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Hello! My name is Tami; I'm married to a wonderful man named Matt and we have 4 children together. Matt is my best friend and I love that God has called us to walk together in this life.

My husband and I have traveled some and he surprised me this past year and took me on my first airplane flight ever to experience my first cruse ever. It was an awesome experience and I thank my Lord that He allowed us to do that. I now love the thought of going new places and someday would love to go on another cruse. I wrote my first children’s book titled, "Being Too Small Is Big Enough" and it is available on Amazon for anyone to order. I've always wanted to write and illustrate my own children’s book and just be used of God to help teach children about Him. I've been drawing from little on up and I'm always looking to improve and challenge myself in my art. My hope is to glorify the Lord in my work and pray that it touches and blesses people when they view it. My art has been expressed through many forms of media ranging from painting, pencils, jewelry, carving, and graphics. Expressing myself through my art is so much fun for me and as a woman I always have something to express! When I got married and as the years went by I discovered I was missing something and didn't even know it until I found it in another man - Jesus! Although I've always understood who Jesus was, I truly didnt have a relationship with him. As my life changed and as I matured I developed a new-found faith in the Lord. This made me realize that my talent in art was not only passed down to me from my mom, but was a gift from God. Because of that revelation I wanted to stop trying to express myself so much and start expressing God. I wanted to do art that glorified Him. I developed a strong desire to do Christian drawings. I knew that God has truly blessed me with the gift of art and all that I do with it, is my gift to Him. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapters in my life!

#1. My mom had the Rh factor and from what she was told by the doctors, it should have kept her from having children. Back in the times when she was having children the only way the doctors prepared for this was to have blood standing by to give the baby a blood transfusion. I have read that when a woman is Rh negative and her partner is Rh positive this causes them to produce a child that is Rh positive. The baby and the mother's blood systems are separate, although there are moments when the baby's blood can enter into the mother's system, causing the mother's system to make antibodies against the Rh positive baby. The antibody from the mother attacks the blood of the baby, and as a result, causes the babies’ red blood cells to break down and anemia develops. In major cases this can cause severe sickness, brain damage and sometimes death. By God's hand my mother did have children. After having four she was ready to stop but ended up having more. If she only had four children like she wanted, I wouldn't be here. If she only had six, I wouldn't be here. If she only had eight, I wouldn't be here. I am her baby, the ninth one and as difficult as it was on her to have so many children, I'm glad she did. So, not only is her beating the odds of the Rh factor a blessing from our Lord but the fact that she had 9 children when she only wanted 4 is a blessing from God as well (a blessing for me at least! Ha, ha, ha!). She had 5 girls and 4 boys. Having a baby is a miracle no matter what, but when there are health issues involved I believe it is a miracle that makes the power of God very obvious.

#2. When I was only 15 months old God became very obvious in my life when I found a cup my dad used to scoop lye with. Lye is a very strong acid that can eat through pretty much anything when in liquide form however this was in crystals. He would scoop the crystals up and pour the lye down the drains to kill the roots. There were a few crystals of lye on the rim of the cup and when I put the cup to my lips I swallowed some and the crystals liquified in my mouth and instantly began eatting away at my mouth, tounge and throat, nearly killing me. Mom grabbed me, poured milk in my mouth and rushed me to the hospital. The doctors were able to save my life but it did destroy my throat. Because my throat was destroyed I couldn’t eat, so the doctors put a feeding tube in my stomach. Later the doctors did a procedure to create a throat so I could eat through my mouth again. They took part of my colon and connected it to my throat and stomach. I was told by my parents that this was one of the first times this was done and they didn’t know if it would work or not. I went through many surgeries in my life and spent years fighting scar tissue. My mom believed she needed to make people aware of these kinds of accidents and needed to warn parents about the dangers of house hold cleaners so she wrote about my accident and it was published in the 1972 Redbook Magazine titled “The Day Our Old World Ended”. Through this tragedy God prevailed and allowed me to live a relatively normal life. As of today, I am able to eat fine.

#3. About 5 years after I was married, my husband and I started a family. After having two we agreed that was enough but I did make the comment to him I wouldn't mind have three or four kids someday, but I was fine with having two also. But God had other plans and we got pregnant again. It was a surprise but a nice surprise and a wonderful blessing. This goes to show you, just when you think you're in control, God's up there laughing. Ha, ha, ha!!

