Tammy Dahl: An Ex-Stripper Embraces Motherhood

CBN.com Tammy Dahl had one dream -- to be an actress. She headed out to casting calls,  and when it came to landing teenage roles, she had an advantage. She looked so young!  

"It allowed the industry to use me and avoid child labor laws. I did a lot of stuff with Nickelodeon and I did a lot of extra work," she remembers.

Even so, Tammy could not get enough work to pay the bills even with her part-time job waitressing.

"You can go and do a job and make $1,000 to $2,000, but then you may not have a job for six months," she says.

After a conversation with a friend who waitressed at a strip club, Tammy started thinking.

She came back and said,"Wow, I’m making all this great money, I only have to work four or five hours a night.”

"That's what I really wanted to be was a cocktail waitress and make that.," says Tammy.

She was making good money, but the club managers didn’t want more waitresses, they wanted more strippers. Tammy dramatically changed her appearance and started stripping.

"It was almost like I had to step out of who I really was. Being an aspiring actress, it was very simple for me to take on someone's role, and that's how I had to treat it in order to go through with it."

Tammy quickly learned that most of the dancers were prostituting too. 

"It's a fantasy place, but yet your clientele wants it to become more than a fantasy. It's an opportunity. And I was saying, 'Wow, look at all this money I can make.' "

Tammy ignored her conscious and started prostituting unaware of how out-of-control her life had become until... her boyfriend got her pregnant.

"It was the beginning for me to take a look at who I was and what I had become, it was hard... it was real hard. It wasn't pretty. It was a very ugly reflection," she says.

Tammy wanted an abortion but first talked to a former co-worker who had become a Christian.

"When she said that God would take care of me, the first thing that I thought was, 'How can He take care of me, how could He take care of me?' In living the life that I had lived, I couldn't imagine stepping into a relationship with Him. Especially, the kind of relationship that she shared with Him. I had never met anyone like that."

Her friend convinced Tammy to keep the baby.

"That was really hard because all of a sudden you had accountability. I said, 'Wow, I’m going to be a mom, and you have to step up and protect that child at all cost and do everything you can.' "

Tammy’s friend gave her a pastor’s number. One night, alone and afraid, she called him.

"He said God's got a plan. He will take care of you. I don't know, I can't tell you what happened in my heart. God used that pastor to impart a truth, and it came alive. And I said, 'Okay God, but You need to show up. and You need to show up big.' He showed up huge."

Tammy’s bleak situation turned around immediately. She moved out of her boyfriend’s apartment and a Christian family took her. They supported her through her pregnancy  and they taught her how to grow in her relationship with Christ. The arrival day finally came!

"I prayed for a little girl, and I wanted her to have curly blonde hair and she was born on Valentine's Day with blonde, curly hair. She was the most beautiful thing I had every seen. and to see that and say, 'That's mine!' " 

Through the years, Tammy stay involved with her church family, and continued to grow closer to God.

Tammy now speaks nation-wide and has started a ministry called Out of Exile. And she’s the author of My Father’s Smile, a book that chronicles her journey to where she is today -- a happy single mother raising her daughter Mckala to always trust in the Lord.

"Christ is definitely the center of our home. He is everything. He's the best husband in the world. He's the best friend. There are no words that can describe the depth of the love of Jesus Christ. To this day, there is nothing, nothing that can compare when you are touched by God."