In the last few days a friend told me about a job offer that she was given. She has an old job that she loves and a new job offered that sounds wonderful too. How do you know what to do in a situation like this?

Over 20 years ago I was in the same dilemma. I had worked at a bank for over 18 years and loved the people there just like they were part of my family. I had just went through the most painful growing process in my Christian walk and I felt like I needed a change of scenery.

One of our twin daughters had been diagnosed with a drop dead heart condition and the medical bills that we had were astronomical. Even though we had insurance the deductibles, co-pays, and amounts not covered had almost buried us. We had survived but the lesson was etched in my conscience and I was so fearful that it was going to happen again.

I felt that if I could get a job at the local hospital that I would not only have insurance there but would have employee discounts or something on medical care for our daughter plus like I said before I was just needing to try something different and new and feel alive once again and my life had become so predictable and everyday.

The only position that the hospital had was a 3rd shift, ER clerk position. I had never worked a third shift job in my life and being the morning person that I am I was not even sure that I could stay awake all night to work a shift like that.

The day that I was called into the hospital for my interview I remember kneeling down in the floor by my chair in the living room here at home and giving myself over to God. I told God that I was going in for that interview that day with a willing heart for whatever He had in store for me. I cried and told Him that I didn’t even know if I could work the 3rd shift but I would not complain if that was His choosing for me and I would do the very best job that I could do.

I was met at the hospital admitting office by a lady that I will describe as follows: I do not remember her name at all but she looked similar to the angel that you would put on the top of your Christmas tree. She was an older lady, very pleasant and fair to look at. She had long blondish white hair and it was flowing softly around her face as framing it. She was almost aglow with an aura about her. I found out later that she had only been employed for a short period and she left the hospital soon after I was employed.

On with the story; I interviewed with her for that 3rd shift position and as the end of the interview was nearing she softly spoke and said, Would you mind if I asked you some personal questions? 

She presided to take me back into an inner part of the office and closed the door. She asked me what was the personal reasons that I was applying for this job. I spoke to her from my heart and was just as honest as if talking to an old friend. She then preceded to tell me that I was over qualified for the position that I was applying for and that she knew of another job that was about to come open that she felt like I was better qualified for. She said it was in the hospital business office and was a Monday through Friday job with no weekend work. The job had not been posted yet but she felt sure that I would be able to get it. My job at the bank where I had been working always involved Saturday work and I had basically worked every Saturday while my kids were growing up except the Saturdays that I happened to be on vacation. Even though the bank closed at noon on Saturday, I was never usually out of there until about 1:30 as I was a bookkeeper and we had to stay until all items were closed out and balanced.

The new job offer involved a cut in pay but just to have the freedom of being off every weekend outweighed the lesser amount of money.

I walked out of the hospital that day praising and thanking God for the love that He had for me and I did land that job and it was the best job that I ever had during my working years!

My friend reads my blogs faithfully and I know that she will be reading this. I hope and pray that she also finds the answer that God has for her and the decision that she makes will be just as beneficial for her family as my decision was for me.

I failed to tell you that I was 39 years old when I changed jobs and it was probably the scariest thing that I had ever done up until that date.

God has always been so faithful to me and most times it is just me needing to pray through to Him just like you would talk to your very best friend.

What is the first thing that you notice about a person? For me personally, it is the eyes. The Bible says that the eyes are the windows of the soul. I have family members that notice the teeth and the smile first and the smile is important to me as well. A smile can just light up a face and bring a welcoming expression of the heart.

For at least the last two days I have struggled with what I am wanting to write tonight. I have really been in prayer about it.

For several weeks now in our little town there has been a turmoil going on and it involves an incident that happened because a teenage young man did a very dumb thing.

All week I have thought of how many times my immediate family has been the topic of conversation around the town’s tables for different reasons.

When I was younger I would have enjoyed a bit of juicy gossip from time to time and the persons in the story were not real characters to me but only He said and She said kind of pass arounds. What does a little small talk hurt anyway?

What will stop the enjoyment of gossip is when you actually live through it. My children say that on my tombstone they will have the words engraved that say, “It’ll Come Home to You” because I have said that to them so many times.

