Someone You Should Know: Tamara Henning

In our Someone You Should Know series, we interview Faith members to help us get to know them, see how God is working in their lives, and make new connections within our community. In this episode we get to know Tamara Henning.

• Automated Transcription

• Seth Weber 0:00
  Today on faith matters, someone you should know with Tamara Henning,
  
  Seth Weber 0:10
  I'm Seth Weber, and you're listening to faith matters, a podcast designed to help you think biblically in matters of the Christian faith and keep you updated on matters of faith, Bible, church, you
  
  Seth Weber 0:37
  much. Welcome to the podcast. Tamara, it's wonderful to have you here. Oh, thank
  
  Tamara Henning 0:40
  you. It's great to be here.
  
  Seth Weber 0:49
  Let's get to know you a little bit. Tell us about where you were born, where you grew up in your childhood, a little
  
  Tamara Henning 0:54
  bit. So I was born in Lafayette, Indiana, but nine months later I was in California, so I spent my first 10 years there, then my parents moved up to Washington, then to Oregon, then back to down to California, then back up to Washington again. I think that was within like two years. So it was a lot of upheaval up and down, but we settled in Deer Park Washington, okay, so which is just a little north of Spokane, and I graduated from Deer Park High School.
  
  Seth Weber 1:22
  So tell us a little bit about your education beyond high school,
  
  Tamara Henning 1:26
  I went out to Eastern State University, and then my first major was American politics. That lasted about a year. My second major was applied psychology. Okay, so I had two classes left to take it, and I just was like, I can't do this. I don't want to be a psychiatrist. They do. And so my mom got me a job as a nurse's aide. And so I found out that I really enjoyed caring for people, and it was there's some hard stuff, but the good stuff was just the relationships and the compassion to it with them, and knowing that I had that, it was very rewarding. So I changed my major to nursing. So six and a half years later, I got my bachelor's degree. Okay, in nursing. So, and it's been great. It's been it was a really wise move, because once my eyes were open to all the possibilities of nursing, it was just like you could do anything, you can go anywhere, choose whatever days times I've been in the nursing field for, oh boy, over 40 years.
  
  Seth Weber 2:37
  So tell us a little bit about your career path and where it started and where you're at now. When
  
  Tamara Henning 2:43
  I first got before I got married, I was working on, I was at icne in a Collegiate Center for Nursing Education, and I was dating my husband. And so then after we got married, we moved to Iowa and to get his education done. So I worked on oncology and floated around the hospital there for about three years. And then when we moved back to Spokane, I got a job at Sacred Heart So, and it was where I wanted to be, is in a psychiatric unit. So I was full time for a while, and then Rochelle came along, and we always knew that I I should go half time with a second child. So then I've been halftime since Okay, so I work five in a row, nine off, and it's been a blessing. While the kids were growing up, I was always there to volunteer and be really involved in their schooling and still keep my foot in the door in nursing and enjoy life with Kevin. So
  
  Seth Weber 3:45
  you work a night shift?
  
  Tamara Henning 3:46
  I work night shift. Yeah, it's worked really great for being there with kids, and I could always when I was young, I could be sleep deprived and survive anymore. I'm not thriving night shift. I do need to quit soon so, but my job, there's a good purpose for my job. It's crisis management, it's behavioral health, it's really not psychology anymore. So I do like that. So it's a safe place for people to, you know, be at. And I think there's purpose in staying. And and I always thought there was purpose to stay in Psych nursing. It's great time Christian witness day, yes, and as a it being a Catholic hospital, I can hand them a Bible, I got the New Testament in Psalms and a notebook, and give them homework and pray with them. So I'll do that. I love doing that. And if I use that, when I use biblical terminology, people perk up, and it gets through to them, even if they're not thinking well, and if they're abusing me verbally, I'll just, I always say, you know, I've only been kind to you, so I need you to do this, this or, you know, or I have to make some other choices. You. So, but I just, I just tell them what's true. What's true, the truth really cuts through everything. And just to be tactful and loving and truthful. And they usually, they're they look at me. They're like, Hmm, this is a different approach. So
  
  Seth Weber 5:15
  that's cool to hear. How did you come to know Jesus in the first place?
  
