Paperback
The complete memoir in print, for your shelf, your book club, or someone who needs it.
Notify Me at ReleaseGod’s Broken Promises
A Journey of Faith, Healing, and Becoming.
What happens when you obey God, trust Him deeply, and life still falls apart?
An honest memoir of faith under pressure, a voice nearly lost, and the journey to reclaim it.
Coming soon in paperback and Kindle.
Final cover in design
My mother said she could see the pain in my face. The room just couldn’t hear it.
From the Introduction
About the book
If faithfulness didn’t prevent the shattering, what exactly had I been trusting?
Marlene Allen grew up on Chicago’s South Side, in a family of musicians and in the pews of the Church of God in Christ. She learned early to harmonize, to support, to blend, and to believe that faithfulness would keep certain devastations from reaching her door.
It did not.
A marriage ended. Her mother died. Loss came in layers. And the woman whose voice could carry a sanctuary had quietly stopped using it for herself.
God’s Broken Promises is not a story about losing faith. It is a story about faith maturing under pressure. Tracing her voice from a newborn’s soundless cry to the moment her own voice saved her life, Dr. Marlene Allen writes with honesty and restraint about grief, divorce, motherhood, therapy, and the long work of learning to speak again. She does not offer tidy answers. She offers honest reflection, companionship, and hope for those learning to trust God, reclaim their voices, and move forward through unanswered questions.
A Voice Formed
A South Side home where music was the language of love, a father at the piano, and a church where faith gave her voice purpose.
A Voice Conflicted
A marriage that did not look like the covenant she imagined, her mother’s death, and the growing cost of mistaking silence for strength.
A Voice Reclaimed
Therapy, truth-telling, two daughters witnessing her journey, and a voice that finally belongs to her.
Faith and healing
Faith and therapy in the same room
For years, Marlene believed strength meant holding herself together and keeping her pain private. She sang in sanctuaries and continued to serve, even when she was running on empty.
This is the story of a woman of deep faith who also found her way to a therapist’s office, and discovered that faith and therapy could work together in her healing. It gives language to what so many believers carry quietly, without asking anyone to choose between their faith and their healing.
There was no immediate answer, but there was a growing awareness that prayer was also leading me toward help.
From Marlene
This is my story, but somewhere in these pages, I hope you find pieces of your own. And as you walk with me through disappointment, brokenness, faith, and restoration, my prayer is that you discover the courage to keep going, the strength to reclaim your voice, and the assurance that God has not forgotten you.
This story is for you
If you have ever smiled through a season that was breaking you
- You kept showing up while something in you was quietly coming apart.
- You did everything you were taught to do, and life fell apart anyway.
- You believed that silence was strength even when it was costing you your peace.
- You love God and value therapy, and you are tired of being told you must choose between them.
- You carry a question for God you have never said out loud.
You are not alone. There is room here for your faith, your questions, and your healing.
I didn’t get louder. I stopped disappearing.
Introduction
From the pages
In Her Own Words
I thought I did everything right. Yet life still shattered anyway.
Faith is not a contract. It is a relationship.
In her own voice
Hear the Voice Behind the Book
“Til My Change Comes” • Live in Hong Kong
Her story unfolds in these pages and finds expression in the songs she sings. In this live performance, hear the faith, longing, and hope at the heart of God’s Broken Promises.
Invite Marlene to SingCOMING SOON
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God’s Broken Promises is coming soon. Join the list for the release date, early ordering information, and signed-copy availability.
Formats
Ways to read it
Kindle eBook
Read on any Kindle device or in the free Kindle app on your phone or tablet.
Notify Me at ReleaseSigned Copy
Make it personal with a paperback signed by Marlene. Be notified when signed copies are available.
Notify Me About Signed Copies
“What you have to say matters.”
The author
Dr. Marlene Allen
Dr. Marlene Allen is a gospel recording artist, preacher, ordained elder, and HR executive. Under the banner “Songs for the Soul,” her music often moves listeners to tears and leaves them encouraged and renewed in faith.
Born and raised on Chicago’s South Side in a family of musicians, she has sung in sanctuaries from Chicago to Hong Kong, and she still calls Chicago home. She holds a Doctor of Divinity and a Master of Human Resource Management, and has spent more than twenty years empowering people through leadership, faith, and music.
She is the proud mother of two faith-filled daughters, Melodee and Miracle. Melodee shares her mom’s love of music, while Miracle is developing her gifts in leadership and communications. Watching them find their voices and chart their own paths remains one of her greatest joys. God’s Broken Promises is her first book.
Speaking & Music
Invite Marlene to Your Event
Drawing from her own journey and God’s Broken Promises, Marlene brings warmth, honesty, and conviction to conversations about faith through difficult seasons, healing after loss, and reclaiming your voice. As an ordained elder, gospel recording artist, and author, she shares testimony and song that invite reflection, encourage hope, and inspire the courage to move forward.
Invite her for conferences, women’s gatherings, churches, panels, workshops, and book club conversations.
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