An Intentional Life...A life where your passions are ignited, purpose fills your every breath and action, and you can rest fully, presently, and joyfully in the abundant life God has

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Ver-sion®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zonder-van. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™Scripture quotations marked esv are taken from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® ), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Hand-lettered artwork by Jordanne Van Wert. Used by permission.

Cover by Brian Bobel. Cover lettering by Rachel Jacobson. Cover photograph by Karen Stott

Published in association with the literary agency of D.C. Jacobson & Associates LLC, an Author Man-agement Company. www.dcjacobson.com

An Intentional LifeCopyright © 2018 by Karen StottPublished by Harvest House PublishersEugene, Oregon 97408www.harvesthousepublishers.com

ISBN 978-0-7369-7132-4 (pbk)ISBN 978-0-7369-7133-1 (eBook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Stott, Karen (Entrepreneur), author.Title: An intentional life / Karen Stott.Description: Eugene, Or. : Harvest House Publishers, 2017. Identifiers: LCCN 2017014016 (print) | LCCN 2017034582 (ebook) | ISBN 9780736971331 (ebook) | ISBN 9780736971324 (pbk.)Subjects: LCSH: Vocation—Christianity. | Contentment—Religious Aspects—Christianity. | Businesswomen—Religious life. | Christian Women—Religious life.Classification: LCC BV4740 (ebook) | LCC BV4740 .S84 2017 (print) | DDC 248.4—dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017014016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

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For IsaacBecause you never stopped fighting

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ContentsIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Part 1: Passion

1. It’s a Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2. Tears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

3. Seeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

4. Connect the Dots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

5. Stay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

6. Reach Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

7. 12, 3, 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

8. Lean In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

9. I Can’t Survive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

10. First Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Part 2: Purpose

11. Vision Retreat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

12. Pruning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

13. Bridge Builders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107



14. Mouths of Babes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

15. Never-ending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

16. Shekels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

17. Your Choice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

18. Make It Plain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

19. Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Part 3: Presence

20. Return to Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

21. Culture of Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

22. James . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

23. Trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

24. Fully Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

25. Nooks and Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

26. Roots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

27. Rhythms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Afterword: Have It All . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235



One more step of faith, one more surrender, one more yes.





11

Introduction

Do you ever ache for more?I know. Me too. And it feels strange to say this isn’t enough when

so much that surrounds me is exactly what I’ve been praying for. Or the fact that we have so much more available to us than many people around the world do. All of those thoughts make this nagging ache all the more complicated.

Yet this isn’t a contentment problem. That’s an entirely different bat-tle. This is about heart, about calling.

This is about that angst in your soul that’s been nagging you most of your life. Sometimes whispering, sometimes shouting.

It’s been there, on repeat, and it creates a lingering, almost haunting dream that I can only describe as the voice and heart of God.

The tugs can come from anything, but they always pull you in the same direction. Toward justice, invention, art, the human body, dance, building things, teaching things, fighting for things.

Whatever it is for you, it’s woven deep. And trying to change it or fight it feels like waging war on your own soul. But what can you do about it?

Everywhere I go I hear people asking about it. Wanting to discover it, and trying to figure out how to find it.

This calling. This elusive purpose. But in watching my own life unfold and observing literally



AN INTENTIONAL LIFE12

thousands of others through leading the Pursuit community, I’ve real-ized this it we are searching for is probably more basic than we even realize. It’s never been about the aha moment. The arrival. You don’t just wake up one day and realize you’ve made it.

A calling isn’t a destination. It’s a lifestyle. It’s simply responding to His invitation with one more step of faith, one more surrender, one more yes.

For years I knew that God was asking me to tell my story. I resisted, as I almost always do at first. I told Him that He had the wrong girl and He would have to wait until I was finished with the demanding moth-ering of littles stage before I ever committed to writing a book. But yet again, God’s plans trumped my own. Within six months of telling a friend I would never write a book while I had young children at home, I found myself signing papers and agreeing to do just that.

Just one more invitation from my loving Father. One more yes from me. Maybe you find yourself in a similar space today—wanting to move

forward with a new career, a dream, a proposed opportunity, a new city, or a possible relationship. Maybe you’re a busy mama, juggling several mouths to feed, the never-ending needs of marriage, and all that goes into keeping a home, all while wondering what happened to the girl under all of those roles.

Maybe you don’t have a dream yet and wonder if God will ever use you. Or you think you’ve screwed up too big, or failed too much, or lost too much to keep going.

Maybe the battle you’re fighting is seeing Him in the mundane, everyday moments as you wait for Him to answer your thousandth prayer for the same thing.