  Tamara Henning 5:19
  I was raised in a believing home. Church of christers are very serious about the steps to salvation. So I think I was about 12 years old, but I was pretty serious about I was very curious about God, so I was very serious about what we were doing in church and stuff. So I was the first out of my family. I'm the second born, and I went forward to go get baptized, because I want to get baptized. I want to be in Jesus. I want to be close with Christ. And the pastor wouldn't let me, you know, we'll talk to you later. So, yeah, he sat me down. I was so shy. I didn't have a lot of ability to communicate, you know why and and stuff. But I knew that I just My desire was huge, to be a Christ follower. So I went forward the next week. No choice. I was persistent because I really want i My desire was good, I as far as convictions go, because, you, you know, sanctification takes so long. Oh, yeah, and you're young and and I wasn't really discipled well, but I was with a lot of I gravitated toward Christian friends, Christian activities at school and at church and so did all that, but convictions really sunk in during college. So whenever I'd have to ride the bus all the way from the valley, because I had an apartment there, I would do all my devotionals on the bus. I just remember all that just being super convicted. And then even broke up with a guy that he he professed Christ, got baptized and went to church with me for a while, and then then sports kind of came into it, and I, I made a decision, and that was another Ebenezer for me, one of those turning points. So I chose God over him, and it was the best thing I ever did. And then Kevin comes along. Kevin's Awesome, yeah. So we were good friends. We were had a really good friend, college, group of friends at the Church of Christ, but he was one of my very best friends and and college, and he and I had a lot in common. I both played tennis. We are we're in the health field, and together, and so we understood all that amazing stuff about the body. And then he he's younger than me, though, so I never dated a younger guy, like three years younger than me. I'm sorry that, no way. And so he asked me out, and I said, Oh, I don't know. You know, I don't know. You're a young kid.
  
  Seth Weber 8:01
  You guys at that point? Oh,
  
  Tamara Henning 8:02
  I Oh, we got married. I was 24 when I we got married. So he was 21 so we dated, though, like, he's like, 19 Okay, and stuff. But he was one of my good friends. He always treated me super special. So we did a lot together, you know, with our group friends, and so that's how we kind of got together. So it's a great way to build a relationship. Yeah, so I married my best, one of my best friends, beautiful, yeah. And he's, he's amazing.
  
  Seth Weber 8:26
  So you and Kevin got married, yeah? Then you had some children. Tell us about your family,
  
  Tamara Henning 8:32
  okay? And so Shane, he's, oh, we just had a birthday. I think he's 37 Rochelle, 32 They're wonderful. Shane's a nurse. He's a nurse in this it just now he's worked really hard, and he's married. And then Rochelle, she lives in town. She's married. She has her husband. Had a son, so he's 17 now, so I had a ready made grandson, who's a little cowboy. He's my Oh, he and I bonded. So, yeah, and I have a good bond. And then now she has a little two, two and a half year old. Now, little read. He's
  
  Seth Weber 9:08
  special. How did you and Kevin end up here at Faith, Bible Church?
  
  Tamara Henning 9:11
  Kevin was working. He's a chiropractor, so he injured his shoulder, went really bad, and he was kind of out of it, out of work. Well, he was still at the same office, but got a little depressed, and I stopped going to church. So I thought, Oh, here's a chance where we could be looking for a different church, because Kevin and I had been involved in two different plants with the Church of Christ. So we went all different places, and we came here, and Matthew Webley is one of his old friends, one of his friends, young friends at the time. And then we knew Susan and Brian and they were going here. And so of all the churches we went to, this was so solid, and I was so impressed. And faith Bible Church doesn't mess around with their Bible study, because the Sunday morning you get a deep, really deep Bible study and exegesis of the word. And they don't skip passages. They do the hard stuff, and they really try to explain it. They don't get into a lot of politics. I don't like that, so I thought we'd kind of hang out here for a while. Kevin got better, back to normal, and so he came with us. And it took us about a year to get into small group, because we were kind of catching our breath from doing some church plants and stuff, and we thought this would be a good place to settle. And so once we got into small group, that was great. That was like, Oh, now you got the, you know, Dan always calls it the kitchen, yeah, get into the kitchen, you know, not just in the on the porch or the living room or in the kitchen. So making relationships and having fun, and then, I don't know, I've been really blessed, because I just feel like life was very wonderful. And then Earl Dannon, of course, and Fred Fred Williams, yes. Fred Williams, both of them, started up the biblical counseling training really solidly. Kevin and I took the classes we had just moved to faith in 2000 and then it took us till 2005 to really get integrated in the body here. So Kevin and I took the classes that Earl put on, and it was 12 weeks of training, and then the the second it was in biblical counseling, and then the other 12 weeks was the methodology of biblical counseling. We both did that, and we had a lot of lot of tears, lot of repenting, because I really tried to integrate man's philosophy and all the psychology that I had been inundated with at college and with all my major and the nursing staff and what I do at work, Kevin and I both talked and talked about, you know, where we went wrong, and we realized we were both raised in a pretty, kind of a legalistic church of Christ. I could say that, and I love those people, but we didn't really get into the Word of God, and I realized that that treasure book I wasn't or we both weren't using the word of God to talk to people, to talk to our friends, because we'd always meet with couples and think we had it going, good and stuff, but we'd always give our opinions. We were trying to integrate man's philosophy with God's word and with faith, Bibles teaching and all the deep theological conversations that we have had here that we really didn't know God's word like we thought we did. So getting into the biblical counseling stuff and getting into the Word of God and understanding right theology versus our own opinions and what we thought we knew, Kevin and I grew really fast and just conviction of needing to know God's word and applying it to our own lives first, so And remember every every good counselor is a good counselee. So we really practiced the It was humiliating. We had a lot of humility, because we were very prideful of our of our Christian walk. We were confronted with mostly self righteous thinking and thinking, we knew what to say to people and what to do and the solutions, our own solutions, and with all the biblical counseling training, we realized that we didn't know much, so we grew quick.
  
