Deeper: Living in the Reality of God's Love - eBook

Debbie Alsdorf holds Design4Living Conferences and speaks with Hearts at Home. She is a member of the American Association of Christian Counselors and is director of women's ministries at Cornerstone Fellowship, where her Bible study is attended by 700 women every week. Alsdorf lives in Livermore, California.







REVISED BIO FROM SUZIE FOR DEBBIE'S WEBSITE:
Debbie Alsdorf is a popular speaker and author and the Director of Women's Ministries at Cornerstone Fellowship in Livermore, California. Debbie's weekly Bible studies are attended by hundreds of women who are eager to discover how to deepen their walk with God. In addition, as the founder of Design4Living Ministries, Debbie also leads conferences and retreats that equip and encourage women in their faith. She and her husband Ray have raised a blended family of four adult children, and they currently live with two dogs and one cat.

"With personal transparency, poignant biblical truth, and road-tested application, Debbie Alsdorf has given us the tools we need to go deeper with God. I highly recommend it!"
--Carol Kent, speaker; author, A New Kind of Normal

"Deeper helps women understand God's love and involvement in every detail of life. Debbie embraced this depth of love and now beautifully teaches truth that changes a woman forever."
--Jennifer Rothschild, author, Lessons I Learned in the Dark and Self Talk, Soul Talk

"Debbie Alsdorf has given us a highly valuable "how-to" manual for going Deeper. Deeper in our faith, deeper in discovering our worth, and deeper in our capacity to see and love others as God does. Debbie is a wonderful communicator of God's hope and healing."
--Ellie Lofaro and Kathy Trocolli, authors, Spaghetti for the Soul

"Are you sick of the shallow, rat race, 'Stepford-like' Christian life? Long to go deeper with God and discover 'real' relationship with Christ? Debbie Alsdorf leads us to a deeper, richer, fuller, love relationship with God. Every woman would love life more if she too went Deeper."
Pam Farrel, international speaker, relationship specialist, and author of over 25 books

Beyond "Nice Girl" Christianity
Debbie Alsdorf, popular speaker and author leads Christian women to a deeper faith by candidly sharing from her own journey and the transforming truths found in Psalm 139

Grand Rapids, Mich - The Stepford Wife was the perfect description for Debbie Alsdorf at one time. Her life seemed perfect. Then her life changed dramatically when she went through a public divorce as a pastor's wife. Her husband said he had never been in love with her - her life was shattered - or so she felt. She wondered if God still loved her with all that was going on? Never mind how she would financially care for her young children.

Alsdorf, openly shares, her struggles during this time of her life - depression, feelings of worthlessness, financial hardship, and a faltering faith. But she rose through this difficult time to clearly see and experience the reality of God's love in a deeper way than she ever had. And she desires to encourage other women to see the abundant life God has for them in her new book, Deeper: Living in the Reality of God's Love.

Part of Alsdorf's growth and healing took place when a friend encouraged her to read Psalm 139. In Deeper, she shares four truths about God that she began to learn from this Psalm.

He knows me.

he protects me.

He made me.

He values me.

Alsdorf took a step of faith in trusting God during her hard circumstances and began to see that her worth was not based on performance or possessions, or that we have to be perfect to be loved. And who would have guessed that a back injury experienced early in her divorce would eventually lead her to meet her second husband whose two girls created a blended family with her two boys? The Brady Bunch wasn't quite the picture of their blended family, but Alsdorf did clearly see how God used disheartening circumstances to draw her closer to Him, and to her new husband and family.

With a mix of compelling narrative and Scripture, Deeper helps women transform their lives by trusting in the reality of God's love. Instead of striving for perfection and truth, readers can rest in the truth that they are His. The questions for further reflection at the end of each chapter make this book an ideal resource for personal study and for small group interaction.

Alsdorf, founder of Design4Living Conferences, passionately counsels, speaks to and writes for evangelical women. Here, she calls them to live beyond what she terms “Christianity Lite” or “the Stepford Woman reality” in order to experience God's deeper truth where “theology matches reality.” Alsdorf tells readers of her status as a pastor's wife, then an unwilling divorced mother of two, and how she lost herself amid the shock and pain. Even after remarrying, when Alsdorf should have been happy, depression clung to her tenaciously. When a poor physical reaction meant she was not a good candidate for prescription medication for her depression, she learned to access God's powerful promises by hourly studying Psalm 139. As its truth permeated her heart and mind, she found freedom from fear and self-rejection and learned to redefine her life by mindfully internalizing her position as God's child, her passion to share Jesus' love and her purpose for serving him. Alsdorf's candor is refreshing, as is her confidence in meditating upon biblical principles and promises for lasting inner change. She skillfully takes readers by the hand and journeys with them from valleys of crippling pain and disappointment to revolutionary transformation for women of faith. (Feb.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.