Becoming an Intentional Woman

Joan C. Webb believes in the power of a woman’s story. In this powerful post, she shares how you can become an intentional woman—embracing who you are and making choices to fit God’s design for your life.

“‘If I live intentionally, being true to my own personality, serving out of my God-given giftedness and calling, I’ll no longer feel the urge to envy another woman’s marriage, ministry, talents or work.’ As I jotted this ‘aha’ into my journal,” Joan said, “my shoulders relaxed.”

Joan has given me and other women many “aha” moments, but I was curious about this “aha” that changed her life and ministry.

She continues …

Believing this “aha” gradually transformed my life. Although I rarely voiced envy, secretly I felt disappointed that others had fulfilled their dreams (or so I assumed) but I hadn’t. I longed to live out the secret desires that God had planted deep within my heart.

Yet I felt trapped. My life revolved around working hard and making others happy and satisfied, especially my husband. I didn’t want anyone (including God) to call me “selfish” for taking time and energy to nurture my own interests and gifts. People-pleasing and over-doing gave way to my burnout.

I prayed, “Lord, show me who I am now, and who I can become—the person You had in mind when You created me.”

I wanted to be intentional, instead of having a knee-jerk reaction to whatever happened.

I didn’t realize it initially, but God answered my prayer through a re-usable process that has helped other caring women like you. I invite you into this intentional journey:

Step One: Come As You Are Today. Ask yourself three awareness questions:

• What is good about my life right now?
• What concerns me about my life right now?
• What is missing in my life right now?

Step Two: Celebrate Your Yesterdays. Realize that:

• Every woman has a story written with the multi-colored pens of her experiences, relationships, pain, disappointments, choices, failures and successes. 
• There is power in your story and you maximize that power when you partner with God.
• You can courageously remember and celebrate past experiences, learning to appreciate God’s goodness in developing your unique life script.

Step Three: Commit It All to God.

• Embrace Ephesians 2:10: For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Ephesians 2:10, NLT)
• Assess your God-given personality traits.
• Surrender your present, past, temperament, and gifts to Christ.

 Step Four: Consider Your Choices. Understand that:

• You live in an age of over-choice.
• Without acknowledging the roles (including your Child of God and Self-Care Manager roles) that you’re attempting to manage currently, you’ll find it hard to be objective about your needs.
• Discovering your current stressors and supports in each role will help you make intentional choices to relieve your overwhelm.

Step Five: Clarify Your Next Steps. You:

• Pinpoint one intentional action you want to take.
• Pray for wisdom.
• Picture your desired outcome.
• Plan how you’ll achieve it.
• Act. Set a date for implementation. Share your decision with a safe person. Step out with God to make the change.

The key reason for living intentionally is to glorify God as the person He created you to be. I love that, because it is doable and reasonable.

What He has for me fits me—and what He designed for you fits you.

What intentional decision have you been avoiding—and how can you be intentional this week? What loving encouragement is God whispering to you right now?

Joan C. Webb is a speaker and author who has written thirteen books including The Intentional Woman (co-authored with Carol Travilla), The Relief of Imperfection: For Women Who Try Too Hard to Make It Just Right and a four book devotional series for children. As a Life Coach who specializes in working with writers and communicators, Joan helps set people free to become who they were designed to be and from what holds them back. For more information about becoming an intentional woman, visit www.intentionalwoman.com