not under my own power forgive this person and that it was eating me alive. I asked God to help me forgive. It took a while but it did happen and this person is in my life today in a vital role.

Isaiah 41:13 (KJV) reads like this:

For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.

Our little grandson walks just fine when one or both of us hold his hand. He is confident and can even step up steps and move fast and not get hurt. It is when he is walking alone that he struggles as it is all a learning process.

As my husband and I were helping him walk up our basement steps yesterday I said to my husband that our grandson will probably be running up those same steps by next year.

We as adults are the same way. The more we struggle walking and lean on God to help us the better we get at it and what used to be such struggles become easy and the burden becomes light.

How many times in our life do we struggle and try to carry our burdens and our heartaches all alone? Are we walking around angry all the time? Do we hurt ourselves and others? We need to ask ourselves these questions.

It is not the walk that gets us but the way we walk that counts!