Thursday, January 17, 2013

Coming full circle

Photo of Adolphus Heiman
courtesy of Belmont Mansion
You won't believe this but I'm sitting here researching tonight (well, okay, that you'll believe), but as I'm reading about Adolphus Heiman, a leading German architect in Nashville in the 1860s and the man who designed the Belmont Mansion (setting of A Lasting Impression), I read that he was from Potsdam, Germany. And I pause, thinking, "Wait a minute…"

Potsdam, Germany is where missionaries from our church live, and where there's a bookstore where my books are, and where 
A Lasting Impression (that just released this month in Germany) is being sent! So the book about the Belmont Mansion that Adolphus Heiman designed some 160 years ago is now for sale in *his* hometown. 

Don't you just love how God works. Coming full circle... So cool.

Okay, just had to share that. Back to researching! 




Monday, January 14, 2013

Life is Messy


"Without oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest." 
Proverbs 14:4



When I first read this proverb earlier this morning, I smiled a little, pondered it, then moved on. But I keep coming back to it, wondering at its deeper meaning. And what I've finally concluded is this: 



Life is messy. 



It's messy with relationships, with endless to do lists, with jobs, with all the "maintenance" of the day-to-day routine. It's messy with the stuff of life. But without the mess, without the struggle––if I had no ox and my stable were clean––I'd also have no life. No way to plow. And therefore no harvest.



None of this would be worth anything without all the relationships, that yes, sometimes cause us enormous pain. And without the seemingly endless tasks, many of which God himself has set before us for our own betterment and to glorify his name. And without our jobs and the other day-in-day-out routines that provide for our needs and those of our families, even when the tasks sometimes feel so monotonous we'll scream. 




If you could see my office now (hang on, I'm taking a picture) it's messy. 



Sticky notes and paper everywhere. Books stacked. A basket below me piled with historical research and tidbits I'm working into this next novel. Writing a novel is messy. But novels are about life, so that makes sense. And so will all of this "mess" one day. It'll make sense. Through the eyes of eternity with our Lord Jesus.



Meanwhile, I'm getting my ox in gear, so to speak, grateful to have a messy stable, and am anticipating what harvest God will bring from it all.



Is YOUR life messy too? I hope so, because that means it's full, and that––in Christ––a harvest is coming!

"Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest EVERLASTING LIFE from the Spirit." Galatians 6:8



LOVE THAT! Blessings on your day! 

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Special Mansion Tours for Readers


This is such fun! Both the Belmont Mansion and Belle Meade Plantation are offering special tours for readers of my novels. 

Belmont Mansion offers the A Lasting Impression tour, and Belle Meade Plantation offers the To Whisper Her Name tour. If you're coming to Nashville sometime soon, contact the mansions to book your special reader tour.




Belmont Mansion
Nashville, TN
A Lasting Impression Tour
Kate Wilson (Director of Operations)
kate.wilson@belmont.edu
615-460-5459


Belle Meade Plantation
Nashville, TN
Belle Meade Gift Shop
Joanne Floyd (Museum Store Mgr)
GiftShop@BelleMeadePlantation.com
Mark James (Group Sales Mgr)
GroupTours@BelleMeadePlantation.com 
615-356-0501 (Gift Shop)
800-270-3991 (Gift Shop)

I'm so honored the mansions are doing this! Are you planning to visit anytime soon?

Monday, January 7, 2013

WSMV-TV and The Gettysburg Address

had the pleasure of meeting with Terry Bulger, a reporter with WSMV-TV (Channel 4 News, Nashville) on Friday afternoon. What a great guy. So down to earth, easy to be with. He and a cameraman came to the house and we chatted for an hour about writing and Tennessee history. The show will air sometime soon. I'll post a link when it does. (View some of Terry's previous interviews.


As they were leaving, I grabbed a copy of From a Distance and A Lasting Impression (both of which have Tennessee history in them). And when I mentioned that From a Distance has the Gettysburg Address in it, lo and behold, Terry launched off and quoted it. The entire address! From memory! Pretty impressive.

In case you haven't read the Gettysburg Address recently (the speech Abraham Lincoln delivered on November 19, 1863 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania reminding a war-weary public "why the Union had to fight, and win, the Civil War"), here it is:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."


What a humble leader, and what an incredible example of leadership for a nation coming apart at the seams in 1863. The challenge Lincoln delivered that day has as much meaning for us today––perhaps even more––as it did then.



David Bachrach, a Mathew Brady photographer, captured one of the only known images of Abraham Lincoln at the November 1863 dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. 
(Photo Credit: Library of Congress )


View more pictures from Gettysburg and Mathew Brady. 

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Happy New Year!


Blessings in this New Year, friends! I'm praying that 2013 is the best yet. Thank you for your friendship and for the companionship we share. So glad we're on this journey together. 

"Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." 
Philippians 4:13-14

Great words to start a new year by, and to put the one that's passed to rest. 

Blessings in 2013,
Tammy
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