  Seth Weber 13:54
  How shortly after that, or how long did it take you guys to become certified counselors? Great
  
  Tamara Henning 13:59
  question. So we took those classes in 2005 I was certified in it took me seven years. Wow. So 2012 Shannon Green and I went and got our certification together. Nice, so, but Kevin and I had been working for on a lot of stuff together, and Earl would always have counsellies For us, you know, so we could practice not hard ones, but although some were very hard. And then so seven years for me, Kevin, it took him a lot longer, because when you're working full time, I was working half time, and that's about right, but it was intense. You just grow leaps and bounds in your knowledge of what the Bible says, and then how you would actually hand it over to other people and let it touch their heart, and whether it counseling goes really well, and things their life goes well, or things really crash and burn, it doesn't matter. It's what God's God wants. So I realized I'm just a tool. I'm just a water and a planter of seeds, and then it's up to God to figure all the other stuff out. And that's been really relieving to Kevin and I during our times with counseling other people. So I usually limit myself to two women that I counsel, because I work and still pretty busy in my life, and then my husband and I do at least two couples, no more than two couples, not at least at least one, but no, no more than two. Those are more complicated and complex, but we love it. We love the biblical counseling group I know Sharon green and Kelly, Dean and I were meeting for coffee often, because we were, you know, just starting out our counseling, our serious stuff, and we wanted a plan and and a good methodology, so we were meeting. And then I think, Earl, he goes, Oh, I want to come in.
  
  Seth Weber 15:53
  That's right, I've heard this story
  
  Tamara Henning 15:57
  that was so good, and then it just evolved into counselors coffee. We meet every Tuesday, and we just encourage each other, and it's pretty a pretty fantastic, bonded group. So
  
  Seth Weber 16:09
  you guys have a fun time in there.
  
  Tamara Henning 16:10
  I hear you guys have a good time because we're challenging each other, we're growing, we're sharing. We're very confidential in our group, but the experience in that room is huge. And Kevin, I have a bit more a lot of experience now too. So we've done good, done things well, and some things, we just muddle through and let God figure it out. And that's been really helpful. Sovereignty of God has been kind of the big change, the big turning point in when I did when I was studying theology, sovereignty of God was amazing.
  
  Seth Weber 16:43
  So tell me, what has God been teaching you more lately?
  
  Tamara Henning 16:47
  Lately, I've just been enjoying some books I'm reading. Every book is my favorite book at the time. You're gonna have trouble with the speed round though. I know, I know. Yeah. So the most recent one I've been reading is the enemy within by line guard. And I did have a counselee A long time ago. I asked her for feedback, because I love feedback, good critique. I'm all about that. I think it's so helpful for me to grow with my relationships in the counseling room. And she goes, Well, when we first started out, I don't, I don't know if we ever covered the seriousness of sin, my sin. And I go, Well, I'm sure we did, but seriousness of sin is covered really well in that book that I'm reading right now. I'm just, of course, I always think, I always get really excited about him at the time, but it's it would have been helpful had I read that book back then. So I'm, I'm just soaking that up. I love good Bible studies kind of really the ones that stretch me. So every counseling session stretches because I Yeah, and I do pray about that. I want to learn from the other women, couples that we do. I want to be stretched so that I you know that I grow and I do. I think that's why I love biblical counseling. So just want to put a plug in for anybody who just just do the the training sessions. Try it because you grow because you want to you're held accountable, and I don't want to be a hypocrite, so gotta practice what I preach. So self confrontation is where you do it. So that, you know, Psalms 139 talks about, you know, search, search out my heart God and then test me, and you check out your anxieties and your fears, and then to expose and point out how I've offended him, just even the little icky things, and then lead me in the way everlasting. So just that sanctification process and that though, that pass those two verses are so that's a big deal right now. Tell
  
