I love to tell the story, twill be my theme in glory, to tell the old, old story, of Jesus and his love!

I am so excited to tell you the story of Purpose to the Tee! They are indeed t-shirts with a purpose! My prayer has always been for God to use me to help others...as a long-time animal lover, I always mentioned I would be okay if he was calling me to start an animal rescue. December 25, 2008, I was rocking my newborn son and God told me he was calling me to get involved in the rescue. I tried and tried to make it happen, but I couldn't do it. Eight years later, he made it happen.

Five years later that rescue, Heartland Rescue Ranch, has been the refuge to thousands of animals who have been rescued, rehabilitated, re-homed, or sanctuaried. Our operating expenses were around $2,000 a month when we opened. Today they have run as high as $20,000 for a single month. Constant begging for money, on top of managing the care for 200 animals at any given time, can be exhausting. A few years ago he put another dream in my heart to start a t-shirt line to help offset the cost. I tried everything to make it happen, but again, I couldn't do it. When it was his time, he made it happen overnight!

Just before the t-shirts got off the ground, he put yet another task on my heart, now known as the, Teach a Kid to Fish Foundation. You may have heard the old Chinese proverb, 'Give a man a fish and he eats for the day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.' After the foundation was started, God showed me a much deeper purpose for teaching a kid to fish. Going fishing can teach one some very valuable life lessons.

First one must prepare for the trip with the right equipment, and bait, and to prepare you have to know what type of fish you hope to catch. Fishing takes patience...and which one of us doesn't need a good lesson in patience??!! There are rules and regulations you must familiarize yourself with before catching particular types of fish. There will be days you will go fishing and catch your limit and call it a great day! Then there will be days you may sit in the sun all day and catch nothing, or worse nothing you are allowed to keep! There may be days the sharks keep biting your line, taking your bait, hook, line, and sinker!

After a little bit of deep thought, I realized how parallel fishing is to my walk with Jesus. It's preparing for my day by using the tools he has given me to make others fishers of men...prayer, his word...It is knowing I am going to have good days and bad days. It is knowing Satan the shark will always be after my line.

So here we are! Two t-shirt lines are strong benefiting these causes. Southern Salt and Rescue Rags.

Rescue Rags are animal shirts representing the cause and effect of rescue. You can't buy love but you can rescue it!

Southern Salt was a God-given name. The line is a representation of my adult life and raising my children on the salty sea. I prayed and prayed and one day the name came to me, yet it was weeks before I had a full understanding of what it meant. "Lulu," I heard God say in his voice that if audible would have sounded just like my paw, "I know you love anything southern so the southern part is me giving you something you love." That part I got but it was the salt part I was stuck on for a while. I studied the word salt in the Bible for days. It became clear, that salt was to be a constant reminder that I am on this earth to season the lives of others so that they may come to know him...God's ultimate hope for me and my ultimate hope for my children. Y'all, that one just gets me all excited to think and talk about!

Thank you, for taking the time to read the story, to God be ALL the glory! Now go look at some T-shirts!

-Amy