I was born in Searcy, AR in 1982 as Tara Nicole Lang and grew up in Georgetown, AR, a small farming and fishing community with a population of around 126 people. I was brought up mostly in Southern Baptist churches, though I also attended an Assembly of God church for maybe three years with my great-grandmother. Throughout those years, I have no idea how many times I prayed the "sinner's prayer." They say you pray it once, and then Jesus is in your life forever, and that's that. But, I didn't feel saved. It just seemed a little odd to me, I guess. I've always been pretty logical, and it just didn't seem logical to me that some people could do whatever as long as they said the prayer and asked Jesus into their hearts, but there were other people that were going to burn in hell fire forever, even though they may have been nicer people, but they weren't ever told about Jesus and the "sinner's prayer." I've always been afraid of fire. All through my years of growing up, if anyone asked me what my worst fear was, it was fire (followed by spiders). I've been burned a few times, and it hurts like nothing else. I remember sitting in the church pews, listening to sermons that mentioned people burning forever in hell, and I have to admit that it sounded pretty evil to me. I had a very difficult time with it, even imagining such a thing, but I was taught that it was the truth, so I believed it. I also simply could not understand the so-called trinity. That was so confusing to me. I didn't understand how God could be one person and three at the same time. How was the Father still in heaven and Jesus on earth, if they were some fused-together trinity? And the Holy Spirit? How was that a third person? WHAT?! I was just so confused by it all, and I literally lost sleep over it many times. But, I believed I was being told the truth, because it was the people whom I loved and trusted who taught these things, and the majority believed it, so I just struggled the best I could to understand it.
In my teen years, I found it was easy to justify doing certain things that were sin. For example, I could justify having sex with my boyfriend, because I told myself that God knew that I loved him, and so it was different for my case, and He knew my heart, so all was well. God knew my heart, indeed. He knew it wasn't in tune with His law and what HE saw right. I was just doing what I saw right in my own eyes, without regard for what His unchanging law states. Another example would be when I committed numerous counts of fraudulent use of credit cards and money transfers when I was 17. I justified it by saying that the victims were rude people (it started out that way, anyway) and that I was tithing off the money (I indeed gave ten percent to a Protestant church). This is the kind of thing that mainstream Christianity births. Since, in THEIR EYES the law has been "done away," or they're free to pick and choose which laws to follow and which to not, they can sin and still feel justified by what they do. Thousands, if not millions, of mainstream professing Christians would fully agree that the two examples I just gave of my past life were signs that I was not a true Christian. But, when it comes to their own sins, such as lusting for another man's wife or another woman's husband (including movie "stars"), or violating the true sabbath of God in exchange for keeping Sunday, or keeping idolatrous and adulterous holidays such as Christmas and Easter rather than God's true feasts, or reading their horoscopes and visiting psychics, or eating unclean meats; then those same people will try to justify themselves in those sins and strongly insist that they're true Christians, when the fact is they are NOT. They are false Christians following a false christ with numerous false doctrines and false feast days.
The road to my calling
I've been a biologist nearly all my life--a scientist who studies life. I made a perfect 100 percent in my biology classes in school (elementary and high school), and I'd finish my tests in mere minutes, only needing enough time to skim the questions and mark an answer. There were many other things I enjoyed, too. I wanted to study law. I wanted to write. I wanted to fly. I wanted to be a criminologist (criminal detective). When I entered college, I wasn't sure what to do. I started my major in criminology and planned to be a detective, and then I would decide later whether to go on to medical school to study forensics. I was leaning heavily toward forensic science and then being a forensic detective. During my second semester of school, I decided to change my major from criminology to biology, and I decided I was going to be a high school biology teacher or college biology professor. Scholarships paid for my college. All I had to do was decide what I wanted to do.
I graduated high school in May 2000, and I was married in June 2000 and became Tara Chapman. Well, it turned out that my husband decided to go do some work out of state in December 2000 or January 2001. I was part of the way through my second semester of college, and I was missing him very badly. Both the school and the other organization that were giving me my two scholarships said I could delay a semester and not lose scholarships, so I withdrew from school and went to be with my husband. I hated southern Texas, and two months was all I could take. He promised me he would come back, and so I left ahead of him and went back home (to Arkansas at that time). I got a job and started my wait until the fall semester of school. My husband did come back, but he was confused and unhappy at that point in life, and I came home from work late one night to find a note and no husband. He'd left me. Years later he told me he never thought I'd go after him. But, that's what I did that night. I called his best friend and found out that he'd wired him money, and he apologized to me, because he didn't know my husband was leaving me. A violent storm hit, and the electricity went out. It didn't stop me, nor did the fact that it was my bedtime. I showered, gathered my things, and drove ten hours straight to find my husband. My gas light in my car was on empty, but God answered my prayers by allowing me to continue down the road until I came across a gas station that was open (during wee hours of morning).
