What do you do when you wake up and realize that you have lost your husband of 27 years, your children are grown and married, and you have cattle, chicken houses and a farm to run?

Life’s hard knocks often leave people feeling as if there is no reason to get up in the morning. However, if you are like Vickie Bentley, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and learn to do the best you can with what you have.

And that’s just what the 1975 Cullman High School graduate has done.

Vickie Miller and Michael Bentley met when she was still in high school. She was 16 years old. They married after her graduation in 1976 and within a few years they had three little girls.

Mike quit his job at Cullman Products to work their farm. Hand-in-hand they worked together, enjoying their growing family, raising cattle and chickens. They also were truck farmers. Life was good.

Mike always stayed fit. Even back in high school he was a runner. But one day, as he ran on the country road near their farm, tragedy struck the Bentleys in a way Vickie would never have dreamed. On April 21, 2003, Michael was struck by a truck.

He lived for 11 days. “It was devastating,” Vickie said recently. “After Mike died, there were days when I couldn’t even function.”

It took her the better part of five years to get her feet back under herself and start over again. Her daughters live in Cullman County, one of them lives on the farm.

She didn’t want to lose what she and Mike had spent their marriage building up. After trying to do it alone for a while, Vickie realized that the only way she could keep the farm going was to lease some of the land, sell the cattle, and turn the chicken houses over to her daughter and son-in-law. At least then she could still lay her head down in her own bedroom at night without worrying.

Eventually, in 2007, she went to work with the Alabama Department of Public Health Wellness Program, performing health screenings for the educational system. But it wasn’t enough…

“I never worked much outside our home before this,” said Vickie candidly. “I had little experience in anything but being a wife, a mother and helping on the farm.”

“I had no other options,” she said. “As time passed there was an increased need for more income.”

One day the phone rang. It was a friend who wanted to come out and see Vickie’s barn. The barn was a project that was still evolving at the time. It began life as a shop, but later it started to take shape as a horse barn.

Suddenly, Vickie had an opportunity practically dropped into her lap.

The friend on the phone was looking for a unique wedding venue. “Could we use your barn?” she asked Vickie.

“I hadn’t even thought about anything like that,” Vickie admitted. “It wasn’t even finished!”

She was paid up front for the wedding and used the money to purchase tin, rough-cut lumber and other building supplies. What she couldn’t do herself or with the help of her family, she hired out. Even before the first wedding, she had booked another.

A large, vintage-looking, Western-style building with an arena in back for ceremonies, The Barn at Bentgrass Farm is now on many newly engaged couple’s “must see” list of venues in the Southeast. With approximately 10,000 square feet under the roof, the barn is perfect for hosting large crowds. Outside, the rural atmosphere includes grazing donkeys, Nestor and Norman.

The perfect place for those brides who love boots, The Barn at Bentgrass Farm has not only become a popular wedding venue, but stands proudly as a symbol for other single women, or for men who have lost their jobs or suffered hardships. It is an example of just what a person can accomplish when they set their mind to it.

Vickie and her friend, decorator Suzanne Messersmith, have created a relaxed ambiance in the roughly hewn wood-lined rooms, filled with comfortable furniture and an eclectic mix of Western and Southern antiques and vintage collections.

It was a lot of hard work, but fun for the two women, and it helped to take Vickie’s mind off of her loss. “Mike’s unexpected death was almost more than I could bear, but I’ve come from that to this,” she said, looking around her at what her determination has created. “It’s been terrible at times, but I could always look around and count my blessings, I always knew where my help came from, and it wouldn’t have been possible without Him,” she said. “God was my sustainer and my provider, and healing could not have been possible without Him.”

That help sometimes gazes back at her from a mural in her basement. Suzanne’s daughter, Allison, painted a mural for Vickie. One day, after removing some framed prints from the wall on which it was painted, the face of Jesus seemed to materialize out of the muted colors. “It was an accident,” explained Vickie. “Allison didn’t intend for it to take this shape, but somehow when she was dabbing paint on the wall, it just took form.” It is a great comfort to Vickie — a touchstone in a life that has had its share of tragedy and triumphs.

She has two verses that she keeps close by, reading them when she needs a lift: “A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are for,” (author unknown) she read aloud. The meaning is clear when you stop to think how Vickie has stepped outside her comfort zone and gone after what she needed to survive.

The other message reminds her that she has to go on for her loved ones, and in such a way that she will leave a legacy of strength and determination for those who have watched her on this journey. “The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us while we live.” (Author unknown).

“I want to possess the abundant life that God has promised me,” she said. “And I want to be a blessing to others.”

Her story is one of faith, courage and the will to survive. It took guts, determination, and an inner strength from the Lord that Vickie Bentley didn’t know she possessed. She learned as she went along, but the result of her efforts is The Barn At Bentgrass Farm, her symbol of hope.

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