Loveable, Worthy and Complete -- Shannon Deitz Shares Hope with Those Who are Suffering
DALLAS/FORT WORTH, May 22, 2012 /
Christian Newswire/ --We all yearn to be loved. It is our self-imposed litmus test for worthiness--our way of confirming we are special and knowing that we matter. Acclaimed author and speaker Shannon Deitz understands that yearning well. Raped at seventeen and then again as a freshman in college, she felt completely bypassed by love. Rebelling against the violent attacks on her body and struggling to quiet the pain through self-abuse, her feelings of worthlessness eventually became so palpable she could not fathom how anyone--most especially God--could love her. This only caused her to push deeper into her own torment.
"I endured countless, inexcusable trials, walking further and further away from the embrace of Christ because I felt too unworthy to look back," Deitz recounts. "And worse, I didn't want to be like them, those who were self-righteous…holier than thou. I liked me."
At least she thought she did.
Then, at the age of 27, unable to fight the battle raging inside her any longer, she gave it all up. Face down on her bedroom floor with her life in shambles all around her, Deitz surrendered every aspect of her being to God. She gave up the self-judgment, the condemnation, the need to be better. She let it all go. And, in that moment, every fear faded away and for the first time since childhood she experienced true peace.
Now, a dozen years later, having shared her remarkable story of transformation in her book, Exposed: Inexcusable Me…Irreplaceable Him (Believers Press, 2012), Deitz shares her message across the country and abroad. Passionately sharing her own story, she unabashedly offers new hope to the hopeless and rekindles flames in coals of faith grown cold.
"My goal," Deitz explains, "is to help others. In whatever I am doing, I desire to help others see their worth and become the best they can be. We are worth so much more than what we have been led to believe."
Deitz recently launched Hopeful Hearts Ministry. Offering presentations to groups such as women's penitentiaries, women's shelters, women's clinics and teen shelters, the new site will be used as a venue for reaching out to the many who are suffering and in need of hope but who might be otherwise unreachable.
Deitz has served as a team speaker for the Franciscan University Steubenville Youth Conferences in Ohio, Louisiana, Florida, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Washington State, collectively reaching more than 40,000 teenagers. She has been a welcomed speaker at the Worldwide Youth Conferences in Madrid, Spain and Sydney, Australia and has given keynote addresses for dozens of youth, young adult and/or adult programs in the interim. She also reaches out to her audiences through her popular blog,
www.ShannonMDeitz.com. Information regarding her book and current speaking schedule may be found on the site, as well as specifics for engaging her as a speaker for an upcoming event.
Exposed: Inexcusable Me…Irreplaceable Him
Shannon Deitz
Believers Press, May 2012, $14.99
ISBN # is 978-0-9852503-0-0