Maybe you’ve lost your joy, or your purpose, or your reason to get out of bed every morning, and you just need to know it will all be okay.

But how? What’s next? How do you start over or move forward? How do you smile again when things have gone so horribly wrong or



13IntroductIon

your life doesn’t reflect what you thought it would by this time in your life?

Friend, you’re in the right place. I’ve been there too. Still am in some cases. And I chose to say yes to writing these pieces of my story with you in mind.

I had massive fears about writing this book and stepping out into a much bigger arena than I’m used to. I didn’t really want to share my story or take the cover off of the messy bits.

But, friend, that is based in fear. Fear of what people will think. Fear of failing my family by spending time on this project. Fear of say-ing something in these pages that will hurt someone, or confuse some-one, or make someone write bad things about me. But you know what stops fear in its tracks? You know what casts it out as far as the east from the west?

Love. In 1 John 4:18, we’re told that “perfect love drives out fear.” Some-

one once explained this to me in a way that finally made sense: When you truly love someone, fear vanishes. Your love for them pushes down the fears of what could happen to you in light of the good that could unfold in their lives. And that’s what got me here today.

I have such a deep love of helping others live free and purpose-filled lives that my measly fears of stepping out in this way are diminished. And if writing these words and telling my story can be an avenue of help, it’s worth every bit.

Consider this book your love letter. Your field guide. And if needed, your wake-up call to the life you’ve always wanted. A life where your passions are ignited, purpose fills your every breath and action, and you can rest fully, presently, and joyfully in the abundant life God has for you.

So grab your cold glass of sweet tea or coffee in your favorite mug

Consider this your invitation to the life you’ve always wanted.




and take my hand. Let’s adventure together and uncover the greatness behind those beautiful eyes of yours. For you hold more power, and wonder, and impact than you even know.

And the world and your legacy are waiting to watch you live your most meaningful, and intentional, life.

Forever in your corner,

Karen



PART 1

Passion



When God whispers

and we walk,

absolutely anything is possible.



17

1

It’s a Setup Living with purpose means wisely choosing and committing

to a few of the best things for the season of life you’re in.

CRYSTAL PAINE

I’m not sure where the lie began or when I bit off on it. As a girl raised in the church my entire life, I should have been better versed in the con-cepts of Scripture and what God really says about women. But some-where between the flannelgraphs on Sunday mornings and the Gospel According to Me, my view of what it meant to be a Christian woman got terribly turned around.

My mother worked my entire life. She has her master’s degree in education and spent more than 40 years serving the children in our community as an elementary school teacher. Growing up, my broth-ers and I spent many evenings huddled around the coffee table cutting shapes from giant sheets of laminated plastic for her classroom lessons the following week. We spent summers helping her organize her class-room, and took care of the baby chicks that hatched under incubator lights over spring breaks.

We were so blessed to be able to be very involved in her work, and even more blessed that she shared our schedule so we could have holi-day breaks and summers off together.

Before her, my grandmother was an active member of the local BPW—Business and Professional Women’s Foundation—in our tiny,




Mayberry-like town. I remember going to meetings with her and watching her volunteer at the festivals downtown wearing her ador-able blue vest with yellow pins. Despite the culture of the 1940s, where the primary place for women was within the walls of her home, my grandma worked proudly as a secretary for the school and other local businesses.

What escapes my understanding is how, with such a strong family heritage of working women, my view of this lifestyle became so dis-torted. Negative even. It pains me to say this because it’s so embar-rassing, but I started to look at women who worked with pity—and, honestly, a wee bit of disdain.

As my life unfolded, and I observed the women in my life doing their things, and then I became a wife and mother doing my own, my warped perspective put God in a box. And since I had placed Him in a box, I lived in one too. When we take our own limitations and put them on the God who set the planets in orbit, it chains us to a life lim-ited to our own power. Our lack of faith, in turn, hinders the way we see Him and the way He shows up in our lives.

From a young age I remember always and only ever wanting to be a wife and a mom. There were brief blinks in my history where I wanted to be a marine-life trainer, or an interior decorator, or a veterinarian. But in the end, my heart settled on home, and the dreams of building my own when I grew up.

Until one day I woke up right in the middle of this dream I’d forged for myself, and all of a sudden it didn’t feel like everything I thought it would. I was 23, four years into a marriage with the man of my dreams. We had just built our first house, and I was holding the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen, our firstborn, Ava.

Everything was perfect. Blissful even. It was all I’d ever dreamed of, and I was aware enough to know that I was blessed enough to be liv-ing in it. Yet something inside me still ached, and I found myself long-ing to find a creative outlet in addition to my new role of motherhood.

