Deepika's Story
All my life, I have loved reading and education.
After earning my M.Ed in curriculum, teaching and learning and dedicating several years to teaching, I found myself at a crossroads in my personal life. My husband and I longed to grow our family, but faced the challenge of infertility. It was during a summer retreat, devoted to reading, that I read, “Longing for Motherhood” by Chelsea Patterson Sobolik. The book not only helped me navigate through the grief of infertility but also opened my heart to the beautiful journey of adoption.
By God’s grace, my husband and I welcomed both our son and daughter through adoption, moments that have reshaped our lives. Embracing my role as a stay-at-home mom, I feared that my passion for reading might fade amidst the demands of motherhood. To my delight, I discovered that not only could I continue my love for reading, I could read more than ever before. How? Audiobooks.
In this season of my life, audiobooks became an essential part of my own personal growth and maturity. I wanted guidance from godly women with more experience in motherhood, homemaking, homeschooling, missions, and ministry, but found few mentors around me. Audiobooks became a way for me to access the voices of those women and glean from their counsel and wisdom.
Yet, I was surprised to find that many of my favourite authors, including influential women like Amy Carmichael, Fanny Crosby, and Anne Dutton, were absent from audiobook libraries. My husband, recognizing the gap, encouraged me to be the voice I sought. I was hesitant, but that week he bought me a mic and headphones, and “Read Her” was born.
I believe in
The Triune God of Scripture
I believe in the one living and true God, eternally existing in perfect unity as three equally and fully divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each person of the Godhead, while executing distinct but complementary roles in redemptive history, possesses precisely the same nature, attributes, and being, and is equally worthy of the same glory, honour, and obedience.
The Inspiration & Infallibility of the Bible
I believe the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments to be the complete record of God’s self-disclosure to mankind. Different men, while writing according to their own styles and personalities, were supernaturally inspired by the Holy Spirit to record God’s very words, inerrant in the original writings. Therefore, by applying myself to study its literal, historical-grammatical context, I can accurately understand God’s Word. Scripture is fully trustworthy as my final and sufficient authority for all of life.
God the Father
I believe God the Father created all things in six literal days for His glory according to His own will, through His Son, Jesus Christ. He upholds all things by the Word of His power and grace, exercising sovereign headship over all creation, providence, and redemption.
God the Son
I believe that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, moved by love in accordance with the will of the Father, took on human flesh. Conceived through the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, He, being fully God and fully man, lived a sinless life and sacrificially shed His blood and died on the cross in my place, accomplishing redemption for all who place their faith in Him. He arose visibly and bodily from the dead three days later and ascended into heaven, where, at the Father’s right hand, He is now Head of His Body the Church, the only Savior and Mediator between God and man, and will return to earth in power and glory to consummate His redemptive mission.
God the Holy Spirit
I believe that the Holy Spirit, in all that He does, glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ during this age. He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement. He draws the unredeemed to repentance and faith, and at salvation imparts new spiritual life to the believer, bringing that person into union with Christ and the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit sanctifies, seals, fills, guides, instructs, comforts, equips, empowers, permanently indwells at salvation, and bestows spiritual gifts to the believer for Christ-like living and service (John 16:8; 13:15; Titus 3:5; Ephesians 1:22; 4:11-12; Romans 8:9-17; 12:4-8; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 12:4-5, 11-13, 19; Galatians 5:25; Hebrews 2:1-4; 2 Corinthians 12:12).
Salvation by Grace through Faith Alone
I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for my sins according to the Scriptures, as the substitutionary atonement in my place, and that salvation is found in none other than Jesus Christ. Before Creation, God chose those who would be saved and granted this unearned grace solely based on His sovereign good pleasure. Jesus Christ’s death on the cross was the sole and complete payment for sins, fully satisfying God’s righteous wrath, for each person that turns from sin in repentance and places their faith in Christ alone by grace alone. At salvation, each person is made a new creation by the Holy Spirit, declared righteous before God, and secured as an adopted child of God forever. Genuine faith continues in obedience and love for Jesus Christ with a life eager to glorify God and persevere to the end.
Marriage, Gender, and Sexuality
I believe that marriage is created by God to be shared between one biological man and one biological woman, in a lifelong holy covenant, for the purpose of companionship, sexual intimacy, and procreation. My created gender, sexuality, and sexual fulfilment are gifts from the Creator and are to be embraced with gratitude and worship. God designed sexual intimacy to be expressed and consummated only between a man and a woman when they are united as one flesh in marriage.
Men and women are created in the image of God and stand equal in dignity and worth. God designed gender, recognized through our biological sex, as an immutable reality essential to our identity as male and female. While the fall distorts God’s design for men and women, Jesus makes men and women fellow heirs of God’s eternal grace who differ in complementary and mutually beneficial ways.
Furthermore, I adopt the Nashville Statement on Biblical Sexuality and Gender.
Life Everlasting and God's Final Judgment
I believe in and expectantly await the glorious, visible, personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ. The blessed hope of His return has vital bearing on my personal life, service, and mission. I believe in the bodily resurrection of both the saved and the lost. The lost will be raised to judgement and experience eternal wrath in hell. The saved will be raised to eternal joy in the new heaven and new earth in the manifested presence of God.