I have found over the years that the way that you treat other people is what comes back around to you and the amount of forgiveness that you give to others is the dose of forgiveness that our good Lord gives you back.

The night that our son Danny died, the Livingston, Tn. topix column was going crazy with comments and people saying that no matter what our family said that he died such and such way and for these reasons. Someone even went as far as to suggest that since I found him that I played a part in his death and that my son-in-law at the time being a cop arrived on the scene and helped me somehow cover it up. Unbelievable! Finally on topix, someone with guts spoke up and said, “Why don’t everyone just stop this and let this family alone, they are hurting and let them grieve in peace.” The comments stopped after that.

You say to me, why did you read those comments. I didn’t. Some well meaning friends had to make sure that they told me everything that was said about us. How painful and how cruel!

We look on the outward appearance of things but thank the good Lord, He looks on the inward heart of man and he sees us for who we really are and He knows us.

Instead of everyone gossiping about this incident in our town, why don’t we let the families involved settle it among themselves and the rest of us stay out of it and just pray and leave it in the hands of God.

Gossip is something that can destroy someone, especially a young person. We all make mistakes and a lot of us never get caught in our mistakes but some do and the consequences are almost unbearable to live through at times. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes and start looking at their inside heart and not what appears on the surface. We would all be so much happier if we did this.

No telling what this lesson is going to accomplish in the future for this young man. Give God a chance to prove Himself to all involved.

You can turn things around in this town by focusing on what God sees in a person and looking more to the inside instead of the outside.

Success is failure turned inside/out!

Today as I started to prepare some of my food items for our Thanksgiving tomorrow, I think back to this measuring cup and the first Thanksgiving without our son Danny.

It has been 4 years now since we had that first Thanksgiving without Danny. This old Tupperware measuring cup is the same one that Mark and Danny used to fight over when eating a meal. The both of them liked to drink from this cup instead of a glass.

Funny how simple things mean so much now. I remember when I set the table for that first Thanksgiving without him I set a place for Danny too. I gave him this cup and declared him the winner that year of the coveted cup. It was so hard and still is to have a holiday without him here to share it with us.

Please remember all the families this year that are experiencing their first year without their loved one. It is so hard!

As I scrape my dough from my metal bowl this morning I remember Granny Poston as well and how she used to direct me in some of the food preparation and wanted to make sure that I scraped that bowl out good. It’s just the littlest things that come back always to ring in our ears and to warm out hearts.

Nationally we have seen so much hurt and death with all the killings and the accidents and the illnesses that have taken many people from us. A lot of families will have an empty chair at their table this year.

God has special plans for His children and His families. Rejoice through the tears and just remember this:

Know through your tears that a loving God sees and realizes that we who have the empty chairs are hurting so badly and that the empty space at our table is hallowed ground to us.

Thank you Lord!

This article is about respect.

I want you to notice our 15 year old grandson, Connor, as he is shown here in the middle carrying Granny’s casket.

The reason that this picture means so much to me is that he had never done this before and was very nervous about it. We told him that even though Granny was not a heavy person that the casket would be heavy. He thought it would be fine until he saw it on the first night of visitation. He commented to me that he needed to stand on the left side as his right arm was the stronger one and that he was going to go and lift a few weights when he left that night to strengthen himself.

The part that got me the most was knowing that Connor is an avid soccer player and that he was supposed to be in Gatlinburg this same weekend for a big tournament and also knowing that college scouts would be there watching the different teams play. He gave all of that up to carry Granny to her final resting place and that speaks volumes to me!

We like to criticize our youth a lot of times in this fast paced age of ours and sometimes think that they will not give us the time of day.

Granny was the very first visitor that came to the hospital the day Connor was born and she was never anything but joyful and pleasant each and every time she was around him.

At Christmas we do a thing before we open gifts where the oldest person in the room reads the Christmas story from the Bible before we open our gifts. Granny was that person that did the reading many, many times.

Granny pronounced words like flairs (for flowers), furnityuer (for furniture), Oleo always (for butter), tators (for potatoes) but was never made fun of by any of us but just remembered for the special way she said things.

