By Katherine Adams
On most days, Chaplain Tammy Isaac can be found at the UTMB Health Angleton Danbury Campus Hospital, offering spiritual and emotional support to patients, families and staff members going through periods of emotional distress related to their health or a difficult diagnosis.
She provides spiritual companionship as people navigate their options, especially if their faith plays an important role in their decisions. She prays with patients, reads from Scripture, sings a hymn or two, directs people to spiritual reading resources and offers grief support when the worst-case scenario becomes reality.
Prior to the death of her mother, Theresa Lewis, on March 5, 2016, Isaac also could be found outdoors doing what she loved—running or training for competitions. Her mother died from heart disease on Isaac's 40th birthday. With that tragedy, she lost her joy in running. She had her last run on that sad day and afterwards actually deleted the running app from her phone.
When Hurricane Harvey struck the Houston area in 2017, Isaac said she was blessed not to have been affected, but many others she knew had been through a terrible trauma.
“I was reading a study of the Book of Ruth in the Bible, and I remembered that Ruth and Naomi had to begin again from a place of devastation,” she said. “They had lost their husbands and all their provisions and everything else that came from the men in their families.
“They had to begin again somehow,” she said, “and I started to remember that I had once been a runner, but I had quit for about three years after my mother’s death. I was wondering, how should I begin again?”
When she reinstalled the running app to her phone, she was amazed to see it picked up exactly where she had left off—during a run on the same day, three years previously, on her birthday, which was also the date of her mother’s death.
“The Holy Spirit told me that I could begin again. I could start all over,” she said. “I reread the Book of Ruth, about two women who had lost everything and were determined to begin again from the place they were.”
That’s when Isaac sat down to write the principles that would ultimately become her 10th book, “Begin Again.”
“I applied the principles that Naomi and Ruth used to restart their lives and applied those to what I thought would help others who had lost everything in the Harvey flood,” she said. “I started teaching those, and it’s how it became a book.
“That’s how the book got its name, and in the introduction, I share how I once loved running and that I had done my last half-marathon with my mother, just a few months before she died,” she said.
Recently, Isaac decided to go to the Kemah Boardwalk to participate in a heart walk sponsored by the American Heart Association.
“Going on that walk was my very first event getting back into a walk race after my mother’s death,” she said. “It symbolized me beginning again.”
Just as she drove under the Kemah Boardwalk sign, she instantly realized something.
“On the night of her death, my twin brother and I were at the Kemah Boardwalk in a restaurant celebrating our birthday,” she said. “I had forgotten that, and I was overwhelmed with emotions.
“And then I saw someone on the walk that I knew, and just as Naomi had Ruth to walk with her on her journey, I received support and comfort on that walk, as I remembered my mother and honored her on that day,” she said.
Isaac’s hope is the book will touch people who also find themselves in a place in life where they must pick up and begin again.
“Sometimes, in rough spots, life becomes challenging,” she said. “You become immobilized, and you can’t see any way out. There’s an overwhelming anxiety about trying again and perhaps failing again.
“But you know what steps to take and what not to take,” she said. “You must remember, you are not starting all over—you are starting with information you learned from the previous experiences, so it’s about not being lost in your failure.”
The book, which was released in June on Issac’s mother’s birthday, is companioned with a 31-day devotional workbook and planner that gives the reader time for self-reflection, action plans and an accompanying Bible study to consider during each day.
“It’s my hope that this book reaches people who are in a place in life where they need to start over, for whatever reason,” she said. “The workbook and planner are intended to help people think about their purpose, set their goals and create a road map for achieving them, with reflective prompts to dive into thoughts, aspirations and uncover what matters most.”
Isaac is also a certified grief counselor and life coach. Her book, “Begin Again,” is available on Amazon or on her website.
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From left:
Chaplain Tammy Isaac and her mother, Theresa Lewis, at the Jazz Half Marathon & 5K in New Orleans; Isaac's mother, Theresa Lewis; Issac after winning Houston's Christmas 12K