Featured Interview With Blue Tapp
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up all over the U.S. My family moved nearly every year when I was a child; I went to 13 different schools. My dad wasn’t in the military… just a rolling stone, grass is always greener kinda’ guy. I was shy, unattractive, didn’t dress the right way, we were poor… blah blah blah… so it was difficult. I struggled with low self esteem and depression. God has healed me from all of that. Now I am strong, unafraid of change or failure, don’t care what anyone thinks, and incredibly happy. So it all turned out okay 🙂
Boy do I have pets! I have 42 chickens, 7 ducks, 2 rabbits, 2 cats and a livestock guard dog. We are homesteaders so we’ve got lots of animals and plan to get even more… goats, pigs, maybe alpacas and cows. Our homestead is called Hermit’s Way Homestead, and is in Blue Eye, Missouri, 30 minutes southwest of Branson on the Arkansas border. We grow our own food and raise our own meat. We’ve got a very funny YouTube channel about our homesteading adventures.
I have run a successful website development company, Blue’s ArtHouse Graphics & Web Design, since 1997. When I started my business, websites had only existed for six years. So I’m definitely an old-timer in the web design field and it has changed a LOT in the past 25 years. I’ve grown with it and stay very busy. It pays the bills comfortably and then some. My husband, Craig, worked for Boeing for 37 years and retired in 2021, then we moved across the state to start up our homestead. I have no plans to retire; I still love my job and who wouldn’t love working in their pajamas?
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve always been an artist since I was old enough to hold a pencil. I love to work with pen & ink, pastels, charcoals, and photography. I’m also a musician and singer. I play guitar, mandolin, flute, Irish whistle, sing and write music. I was even in a band for a while. So I’m a total artsy fartsy girl. When I learned how to read and write, of course I started writing stories. It was just the natural thing for me to do.
I began devouring books the moment I learned how to read; books were my escape. Discovering classic literature in high school lit a fire in my soul. I spent ten years in college studying Literature and then Rhetoric & Composition. I have an A.A. in Fine Arts, B.A. in English, M.A. in English Literature, and finished coursework for a Ph.D. in Rhetoric & Composition (dropped out before finishing my disertation due to family issues). I took many creative writing classes in college and submitted an anthology of short stories as my Masters Thesis. One of them was published in a college periodical.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I was an avid reader of classical fiction until my 40s. During college my favs were Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Herman Melville, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Ambrose Bierce, Flannery O’Connor, all the classics. I also loved sci-fi greats like C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Ray Bradbury, and Kurt Vonnegut.
Something shifted in my 40s and I stopped reading fiction. I think I had finally read enough about worlds created in the minds of other writers. Now I wanted to read about what was REAL… biographies and other nonfiction works. I wanted to spend my time improving my soul, not just my mind, and got more into Bible and philosophical studies. Today I read works by the mystic saints like Teresa de Avila, and books about the working of the Holy Spirit including books by Kenneth Hagin, and Paul Haglin.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My first full length book, “My Demon, My Jesus,” tells my extraordinary story about demonic oppression as a child and my struggle with suicidal depression as a young adult.
When I was 30 years old, I attempted suicide by swallowing a handful of sleeping pills. It worked. I died and my spirit left my body before I was brought back to life in the hospital. I am here today because God saved my life. He sent four angels who helped me call for help before I died.
However my battle with depression was far from over. I spent the next three years addicted to prescription medication under the care of a psychiatrist. But pills cannot cure depression.
Again God miraculously healed me. I am now completely free of depression and medication. God has shown me how to live an amazing life of joy and victory. ”My Demon, My Jesus” describes my healing process. I believe others who suffer from depression can follow these same steps to reach true lasting healing.
Then in 2019 I began experiencing astonishing visions where my soul traveled to heaven to pray for the world with millions of other saints. Today the visions continue weekly and God has taught me so much through them. He loves and cares deeply about each one of us and wants us to know Him intimately. I was being called to join with the saints in praying for our world, for a great awakening that would draw all people to God.
One of God’s charges was that I write everything down, every vision in detail. As I did this I realized that there was a connection between the visions and my own life journey, from my early experiences of demonic oppression and suicide to eventual miraculous healing through the love of Christ. I began to understand that my visions about God’s love for us were also a message to others struggling with depression. My own story of God’s healing could be used to help others learn how to seek God’s healing presence through meditative prayer.
So I told it all… from a demonically oppressed disturbed child who also fell in love with Jesus and prayed to become a Christian at six years old…to a suicidally depressed young adult who overdosed on sleeping pills and was brought back from death in the hospital…to years addicted to prescription drugs…to miraculous healing, victorious life, and divine visions.
My healing was miraculous. But it was not instantaneous. It was a process of learning how to think in a healthy way, how to shift my thoughts and spirit life from defeat to victory. My prayer is that my journey will help others climb their way out of the trap of poisonous thought patterns and prescribed drug addictions. There are so many of us out there fighting this battle…
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