Tami Goodwin

I was blessed to be born into a Christian home – my parents provided me with a lot of love, a foundation of knowledge about the Lord and the Bible, and were a great example of a loving marriage.

In junior high I went to a church camp with a really good friend. That week I learned a lot about why Jesus died on the cross and about my sins and I accepted Jesus as my personal savior. Throughout high school Jesus blessed me with some great Christian friends – we attended youth group and Christian concerts. They really helped keep me accountable and to walk that narrow road that is really hard sometimes – especially when other kids are making fun of you. My favorite verses at that time was Romans 5:1, 2 “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”

After high school I moved to Des Moines, met Chris and a few years later we were married. After visiting a few churches, Chris and I joined a church in Ankeny. For the next several years I was very involved in the church – but I began to lose sight of my personal relationship with Jesus and it became all about the “stuff” I was doing at church. God has blessed me with many gifts and although I was using them it was not for His glory – it was more for me. I would be so busy on Sunday mornings that I didn’t attend the worship service. Chris stopped coming because he didn’t want to attend church alone. Chris and I never shared our spiritual walk together. We didn’t pray or read the Bible together or fellowship/socialize with other believers. I thought I was being a good Christian wife, but I was kidding myself.

Then I really began to struggle. I have a problem with control issues and the farther I turned away from the Lord, prayer, and reading my Bible the worse those issues became. I would get angry and yell a lot. I worried all the time about what other people thought. I volunteered for absolutely everything just so I could be in control and others would think I was this great person.

In 1999, my dad died unexpectedly. I was angry and bitter with God. I couldn’t sing anymore – I thought the music had left me and that Jesus had left me. I gradually quit going to church and for a few years I was a very angry person. It took a long time before the Lord finally got through to me that He had been there all along and I had turned by back on Him.

I began to pray again and ask God to show me where I needed to be. Shortly after, I was helping with the concession stand at school and the Johnson’s told me about this new church in Polk City they were attending and invited me to come. Then Dawn Gildersleeve invited my son, Christopher, to her baptism and I went with him. The following week Pastor Dave came to our home to visit with us and as soon as he left I knew this was where God was calling me to be.

Since then I have experienced so many blessings in my life and the Lord is with me every day right where he has been all along. I have changed so much. I have peace and I don’t get stressed out as much. I don’t have to be in control – there is someone a lot better at that than me!! He has blessed me with so many special relationships. For years many of my friends and family thought I was weird because I was very particular about TV, books, movies and other secular things. One evening I was at Subra’s for a pizza party and as the ladies were visiting I thought – oh my gosh, I am not the only one with these views – I had finally found a group of women who were like me. My favorite verse from high school means even more today – I have faith that has justified me, I have peace with God through what Jesus did for me on the cross, by grace alone I now stand and rejoice in the glory of God.

But the biggest blessing of all has been my husband – he has changed so much – really he is hardly the same person. Together we attend church, read the Bible, go to book studies and small group. He is talkative for the first time in 23 years. Our life and our marriage is better than it ever has been. He has taken the role as the spiritual guide in our family.

I was baptized as a small child which was for my parents to publicly state they would raise me to know the Lord, which they did. Even though I was saved as a teenager, in the past year I have rededicated my life to serve the Lord. I chose to have a “believer’s baptism” because the Bible tells us over and over “they heard, they believed, and then they were baptized.”