  Seth Weber 19:04
  us. How could faith, Bible, church, be praying for you right now.
  
  Tamara Henning 19:07
  Okay, so Kevin and I are transitioning, and the next few years we're going to retire from our job, jobs. Okay, yeah. And so just that God would make it easy for especially Kevin, to do a transition. We have so many things going on in our life besides our
  
  Seth Weber 19:26
  job, we're gonna be busy still. Oh, yeah, and
  
  Tamara Henning 19:29
  so I we do expect to do more counseling. So that's that's like a forever thing, until we're sidelined and can't get out of the wheelchair or something to do this anymore, because it's such a it will always be a blessing. It's exciting. It's such
  
  Seth Weber 19:42
  a great example that that you and Kevin are like, you know, we're even though we're done working, we're gonna keep working hard in the counseling center.
  
  Tamara Henning 19:48
  Yes, yes. We have a lot of plans to travel too nice, and I still have the horses at home. Well, are
  
  Seth Weber 19:54
  you ready for the speed round? I'm
  
  Tamara Henning 19:55
  gonna try to get ready. Ready? You.
  
  Seth Weber 20:05
  Cats or dogs. Dogs. Pineapple on pizza. No
  
  Tamara Henning 20:08
  husband does, that's right, we order halves. Do
  
  Seth Weber 20:15
  you have any pets? Horses? Yeah, I
  
  Tamara Henning 20:17
  have, well, I have one horse study. The other one is my sister's favorite book, besides the Bible, okay, can I just do a genre? Sure, Western. Lula Moore, author, and of course, I'm a Jane Austen fan. I've heard that everybody loves her, but, yeah, historical fiction, Christian historical fiction. I love,
  
  Seth Weber 20:34
  Okay, favorite band,
  
  Tamara Henning 20:37
  uh oh, okay, I didn't think of is I love abba, abba,
  
  Seth Weber 20:41
  favorite movie or TV show. Oh, Ben Hur,
  
  Tamara Henning 20:44
  Ben Hur, hands down, yes. Oh, and the Hollywood's version of the story of Ruth Rochelle. And I love, oh, I don't know if I've seen that. It's the Hollywood version, remember, but it's cool. It's, it's great. Got great music, great old Hollywood, you know stuff. I mean, it's not pure biblical bed, right?
  
  Seth Weber 21:01
  It's a good one, okay, best surprise gift you've ever gotten is
  
  Tamara Henning 21:06
  our first wedding anniversary. Kevin took me and we were in Iowa, and so he took me into this really fancy hotel. Is a big one. It's like a German one, but it's really fancy, okay? And he goes, Hey, they're gonna let us check out this room, come to find out we were going to stay in that room. So it's like heaven. Surprised me with the room, but then I was looking around, and my wedding picture is just me and my wedding dress just kind of a headshot was on the mantle. It was really close, really fancy German style, but there was my picture. He's pretty romantic. He likes to surprise me,
  
  Seth Weber 21:43
  if you didn't have to sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?
  
  Tamara Henning 21:47
  Oh, oh, I'd be with probably my kids and my grandkids, seriously,
  
  Seth Weber 21:54
  but they would be sleeping. Oh,
  
  Tamara Henning 21:57
  yeah, but I work. Remember, everybody's up when I'm sleeping. I'm sleeping when everybody's working anyway. Nice. Yeah.
  
  Seth Weber 22:05
  So last question, here we go. Favorite place to eat out in Spokane
  
  Tamara Henning 22:09
  selkirks?
  
  Seth Weber 22:13
  Yes, well, Tamara is one of these people at Faith Bible Church that you need to know. Thanks for joining us, Tamara,
  
  Tamara Henning 22:20
  you are very welcome. It's great talking to you. Seth, you.

Seth Weber

Seth is the Communications Director at Faith Bible Church and loves anything to do with design, video, audio and tech. He and his wife Kaitlyn have four children.

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