My oldest brother-in-law said it best when he said that she was a kind, simple person but that the world would be a little darker and colder without her in it. Simple……. meaning her and Pa Poston probably only went through 5th grade in their respective schools but each of them had a world of common sense and could do many gifted things with their hands and their minds.

Mark and I grew up in an age where respect for elderly people was taught just like reading, writing, and arithmetic. We got spanked more than once for not obeying that rule.

Mark made fun of a lady that was a close family friend when he was a little boy. The lady just so happened to be hair-lipped and when she said “Come over here and give me a hug ” in her hair-lipped voice, Mark answered her back in his mocking hair-lipped voice and said, “I don’t want no hug”. D. T. Poston about wore his backside out over that one!

My grandmother Huddleston was trying to whip me one time and I ran and got under the bed. She was a heavy woman and I knew that she couldn’t get under there so each time she tried to grab at me I would roll to the other side of the bed. When she walked to the back side of the bed, I would roll to the front again. This went on for a few seconds and then my Dad walked through and saw what was happening. He was tall and skinny and he jerked me out from under that bed and wore my hide out! I would never ever try that again.

As we were driving in the funeral procession the other day to the grave site, I kept seeing all of these vehicles that we were meeting just pulling over to the side of the road and stopping and even one man took his hat off of his head in respect. I was riding with my daughter-in-law and remember saying to her that you wouldn’t see much of that in some places.

It is respect. It is the old ways of doing things but I feel like in this modern day sometimes it is still the best way!

I am proud of how things are done around here in my home town and how we were raised and I hope that it never changes.

The Bible in 1 Timothy 4:8 (KJV) says it like this:

For bodily exercise profiteth little; but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

Yes, Connor missed out on possibly getting seen by some college scouts and playing soccer in college is most definitely his dream but I could not have been more proud of him for choosing to give all of that up and show his great grandmother respect by carrying her to her final resting place.

I would call that respect!

Today was the day that we had all been dreading. Granny Poston gained her heavenly reward.

I have witnessed a couple of my grandchildren be born but today I witnessed firsthand the death process.

John 5:24 KJV

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

I had not originally wanted to be there when Granny passed away because I was the person that found our son dead when he had passed in 2013. I suffered some sleepless nights and trauma as a result of finding him.

As I said, I had not meant to be there and had hoped that she would pass in the night last night when I wasn’t there but God had other plans for me.

When I first arrived the 93 year old roommate that Granny had was sitting in her wheelchair on her side of the room and she was crying. This whole experience has been so heart wrenching for her as well. I went over and put my arms around her and told her that we love her too and hoped that we had not disturbed her too much with all of us coming and going and being too many people in the room sometimes. She said, Not at all I just hope that I have not been disturbing all of you. She then told me that her mother had died in that same nursing home years ago and that this process was very emotional for her. She got herself ready and dressed and rolled off in her wheelchair for the Bible Study group that was meeting in another area. God lesson # 1

The little CNA lady that took such precious care of Granny was going completely out of her way to provide us all with love and care. She had chairs lined up in the hallway for us as extras if there was overflow and she had chairs in the room too. She had arranged trays of snacks, sodas, and tea and coffee with bowls of cream and sugars in case any of us got hungry or thirsty. She told me that Granny was her very favorite person that she had ever taken care of and that this day was killing her. God lesson # 2

Granny’s breathing became very labored and family all started arriving and singing, touching, or lovingly holding her hand. Her breathing continued to be very labored and the medical staff came in more frequently and gave her medications to ease her passage. The love was amazing! My husband had spent the night there and he said as 2nd and 3rd shift employees got off work that they all came in and kissed Granny on the forehead and silently said their goodbyes. God lesson # 3

The time of death was quickly approaching and we all knew it as sons sat at her head and the rest of us stood around her bed. What love was in that room at that time!……God lesson # 4

Granny’s frail little body made color changes before our eyes and the one color that I was so familiar with from finding our son showed up. I knew the time was about to happen but the fear that I thought that I would have slipped away and was covered over with only the love in the room. God lesson # 5

