Rev 1211 Publishing House Announces the Release of My Alabaster: Seeing God Through Trauma by Amanda Renea Pence

A deeply personal Christian testimony of trauma, surrender, healing, and hope in Jesus Christ

Rev 1211 Publishing House is honored to announce the release of My Alabaster: Seeing God Through Trauma by Amanda Renea Pence, a deeply personal Christian memoir and testimony that invites readers to see the presence of God in the places where life has felt most broken. Published by Rev 1211 Publishing House, My Alabaster is now available in paperback through major online retailers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other channels connected through Ingram distribution.

At its heart, My Alabaster is a story of surrender. Amanda writes with rare honesty about the places in her life where trauma, fear, shame, illness, and pain tried to shape her identity, and how Jesus continued to meet her in those places with mercy, truth, and healing. This is not a book that treats suffering lightly or wraps pain in easy answers. Instead, Amanda allows readers into the real wrestle of faith. She writes from the middle of the process, not from a distant place where everything has already been neatly resolved. That is part of what makes this testimony so powerful.

The title of the book is inspired by the biblical story of the woman with the alabaster jar, who poured costly oil at the feet of Jesus in an act of worship, love, and surrender. For Amanda, that image became more than a beautiful passage of Scripture. It became a picture of her own life. In the book, she describes her testimony as her own alabaster jar, broken before the Lord and poured out at His feet. The pages of My Alabaster carry that same sense of offering. Amanda brings her pain, her past, her diagnosis, her questions, her motherhood, her marriage, her grief, and her faith to Jesus, trusting that even what has been broken can become worship when placed in His hands.

Writing this book was an act of obedience. Amanda shares openly in the manuscript that even as she wrote, she battled thoughts such as, “Does this even matter? No one wants to hear my story.” That kind of resistance is familiar to many people who carry a testimony. The enemy often works hard to convince people that their story is too messy, too painful, too ordinary, too shameful, or too unfinished to be used by God. Amanda wrote anyway. She chose to tell the truth, not for attention, but because she believed God could use what He had brought her through to reach someone else who needed hope.

That obedience is one of the reasons this book matters. My Alabaster is not simply a memoir about hardship. It is a testimony of God’s faithfulness in the middle of hardship. Amanda writes about early life wounds, family instability, abuse, abandonment, destructive choices, addiction, abortion, shame, motherhood, marriage, healing, and a life-changing diagnosis of stage four cancer. These are not easy subjects, and the book does not pretend they are. But through each part of the story, Amanda continually points back to Jesus as the One who sees, restores, comforts, corrects, heals, and redeems.

Amanda was diagnosed with colon cancer shortly after her thirty-ninth birthday in May 2022. What began as a stage three diagnosis later became part of an ongoing stage four cancer journey. Through surgeries, chemotherapy, scans, difficult medical decisions, fear, exhaustion, and moments of despair, Amanda began to experience God in ways that reached far deeper than physical circumstances. Cancer became one of the places where the Lord began uncovering wounds that had existed long before the diagnosis. It exposed fears, thought patterns, survival mechanisms, and places of pain that had been quietly shaping her life for years.

One of the strongest themes in My Alabaster is what Amanda calls the “background noise” of trauma. She writes about how childhood wounds, painful words, fear, abandonment, and spiritual attack can create an inner soundtrack that a person may live from without even realizing it. That background noise can distort identity, relationships, decisions, and even the way a person sees God. Through Scripture, prayer, surrender, and the work of the Holy Spirit, Amanda began learning how to recognize those lies and bring them under the truth of Christ.

This makes My Alabaster especially meaningful for readers who are not only facing illness, but also wrestling with fear, shame, trauma, grief, or a distorted sense of identity. The book speaks to the woman who loves God but still feels stuck in old patterns. It speaks to the person who has survived things they do not know how to talk about. It speaks to the reader who has wondered whether God was present in the moments that wounded them most. It speaks to those who have carried guilt, regret, abuse, addiction, loss, or medical uncertainty and wondered whether healing was still possible.

Amanda’s testimony is also deeply compassionate toward the brokenhearted. She does not write as someone looking down from a place of spiritual superiority. She writes as someone who knows what it means to be met by Jesus in the lowest places. That compassion is one of the gifts of this book. Amanda understands that trauma is not healed by shame, and that people do not need religious clichés when they are suffering. They need truth, tenderness, Scripture, and the presence of God. They need to know that Jesus is not afraid of their pain.

