The Woman God Designed
Living The Life He Longs To Give
After Tonia became a Christian at twenty-nine, with one failed marriage behind her, she was hungry to find a book for Christian women that would:
- Honor God’s Word by revealing how life in Christ should be lived in practical ways.
- Share true stories of what happens when women seek to live God’s way, and the real impact this has on a woman’s character, life and marriage.
- Explain how to walk with the Holy Spirit as Jesus described — as a real companion and counselor.
Years later, Tonia created that book. The Woman God Designed fulfills all these things, and is a richly woven work of Scripture, teaching and personal testimony.
Tonia’s Hunger For Abundant Life
The early chapters of this book are intensely personal and transparent, revealing how Tonia’s original search for a great life ended up ruining her life and character. Sick at heart over the kind of woman she had become, Tonia came to the Lord reluctantly, with no religious background, and determined to test everything God promised. She admits:
I wasn’t thinking at all of giving myself to God because it was right or would honor Him. My motives were entirely selfish: I wanted life, authentic, satisfying, nurtured life. I craved real truth and wisdom and the ability to be the kind of woman I surely was not: life-giving, joyful, fulfilled.
Page 13, The Woman God Designed
Tonia found all of this and more as she set out to know and understand God. Coming to God with a blank slate, having never read a Bible or attended church, Tonia was determined to take the Scriptures at face value and live by whatever God revealed about His ways and His will. The questions came:
- When Jesus promised abundant life, did He mean here and now, or only after one goes to heaven?
- Was it true that His sheep could know His voice?
- What exactly did Jesus mean when He said those who had His Spirit would have their hunger and thirst satisfied?
Always driven by the appetites of her heart, Tonia had to know if all the Bible promised was just lofty spiritual language or meant to be experience in life here and now.
The only way to get her answers was to test it all, and test she did. Tonia found every word to be true, and discovered a relationship with the Spirit of Christ IS abundant life.
To her joy, Tonia also discovered that a relationship with the Father, Son and Spirit doesn’t require perfection. It simply requires faith: taking God at His Word and living like you believe it.
As a pastor’s wife, Tonia began to teach other women what she was learning and experiencing with the Lord. Those lessons became a personal course in Christian womanhood, in knowing and walking with God, and how to be a great lover to husband and family.
This book is not only a great tool for new Christians, it has profoundly impacted women whose Christian experience and relationship to God has been unsatisfying and powerless.
Tonia’s teaching shatters the sense of being a victim that often plagues women.
Inviting the reader to consider the question, What kind of woman will I be?, Tonia proposes seven answers, each established by God’s Word and her experience of sharing life with the Holy Spirit. As you progress through these seven chapters, a portrait of the woman God designed emerges — secure in the love of God, fully alive to His Presence, nourished by God’s love, liberated to love and nourish others.
What Kind of Woman Will I Be?
- I Will Be Rooted In The Love Of God
- I Will Live By Faith
- I Will Love The Lord With All My Heart
- I Will Be A Woman Who Knows Her God
- I Will Be A Lover
- I Will Be Satisfied By God
- I Will Be A Liberated Woman
These foundational chapters help a woman become established in a nourishing relationship with the Spirit of the Lord that Jesus described as living with a stream of living water, and the bread of life. It all adds up to a satisfied heart, and abundant life.
After learning how to relate to the Spirit of Christ and the Word of God concerning her design, the next section focuses on God’s design for a wife and for her marriage covenant.
The Wife God Designed
Personal stories of Tonia’s own experience — including her struggles in marriage to a pastor — are blended with sound Biblical teaching on how to apply God’s Word, through difficult issues, in practical ways.
When their marriage was on the verge of failing, the Spirit led Tonia and her husband to study the biblical concept of Covenant. especially as it relates to marriage.
Armed with new understanding of the nature of committed love, Tonia and Ron learned to seek the Spirit’s guidance in daily life to help them love each other faithfully. The Spirit gave freely, and today Tonia will often say, “The Holy Spirit taught us how to truly love each other.”
Inviting the Holy Spirit into your marriage makes a profound difference in your quality of life together. The Holy Spirit is present for every private moment between a husband and wife. He alone knows the real truth behind every issue. Only He has the power to help change hearts. No two couples are alike, and only the Spirit can reveal the unique pathway of grace needed to make a marriage relationship become mutually life-giving.
Tonia shares the principles and practical application of these things in the section on marriage and being the wife God designed. Including the often misunderstood and misapplied concept of submission.
How does submission fit in a relationship of mutual love?
Like most women, Tonia struggled with submission. Why did God tell us to submit to a husband as we would to the Lord — when a husband doesn’t act like Jesus? If men and women are equal in God’s sight, why does one have to submit to the other? Is submission even still relevant and required by God in our western, modern culture?
As Tonia sought answers and truth for today, the Holy Spirit showed her the way to live in God’s desired spirit of submission, not as a law, but with a heart to honor God and her husband. It wasn’t easy at first, and definitely challenged Tonia’s independent spirit, but in the end Tonia had a better marriage and a deeper relationship with the Lord.
Ultimately, submission is a test of what a woman believes about the heart and motives of God. The Woman God Designed addresses and answers every common concern of women on this sticky subject.
Tonia’s passion is to help Christians relate to a real God in real life.
Tonia draws women into the confidential places of her life, weaving transparent stories with Biblical truth. The Woman God Designed teaches you how to know and walk with your Invisible Father, Savior and Friend.
Here is a textbook course in Christianity, womanhood and marriage. Reflection questions at the end of each chapter help the reader find personal application of the chapter’s teaching. Download a Free Sample Chapter from “The Woman God Designed” here.
Pastors, pastor’s wives, counselors and women’s ministry leaders have found it to be immensely valuable; you can read some of their comments on the page, What People Have Said.
A Leader’s Guide for Group Study is available to order.
Available as a paperback in Tonia’s Book Store, at major bookstores, or on Amazon.com in paperback or eBook format.
Table of Contents
A Woman’s Search For Abundant Life
A Christian Marriage: Guaranteed to Work?
What Kind of Woman Will I Be?
I Will Be Rooted In the Love of God
I Will Live By Faith
I will Love the Lord With All My Heart
I Will Be A Woman Who Knows Her God
I Will Be A Lover
I Will Be Satisfied By God
I Will Be A Liberated Woman
The Woman God Designed
The Legacy of a Fallen Relationship
The Marriage Covenant God Designed
The Wife God Designed
The True Spirit and Purpose of Submission
The Blessings of Submission
Sarah, the Fearless Woman
I Will Trust In My God
As To The Lord
Issues and Answers