The dreaded time arrived and she was finally at peace. The labored breathing stopped and everything was very quiet. I think we all were processing what we had just witnessed in our own different ways. There were a lot of hugs, some tears, and a few sniffles. All in all it was the closing of a very special life. God lesson # 6

While I was standing at the foot of the bed something very special happened to me. My eye got the glimpse of a person walking by the doorway and the body size and look would have passed exactly for Danny (our son that passed). He even had the ball cap on his head but as he walked by he turned his head for just a split second and then he walked on. I never saw the person’s face and he just walked on but just the image brought such comfort to me. Granny used to tell Mark and I that Danny came to see her all the time and this was after he had died and it used to make me cry every time. Who knows in the spirit realm. I don’t question it. God lesson # 7

Tonight I shared my experience of seeing this image pass by the door with my husband and he had seen that person too and he said that he felt the very same emotion and it was like Danny had just walked by. It was very odd. Whatever logical reason there is for this I do not care because it made Mark and I both feel that God cares and loves us so much and loved Granny too! God lesson # 8

As you have read these words what was dreaded by all became the specialness of the day as we all witnessed Granny passing into the arms of Jesus. It was just glorious and I now have a new memory of death that takes away the trauma of my previous experience with it. It was such a comfort to me.

Below is the words to a special song by Blue Highway. It is called Some Day and here are the words:

Some day when my last line is written
Some day when I’ve drawn my last breath
When my last words on earth have been spoken
And my lips are sealed in death
Don’t look on my cold form in pity
Don’t think of me as one dead
It’ll just be the house I once lived in
My spirit, by then, will have fled
I’ll have finished my time here allotted
But I won’t be in darkness alone
I will have heard from Heaven
The summons to come on home
And when my body is in the grave
Don’t think that I’ll be there
I won’t be dead, but living
In the place Jesus went to prepare
And after all is said and done
Know that my last earnest prayer
Is that my loved ones be ready
Someday to meet me there

Granny went into the Arms of Jesus Today……..Praise God!

In loving memory of Reba Imogene Poston

Meeting in the Air

I have often gone to the funeral home and witnessed the pain of a family there and thought to myself that if we as Christian people had no hope of a heaven beyond this world how could we ever go on.

The above link called Meeting in the Air will direct you to a song that I just love! I have many loved ones already up in heaven and the older I get the closer I get to being reunited with them!

Today was the day that I signed up for Social Security. I am going to start drawing at age 62 and my first check will come in March. We work and work so hard all of our lives and we pay in to the government and the one benefit of aging is being able to draw some of that money back out and it gives us security.

How about in the spiritual realm? Are we paying into a plan for our future that will give us security and a home forever and ever?

The Bible says this in 1 Timothy 6: 17-19 (KJV)

Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;

That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;

Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.

What this is saying is that those who are rich in this world are not to be arrogant or to put their hope in wealth because it is so uncertain. Hope needs to be put in God who provides us with everything that we could possibly need.

We are commanded by God to do good and to be rich in good deeds and to be generous and willing to share what we have.

By doing this we are building on a firm foundation that will give us an eternal home and not just a temporary residence.

Tonight, my mother-in-law is right at death’s door. My husband is there with her now as I type. Granny has been working so hard all of her life not only in earthly ways but in the heavenly way that I speak of. She will soon reap her rewards and live forever and ever!

Our 15 year old grandson will be one of her pall bearers and I could not be more proud of him than I am right at this moment.

He put his siblings to bed tonight as his Mom got called back into work and she also ran by the nursing home to check on Granny and to also make her Dad comfortable as he was sitting there with his Mom.

All of this that I write about tonight is laying up treasure.

Below is the actual picture of Granny’s Bible. She has been in a nursing home since 2010 with Alzheimer’s disease. In her early years there she sat and read from this Bible continuously and also joined in singing of the hymns when churches came to visit. She might not know your name all the time but the words of her precious hymns she never forgot.

She was a testimony to the hope that we have as Christians in knowing our Lord. Where God is……….. there is your hope! Please don’t die without it!