Getting to know one another...

Where do you start in getting to know people? I like to hear about their lives and connect with people in our common interests, goals and loves.

So, a little about me. My name is Tami. My given name is Tamara and my dad chose that name because he'd met a family who had named their daughter Tamara and he loved the name. As I was growing up he would remind me that my name meant "palmtree" and that a palm tree was tough on the outside and tender on the inside. He also said a palmtree could take heavy storms and bend with them. That has always made me love my name.

I am the daughter of a pastor and missionary and the wife of a pastor. My husband is a bus kid who came to church, got saved and surrendered his life to ministry as a young man.

I trusted Christ as my Saviour as a young girl standing in the pew next to my dad when a visiting preacher was preaching. The preacher preached on Calvary and it painted a picture of the cross in my mind as he preached. I wanted to be saved but was frightened about going to the altar, so I took my dad's hand, bowed my head and asked the Lord to come into my heart and save me. I remember being so excited about it and after being saved kneeling by the couch with my little friend Mark explaining to him how to be saved. I also remember feeling guilt for doing wrong after I was saved.

As a young woman I became serious about studying my Bible and finding out what my role in life was. The Lord graciously taught me so many things. With four small children at my feet I grew in the Lord and found my place was in my home ministering to my husband and children and being an ambassador for the Lord whoever I was with and wherever I was. He taught me priorities in my life and He taught me how to find joy in my role as His child, a wife, mother, homemaker and church member.

When my husband went into ministry (over 25 years ago now!) the Lord taught me how to minister to my husband in his new role. This was an area of my life that took the Lord some time! My personality and training needed some spiritual work and I had to learn lessons that ministry involves spiritual warfare and sometimes soldiers get wounded.

We are independent Bible-believing Baptists and we live our live with the word of God as our sole authority.

God has been so good to us. We have four biological children and three children that are adopted. We have 14 grandchildren! I truly believe children are a blessing and a gift from the Lord.

My husband and I have been married for almost 35 years. We have grown together in so many ways. I can only give the Lord the credit for all He has taught us as a couple. Our marriage grows sweeter every year we live.

I love my role as wife, mother, grandmother, homemaker, church member, and friend to the many friends the Lord has given me. I love cooking, baking, sewing, writing, and many other things.

Why a blog? When I was a young woman my only "aged woman" lived hundreds of miles from me. That was my mother. I didn't have the money to call her (many times didn't even have a phone) so our communication was mostly by letter. I longed for an aged woman to teach me more as I studied my Bible on the role of the woman. I devoured every book I could find on the subjects but they were usually from sources outside of the independent Baptist circle. More and more women were leaving their homes to go to work in the Christian schools, the secular world, and less and less women saw the home as the realm for ministry. As my children were growing I knew with more and more certainty that we were the ones that God ordained to teach and train our children but again that wasn't what was going on around me. I remember feeling that the woman who had dedicated her life to obeying the word of God as a woman and then teaching others to do the same as she became an older woman was simply missing in the local church.

I determined way back then that when I became an aged woman I was going to obey Titus 2 and teach the younger women what I had learned. Well, here I am and I can't believe it happened so quickly! I always thought about writing a book, but the computer has opened a whole new avenue of teaching. After prayer I decided to have a blog, writing in it only when I have my other duties properly completed.

My husband has a policy that if people will sit under the word of God as they should (i.e. come to church faithfully) and obey what they hear they will not require counseling. I agree. Time is a precious commodity and the Holy Spirit is a personal Holy Spirit. If you desire to know the truth and you seek for it--it will be found.

As you read my writing please don't become a follower of me--get in your Bible, seek His face, walking in obedience as He is in the light for you. Anywhere you are knowingly neglecting to obey the Lord--begin obeying Him.

I believe that each believer is a personalized as a fingerprint. God works with you where you are. We are to live life by His principals and the details will fall into place. Don't get caught up in the details--get caught up in living life by His Guidebook with complete and cheerful obedience.

As we become acquainted I trust that there are new "daughters" added to my life and that I will see them walk in obedience, bringing glory to His name.

In Him,

Tami