I must give pause here to mention that I believe with my whole



19It’s a setup

heart that motherhood is a beautiful and highly purpose-filled mis-sion. Being a stay-at-home mama is the hardest job I’ve ever done, and the time women spend sowing into their families is priceless and drip-ping with potential fruit. I’ve had the blessing of juggling things in this work-at-home circus for almost 13 years now, and I truly, truly love it. I find the family rhythms, mundane tasks, mountaintop victories, and praying through the hard times together to be truly magical.

But for the sake of this story, I want to focus on the area of mother-hood that plagued me with guilt and robbed me of so much joy for nearly five years. The lie that doing anything outside the home and caring about anything other than my family was selfish, disrespectful, and even a waste of time. Sadly, the church I called home at the time re- inforced those walls and actually helped to build them higher. Instead of celebrating the beauty and possibility of how multifaceted and tal-ented women are, they chose to teach that my only calling was to be a mom and a wife. In their eyes, I was to have children, do volunteer work with the church, attend MOPS, have more children, make more dinners, wipe more bums, clean up more toys, and repeat this cycle until I had raised Jesus-loving, obedient young adults who followed the path they’d laid out for them. End of story.

In that church’s world, there was no room for freedom, or dreams, or guiding our children into being responsible, mature humans who lived unhindered lives of passion and purpose as they followed God’s call and walked in their gifts. They were all about following a specific, predictable path. And for women that meant marriage, children, and ministry within the walls of that specific church.

As time went on, something about this picture didn’t sit well in the deep places of my heart. I just couldn’t shake it: If that church’s teach-ings were true, what would happen to me when my kids moved out of the house? What did this mean for women who were never able to have children of their own? What about Sarah in the Bible? Did she have no purpose or calling before she had Isaac… in her nineties? What about all the dreams I had that weren’t specifically tied to motherhood?




I started to feel completely at odds inside. Was I crazy? Selfish? Or worse… unable to hear God?

The more I questioned, the more ostracized I became in my church community. The people I was surrounded with at that time in my life didn’t understand my longing for something different, and they would openly criticize me for not being completely fulfilled in my motherly duties. And worse, they would tell me often that I was being rebellious against God’s perfect will if I didn’t follow a specific path they believed was right for me.

Now, please hear me, dear reader. If we had the privilege of sit-ting down to share a cup of coffee and, most likely, some berry-laden pastry, you’d see the fullness of my heart pouring out about this sub-ject. I adore my kids. Head-over-heels, I’ll-love-you-forever, squeeze-their-cheeks-off obsessed with them. And I truly, truly love getting to stay home and raise them. My heart beats for it. Through and through.

But even though I loved my day-in, day-out mama duties, there was still something inside me, something deeper, that wouldn’t go away. And trust me, I tried to make it go away by ignoring it and stuffing it down, but it kept coming back up. It was like this deep knowing, almost longing, that God had something else, in addition to mother-ing, that He had also created me to do.

Eventually these longings, these passions, if you will, led me to open my own business as a photographer. But the more successful I became in my business, the more unsupported and lonely I felt in my church community. The same friends who were there for me in my journey of motherhood disappeared when it came to the other passions of my heart. And I started to feel as though I was living two different lives.

With their words and comments, they continued to build the box around me. Stronger this time. They wanted to keep me normal, to keep me tidy. I was encouraged to follow God, but only in the direc-tions they had laid out for me. And only within the walls of their church. They had convinced me that they could hear God’s will for our life better than we could, and for too long, we believed them.



21It’s a setup

Don’t worry, friend, I know this now to be very dangerous territory and completely unhealthy, and we are no longer under this church leadership, but I didn’t know any of that back then.

Despite the opposition I was receiving from our church, my wild dreamer heart and stubborn tomboy grit just couldn’t bite off on it. I knew there was more to this story. More to my story.

And I know there’s more to yours too. I remember struggling with my quiet times back then because I felt

so judged, and on the outs with most people. Even God. But a sweet friend of mine encouraged me to start small and press through. She said just a little time in God’s Word each day could be life changing.

And it was.She recommended I commit to reading one chapter of Proverbs a

day for a whole month, so I did. As I got to the last day of the challenge and read through the words of Proverbs 31, my entire world changed. This was not the story I’d been told my entire life. How had I never read this before? How come no one told me? Or worse, how could I have missed this? What kind of a Christian was I?

The words felt like a lightning bolt of truth, passion, and purpose, sending shockwaves through my soul and igniting my insides. This is it, I remember thinking. This explains everything.

She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard. She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks.

She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes. She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.




Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her (Proverbs 31:16-17, 24-28).

I remember staring at the words in disbelief. Jaws open. Eyes trying to regain focus to read them again. This has been in the Bible the entire time? I thought. Why, then, was I being taught something so different? In an instant, everything that had been so confusing for so long sud-denly made sense. The war I had been fighting within my own soul was finished.

I kept reading it again and again as the truth of those verses washed over my heart. “Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also.” I almost couldn’t believe what I was reading. This woman, whom God made sure to talk about in His Word, obviously loved her family. She got up early and cooked their food, made their clothes, watched over them, and instructed them faithfully.

But it was the other part that got me. It was the other part that sent me into a tailspin of unlearning more than a decade of false beliefs. This woman was an incredible mother and wife. Scripture makes sure to depict her as such. But beyond her roles within her home, she was a savvy, smart, strong, and wise businesswoman. She bought property and started a vineyard, and she designed and sold clothing, all with-out the help of modern-day machinery, electricity, or Apple products, I might add. It makes me tired just thinking of it.

But then… this is where it gets crazy, friend. But then… she laughed. She was happy. She was without fear. She

was balanced. Everything taken care of. Nothing neglected. And with all of that going on, her family still praised her.

I felt overwhelming peace and brand-new excitement soak into the deep places of my soul. Ancient words coming alive in my heart thou-sands of years after they were penned.

As a lover of words, and story, and helping others, I took to sharing what had just been revealed to me on my blog. I had started my blog



23It’s a setup

for my photography business—it was an easy way to share the stories of my clients, gain web traffic to get new clients, and showcase my work. But I never considered talking about my personal life on there. It was more of a rotating portfolio updated with new images than anything close to a sharing about my actual life.

But something happened to me that day that I can’t explain, and I just had to write. I had to share it. As I poured my heart onto the pages of my blog, a strange and unexpected thing happened. My story began to take on its own life.

Apparently my photography clients weren’t the only ones reading my blog after all. I watched the comments on my post explode into the most beautiful conversation among women from all across the globe. As I read through the comments, my story came echoing back to me through the lenses of others’ lives, and all of us began to realize we weren’t as alone as we thought we were.

I never imagined that one post would change the entire course of my life. But that’s what can happen when God whispers and we walk. Absolutely anything is possible.

As things like this often go, one thing led to the next, and soon, without meaning to or even realizing what was happening, I had some-how started a ministry for women juggling babes and businesses.

Pursuit seemed like a fitting name, because what brought us together was our pursuit of the callings God had placed on our lives. This was about the pursuit of doing it His way, where our children, and husbands, and other relationships were honored and He was glorified.

There were 17 of us when we started, and within months there were more than 500. My friend Kara asked if she could start a Northern Cal-ifornia Pursuit group to connect with women in her area, and just like that, the floodgates opened.

Within the next few years we were hosting sold-out conferences, managing hundreds of groups all over the globe, and providing bibli-cally centered encouragement and practical business help to more than 25,000 Christian entrepreneurial women around the world.



God woos us into our calling

through our very own cries.



25It’s a setup

And it all started because I said yes and stepped out to share my story.

Looking back at how it all unfolded, I’m still baffled. And every time I talk about it, I’m still shocked that God chose a massively intro-verted tomboy who grew up in a town of 1,500 people to lead a wom-en’s ministry where everyone but me seemed to have it together. But that’s how amazing God is. He takes the pieces of our stories that seem like setbacks and uses them as the foundation to set others free.

Looking back at the last seven years, I’m beginning to see that Pur-suit was birthed more because of God’s pursuit of me than mine of Him. As much as I wish that were different, we humans rank rather high on the selfish scale, and I’ve come to find that His desire to lift the daughters in this generation to a new level of freedom, passion, and influence trumps my pursuit of just about anything.

So I find myself praying that we can be a society of sledgehammers. I want to break the walls that the world, unbiblical religion, and even our own traditional beliefs try to build around God’s daughters. I want to shatter the shackles placed on women that hold them back from becoming all God has created them to be.

Many women have been oppressed and made to feel guilty for chas-ing their dreams and missing out on family time. Or, on the flip side, staying at home and being judged for missing out on the outside world.

It’s as though we as women can’t win either way. And I want to help change that.

I want to be a launching pad for this generation to rise up and walk boldly into the fullness of the calling God placed on their breathtak-ingly beautiful heads.

Both in the home and around the globe.And I want to take as many people with me as I can.Are you in?



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An Intentional Life...A life where your passions are ignited, purpose fills your every breath and action, and you can rest fully, presently, and joyfully in the abundant life God has