TammyHansonMaltby

When I want to do good....

“When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. . . . Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7: 21, 24)

I’ve always loved Christian before-and-after stories—those heart-touching tales about those who were lost and then found, whose lives were changed by an encounter with the ever-gracious Savior. They’re wonderful, juicy true-makeover tales with irresistible happy endings.
The trouble is, the “before” in those stories is almost always “before I knew Christ.” The implication is that once a person accepts the Lord, she stops sinning and lays all her brokenness outside the door. And that’s just not true—or it’s just a fraction of the reality most “good Christians” I know experience.
We’ll admit that if we’re pressed. We’ll even make a point of telling people that “we’re all sinners.” Yet we’re pretty quick to cover up our deeper failings. There are things we’ll confess and others we don’t dare mention.
We tell ourselves we must keep a good witness—you know, keep God looking good. More often, I think, we cover up the ugly stuff to protect ourselves. Because we don’t know how to handle pain or because, deep down, we’re not sure if God can really handle who we really are and what we’ve really done.
But when we do that, we send the message to those who are hurting, who are broken, who are truly weary and heavy laden, that they are not welcome in our churches and our lives. Especially if those hurting, broken people are already Christians! Especially if they’re honest and admit they’re losing the battle and don’t know where to turn.
And when we send that message—even to ourselves—I believe we’re actually working against God. Because broken, hurting, and honest people are exactly who God wants in His churches. Those are the people He wants on His side, because they’re the ones He can really do something with.
You see, God can work miracles with pain. He can make short work of sin and guilt. It’s pride and dishonesty and self-deception that slow down His rescue efforts.
The Lord knows what we’re like—what we’re capable of, what we’ve actually done. And He can handle it. There’s nothing we can throw at Him that He cannot handle and help us with—as long as we let Him.
But letting him is a choice we all have to make.
We can work hard on our “good Christian girl” image and keep our brokenness hidden. Or we can choose to open up our lives and depend absolutely on the love and forgiveness of One who gave up His own life so we could live free of condemnation. To trust Him with our sin and brokenness so He can teach us what it really means to be whole, healthy, and “found”—before, after, and for the rest of our lives.

“When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. . . . Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7: 21, 24)

I’ve always loved Christian before-and-after stories—those heart-touching tales about those who were lost and then found, whose lives were changed by an encounter with the ever-gracious Savior. They’re wonderful, juicy true-makeover tales with irresistible happy endings.
The trouble is, the “before” in those stories is almost always “before I knew Christ.” The implication is that once a person accepts the Lord, she stops sinning and lays all her brokenness outside the door. And that’s just not true—or it’s just a fraction of the reality most “good Christians” I know experience.
We’ll admit that if we’re pressed. We’ll even make a point of telling people that “we’re all sinners.” Yet we’re pretty quick to cover up our deeper failings. There are things we’ll confess and others we don’t dare mention.
We tell ourselves we must keep a good witness—you know, keep God looking good. More often, I think, we cover up the ugly stuff to protect ourselves. Because we don’t know how to handle pain or because, deep down, we’re not sure if God can really handle who we really are and what we’ve really done.
But when we do that, we send the message to those who are hurting, who are broken, who are truly weary and heavy laden, that they are not welcome in our churches and our lives. Especially if those hurting, broken people are already Christians! Especially if they’re honest and admit they’re losing the battle and don’t know where to turn.
And when we send that message—even to ourselves—I believe we’re actually working against God. Because broken, hurting, and honest people are exactly who God wants in His churches. Those are the people He wants on His side, because they’re the ones He can really do something with.
You see, God can work miracles with pain. He can make short work of sin and guilt. It’s pride and dishonesty and self-deception that slow down His rescue efforts.
The Lord knows what we’re like—what we’re capable of, what we’ve actually done. And He can handle it. There’s nothing we can throw at Him that He cannot handle and help us with—as long as we let Him.
But letting him is a choice we all have to make.
We can work hard on our “good Christian girl” image and keep our brokenness hidden. Or we can choose to open up our lives and depend absolutely on the love and forgiveness of One who gave up His own life so we could live free of condemnation. To trust Him with our sin and brokenness so He can teach us what it really means to be whole, healthy, and “found”—before, after, and for the rest of our lives.

The book is finally done!

To say that I am grateful Confessions of a Good Christian Girl is done is a weak statement!

I am so thankful that soon this book will be in the hands of thousands of women providing them with a fresh look at grace.

Confessions will be the bookstores March 5th....Please go and pick up a copy and invest in one for a friend that needs God's lifegiving encouragement! Big smile! Or ck it out on www.amazon.com or www.christianbook.com

Please be in prayer that the Lord would bless this project and true life would come forth....

More soon!

The Gospel of Grace

The gospel of grace announces: forgiveness precedes repentance. The sinner is accepted before he pleads for mercy. It is already granted. He need only receive it. Total amnesty. Gratuitous pardon.

Brennen Manning Ragamuffin Gospel

God's Unfathomable Grace

Where our hidden shame meets God’s unfathomable grace . . . 

Confessions of a Good Christian Girl

You already know the women you’ll meet in this book. They may sit beside you in the pew . . . or work with you in the church kitchen . . . or move your heart from a speaker’s podium. They all been saved. They all love the Lord. And yet . . .

·        One struggles with suicidal despair.

·        Another is involved with adultery, pornography, or a same-sex attraction.

·        Another endures regular beatings—or worse—by someone who claims to love her.

·        Another is divorced . . . or thinking about it.

·        This one drinks secretly or “doctor shops for pain pills”

·        That one wrestles with depression or bipolar disorder.

·        And many others feel they can never be thin enough, beautiful enough, successful enough . . . or Christian enough to be loved or accepted.

They’re all good Christian girls who have been broken by sin—their own and others.

They all needed the honest, life-giving truth at the heart of this book.

Do you?

Philip Yancey on GRACE

Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us MORE.

No amount of spiritual calisthenics and renunciations,

no amount of knowledge gained from seminaries and divinity schools,

no amount of crusading on behalf of righteous cause.

And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less,

no amount of racism or pride or even murder

Confessions of a Good Christian Girl

Confessions of a Good Christian Girl

Thomas Nelson/Integrity

To be released in March 2007

It’s about sex . . . and drugs . . . and violence . . . and despair.

It’s about the painful and messy predicaments our bad choices—and the choices of others—get us into.

Most of all, it’s about grace. Amazing, almost inconceivable grace. The kind of grace Jesus lavishes on sinners who turn to him.

All sinners—even those who sit next to you at church.

All sinners—even you yourself . . .

In this powerful and life-giving book, Tammy Maltby gets specific about the brokenness in her own life and the lives of other “good girls,” both biblical and the present day. She takes an unflinching look at painful secrets that often lurk behind a “victorious” Christian facade—everything from feelings of inadequacy to sexual misconduct, abuse, divorce, and even suicide.

But her point is not lurid exposé, but healing. She writes to urge all hurting Christian girls to turn once more to the God who is eager to cleanse and heal his straying, struggling daughters. This book is her passionate appeal for God’s people to own up to the sin, brokenness, and shame in our midst, to accept His unfathomable grace with joy and gratitude, and then to extend it liberally to one another . . . and a hurting world.