I finally found my husband, and he violently opposed my being there and treated me cruelly (years later he told me he had felt ashamed and was shocked that I'd gone after him). I'd treated him very well at that point in our lives, so I just didn't understand. I was so shocked. (I was a zealous mainstream Christian at this point, newly zealous, and I think he was scared of it.) I finally talked him into his senses, but I had to agree to move to southern Texas, because he wanted to go to college there. That meant signing away my scholarships and therefore my career dreams. But, I loved him and made the sacrifice. He was able to get some sort of scholarship to pay for his tuition, but I think we had to pay for his books, and neither of us could find a job after looking and looking. I'd had a bank cd that was cashed to help us. We eventually ran through it and still found no employment. My parents sent us money to get back home. He wasn't even able to finish his first semester of college.
When I went back to my college, they told me I'd been out a semester and a half and so lost my scholarships, but I could gain the one back from the school (didn't include the other one which would have transferred to other schools) if I first paid for a semester and made the grades. We didn't have the money, so that was the end of that. BUT, God had plans.... I chose not to get too upset. It just wasn't meant to be. Nathan got a job and worked hard at it, until he was fired one day before he would have received another raise and other benefits. He got another job that took him working out of state during the week. It was difficult for both of us for him to be away more than he was home. He decided he wanted to go to college again. I worked four jobs (no more than three at a given time) while he enrolled into a full-time (7-8 hours a day) 5-day-a-week technical program that lasted a year. During the summer break he worked part-time in the field he was going into (HVAC), as well as after school during his second semester. One of the things I did while he was in school was create a website and started my own writing and editing business. I loved working for myself and actually getting paid to do what I loved to do. Right around the time my husband graduated from school, I was called by God to understand the true gospel and to see that His law had not been done away, so I started intensely studying His law and other biblical truths. (I'd already dropped Halloween a few years before, and I'd dropped Santa and Christmas trees [but I still kept the holiday]). My eyes were open, and I repented and wanted to do everything God's way. I immediately started keeping the sabbath and all the other laws I had not been keeping in December 2003 or January 2004. I was baptized in the spring of 2004 by Donald Young in Kentucky. I continued studying and growing in grace and knowledge and learned VERY MUCH in a short while, and I started this website but didn't do much on it until 2008. I did become quite lukewarm in mid-2005 and gradually became strong again by the end of 2007.
Nearly two years after Nathan's graduation--in November 2005--our second-born son died. He'd stopped breathing at 12 days of age, was resuscitated (much too late) and was kept alive on machines in the hospital for 17 days. They suspected a possible "inborn error of metabolism," a genetic error, so we had a lot of questions from geneticists. None of the doctors gave us answers that satisfied me. As my husband said recently to someone (concerning a different topic), "Tara doesn't stop until she finds an answer." We took our son off life support, and the medical examiner put on my son's death certificate: "Delayed effects of Apparent Life-Threatening Episode (ALTE)". That is not a cause of death. That didn't cut it for me. (ALTE is a label they give babies who would get a SIDS label if they hadn't started breathing again.) So, I continued my detective work, including questioning the medical examiner. I read books written by a top geneticist, researched medical journals and articles, and I analyzed our families. I also requested all of my son's medical records. One of the things I discovered was a comment that our family had an "unusual number of infant deaths." I didn't really think it was that unusual, because I didn't think our families had that many more than others did (although we did learn of some deaths in my husband's family that we hadn't known before our son's death). But, after I did all my research and analyzed our families, I understood perfectly well why our son died. I'd figured out what the doctors could not. I used my research and personal experience to write a book. I included a chapter briefly discussing the fact that we need to follow God's law in order to not have genetic malfunctions and all the disorders and diseases that we have in our nation (United States) today. I also briefly spoke in the book that many of our problems are spiritual problems.
I desire to further use what I know about God's law (Torah) and biology (including the branch of genetics) to inform people (by writing) WHY people are genetically cursed and WHAT that means. That's how I'm using my interest and knowledge in law, biology, and writing. And I didn't have to get a degree to do this.
My main focuses of writing are and will be:
*God's law
*Family, genetics (both physical and spiritual), and familial blessings and curses
*Israel's (USA) current flaws in government (I'll be working my way through each major department in the 3 government branches)
*Major topics concerning US history and government and "hot topics" of the day (ex. patriotism, freedom/liberty, and issues like abortion, homosexuality, war on terror, war on drugs, etc.)
*Names
*Science
I'm currently writing a book detailing the Ten Commandments and their statutes. I do not have a deadline on it. Your prayers as I work on it are much appreciated.
I currently live in the southwestern Missouri Ozark mountains, and I love the area. My husband owns an HVAC business and works in NW Arkansas, home of Walmart and several other super companies. My husband does not believe everything that I do, and yet he's the best husband I could ever ask for---very respectful of my beliefs and very loving and fun--and we have a very strong and happy marriage now. He's caught all of his children as they've been born. We have two living sons, both of whom are full of energy. We home-educate our children and live a more natural lifestyle than most in society.
I greatly appreciate the help I get from other co-workers with God in helping me make sure that this site and my other two sites SERVE you. A special thanks goes to Keith Hunt (keithhunt.com), the women at CCKM, and I'm waiting for a co-worker(s) to help me with coghealth.net (I know there is someone out there). Things wouldn't be the same without you all.
I pray that God's Spirit will lead you into all truth, as you seek to grow in grace and knowledge.
~Tara Nicole (Lang) Chapman