#4. As we got ready to welcome another baby into our family something else happened. At one of the check-ups we discovered we were not having a baby; we were having two! We were both very happy after we got over the shock. I remember my husband said with a grin on his face, "You always get your way, you wanted three or four babies and you got it.” I laughed and said, "Yeah, but not all at the same time.” My oldest wasn't even 2 years old yet.

#5. Our joy was soon taken when the doctors told us the babies were sharing one sack, which was a very rare and dangerous situation for the babies. Twins in the same sack are referred to as monoamniotic twins. Monoamniotic twins or Monoamniotic-Monochorionic twins, "MoMo" for short, happens when the amniotic sac forms before the embryo splits. They are identical twins that share the same amniotic sac and placenta in the uterus. With this type of pregnancy there is great concern for them to be conjoined twins and they told us they felt there was a possibility. We were told the babies probably would not make it and the best case was 50-50% chance of survival maybe less and if they did live, there was a high chance they could have several things wrong with them. I was advised to take a NON-mandatory blood test to show if the babies had Down syndrome. Blood test showed they tested high for Down syndrome and we were given options of abortion or if not then counseling to prepare ourselves for two babies with disabilities mentally and physical deformities. My husband and I told them that our faith was in God and it didnt matter what happend. In my heart if God wills it for whatever reason we will love them. The verse in the Bible that I focused on dayly was 1 Corinthians 2: 5~ that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. We had sonogrames every month and they looked for where they could be conjoined but it was never reviled in the sonogrames so it wasnt an obvious issue. I told my husband I couldn't take the bombardment of so much and wanted a second oppinon so we found a doctor in Springfield Mo. When we first met with the doctor he told us that he figured that I had been scared to death by everything I was told. I told him yes. Then he said that he had dealt with pregnacies like this before and they were fine and that was what he wanted to start out telling me...everything is gonna be fine and we would go from there. I wanted to leap off the table and kiss him because he gave me hope and that is what I needed even though I knew things would probably change to bad news.

As we held on to our faith and continued to pray, we felt peace. Our boys, Payton and Garrett, were born six weeks early through a c-section. They were beautiful, strong, healthy, normal babies. We had no idea what to expect when they were born but soon after we were over joyed to know they were not conjoined and did not have down syndrom but because they were early they stayed in the ICU for two weeks. Latter we found out that the blood test I took had a very high percentage rate of being wrong most times. Our boys were sent home with heart monitors until they got bigger and stronger. How blessed we felt by God that they were so healthy and how grateful we were that nothing went wrong, considering what we were told. Since then, I’ve met many other women that had the same test done with the same results and their babies where born just fine also. The power of God is truly greater than the wisdom of man.

By the time the babies were born we had four children with in two and a half years. Wow! Talk about a shock to the system.

#6. Soon God demonstrated His power again after we brought our boys home from the hospital. At one month Payton became very sick with meningitis. He wasn’t eating, his heart monitor started going off, motionless and struggling to breath he was put in ICU on a breathing ventilator. As I watched him I asked the doctor when he would get better. The Doctor put her arm on my shoulder and said, “I’m not even suppose to work today but I’m here because of Payton. Your baby is very sick and it’s possible he may not make it”. Payton had seizures several times a day, two blood transfusions and tubes everywhere. I remember holding Payton and crying as I looked at his motionless body and I prayed, “Lord, if it’s Your will to take him home then I’m ok with that but if it’s not then please don’t let the devil have his way”. Payton spent almost two weeks in the hospital but God brought him through it with no lasting effects. God is always working but I love it when He’s obvious. I pray my testimonies have some how blessed you and shown you that even though it's hard to understand why bad things happen, God can bring good from the bad. I believe sometimes, God allows bad things to happen to bring us closer to Him and sometimes it's our choices that cause them to happen and then there are the times Satan causes them to happen. But whatever the case, we can go to Jesus with every problem. Jesus wants everyone to go to Him freely; He won’t force Himself into your life.

We need to ask ourselves, if Jesus had to endure the trials of being mocked, being an outcast, being hated by so many, along with the horrible physical pain that He endured, why are we so shocked when we endure trials? The Lord hurts when we hurt. He knows how we feel. Jesus can relate with us and He understands our pain. He's been there and done that ~ plus more! We can't even imagine all that He's been through. Thanks for taking the time to look at my art. God Bless

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