For women’s ministries, small groups, healing ministries, Christian counselors, discipleship groups, and church communities, My Alabaster offers a powerful entry point for conversations about suffering, surrender, identity, spiritual warfare, and restoration. It is the kind of book that can help readers feel seen while gently pointing them back to the Lord. It is honest enough for those who are hurting, but hope-filled enough to remind them that their pain is not the end of the story.

Another significant theme throughout the book is the renewing of the mind. Amanda writes about intrusive thoughts, fear loops, spiritual warfare, and the need to take thoughts captive. She shows readers that healing is not only about looking back at what happened, but also about learning to recognize the lies that trauma left behind. The process is not presented as instant or simplistic. Instead, Amanda shows the daily nature of surrender, the importance of Scripture, and the power of allowing God to reshape the way we think, respond, and see ourselves.

While My Alabaster contains painful parts of Amanda’s story, the book is ultimately hope-forward. It does not glorify trauma. It glorifies God through what He has done in the middle of trauma. That distinction is important. Amanda’s story does not end with what happened to her, what she did, what she lost, or what she is still facing physically. Her story continually returns to the goodness, nearness, and faithfulness of Jesus Christ.

That is why this book carries such a strong testimony. It reminds readers that God is not absent in suffering. He is present in it. He is present in hospital rooms, in grief, in repentance, in fear, in motherhood, in marriage, in difficult family histories, in healing retreats, in quiet moments of prayer, and in the hidden places no one else sees. Amanda’s story shows that the Lord does not wait for people to become perfect before He meets them. He meets them in the breaking, and He begins to restore what they could not fix on their own.

At Rev 1211 Publishing House, we believe Christian books should do more than fill shelves. They should bear witness. They should carry testimony. They should point readers to Jesus and remind them that God is still redeeming lives. My Alabaster reflects that mission beautifully. This book is not simply a publishing project. It is the fruit of obedience, courage, vulnerability, and faith.

Amanda’s willingness to write this book matters because somewhere, someone will open these pages in a season of fear, grief, shame, illness, or exhaustion and realize they are not alone. Someone may read her testimony and find language for their own pain. Someone may be reminded that their beginnings do not have to define their endings. Someone may be encouraged to bring their own broken jar to Jesus and trust Him with what pours out.

My Alabaster: Seeing God Through Trauma is for anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed by life, stuck in patterns they could not break, distant from God in the middle of hardship, or unsure whether their story could still be redeemed. Amanda’s testimony offers a gentle but powerful reminder that surrender is not the end of hope. In Christ, surrender is often where healing begins.

About the Book

My Alabaster: Seeing God Through Trauma by Amanda Renea Pence is a Christian memoir and testimony about encountering Jesus in the middle of trauma, shame, illness, and surrender. Inspired by the biblical story of the woman with the alabaster jar, Amanda shares her journey through broken beginnings, destructive patterns, a stage four cancer battle, and the healing work of God. With honesty, Scripture-rooted reflection, and deep compassion for the brokenhearted, My Alabaster invites readers to bring their pain to Jesus and discover that God can meet them even in the places they thought were too shattered to restore.

Book Details

Title: My Alabaster: Seeing God Through Trauma
Author: Amanda Renea Pence
Publisher: Rev 1211 Publishing House
ISBN: 978-1-996807-11-8
Format: Paperback
Release Date: April 24, 2026
Available through: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and major online retailers through expanded distribution

Where to Buy

My Alabaster: Seeing God Through Trauma is available now in paperback through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major online retailers.

Amazon:
https://a.co/d/04vkyEXu

Barnes & Noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/my-alabaster-amanda-renea-pence/1150184946?ean=9781996807118

About Rev 1211 Publishing House

Rev 1211 Publishing House helps Christian authors publish books that glorify God, carry testimony, and reach the readers they were called to serve. As a publishing house rooted in Revelation 12:11, we believe testimony is powerful, and we are honored to help bring books like My Alabaster into the world.

Closing

My Alabaster is more than Amanda’s story. It is an invitation to see God in the middle of trauma, to stop hiding the broken places, and to believe that what has been shattered can still become worship when placed at the feet of Jesus. For anyone walking through suffering, fear, shame, grief, illness, or uncertainty, Amanda’s testimony carries a steady reminder: God is not finished, your story is not over, and even the broken places can still release the fragrance of Christ.