We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Amy Senter. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Amy below.

Alright, Amy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

After the birth of my second child in 2014, I developed some disturbing health issues. I experienced migrating pain, twitches, and even memory loss. Doctors had no answers and as the years went on, my list of symptoms increased.

I had trouble holding conversations, and experienced so much neuropathy pain that I couldn’t walk to the bathroom on my own. Every test was normal, yet I was using a wheelchair and taking over 80 pills a day. Eventually, doctors began to question my sanity.

Finally, in the spring of 2017, I was diagnosed with Late Stage Lyme Disease (aka Chronic Lyme), which presented another set of problems. I learned that the disease is highly controversial, and navigated an underground world of Lyme treatment. Nothing was covered by insurance and communicating with doctors was often difficult and secretive.

After a year and a half of treatments, I began to see improvements in my pain management and energy levels. But the turning point for me was when I addressed my mental state and acknowledged that I would never make progress if I didn’t believe I could.

I could continue to be a grump about everything that was going on in my life, give up, quit, sleep away the days, be bitter and angry, and self-pitying. Or I could choose to live in the freedom of gratitude, love, joy and peace despite whatever circumstances were in front of me.

While my mindset wasn’t the cause of Lyme, it certainly wasn’t helping it. I read book after book of others who went through hard times and read of their successes through self-care practices like using a gratitude journal, or getting outside into the sunshine everyday. I saw a pattern of positive thinking and physical healing in my body that I couldn’t ignore.

In my journey of pain and suffering, I realized that changing my mindset also meant a deep dive into what I believed about my capabilities and an awareness of my need for spiritual growth.

My journey with Lyme tested my faith, relationships and mental state in ways I never dreamed. It was in these trials that I learned about finding joy in circumstances and discovered the peace that comes with surrender of control and trust in Jesus, one hard step at a time.

As I regained the strength to take back my life again, I wanted to have a way to encourage and empower other women going through hardships and the reality that Christian living isn’t easy, but it’s worth it.

Using the lessons I learned over those years, I created a blog for women called Intentional Christian Living, focusing on this mission statement:

“Intentional Christian Living exists to encourage and empower women to live life with intention through personal and spiritual growth.”

Here are a few pillars of the content I create:

1. God wants to use you in any and every season.
2. There is more than one way to fulfill your purpose/calling.
3. Spiritual growth only happens with intention.
4. God still speaks, we need to learn to listen.
5. Miracles still happen, we need to look for them.
6. Self-care is not selfish or anti-Christian, and we can’t help others if we aren’t taking care of ourselves.
7. Times of solitude and the practice of being still are needed for personal reflection and spiritual growth.
8. There’s peace and progress in simplification; multi-tasking and busyness don’t always equal success.
9. The best growth usually comes from hardship—try to see the silver lining in everything.
10. You have a story to tell and everyone’s story matters!

While I may not be successful in conquering each and every day, my vision, my goal, my choice—is to live life with intention. Intentional Christian Living doesn’t mean you’re doing life perfectly, it means that you’re living life with purpose. We weren’t meant to do this life on our own, so let’s help and encourage one another along the way!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I think what draws people to my site (besides the story of how I got started through my Lyme disease troubles), is my style of approaching Bible study in a simplistic, visual way.

Using my background in education and my passion for art and writing, I create printable resources for women to use to study their Bibles in a way that is simple and understandable.

It’s difficult to study the Bible in general. In the past, I’ve struggled with where to start, the correct interpretations, and the Bible’s historical context, so I was determined to at least figure out how all the different stories fit together.

Through diagrams, maps, lists, genealogies, and doodles, I bring complex ideas to life. I draw, hand-write, and organize everything in a way you would if you were taking notes in a classroom on a scrap piece of paper.

What started as writing and doodling in the margins of my Bible, turned into a means of using my talents for art, writing, teaching, and organizing to clarify the historical narrative of the Bible.

Last year I completed outlines of every single book of the Old Testament that you can print through my site. This year I’m on track to finish the New Testament! I am encouraged often by others telling me how they never enjoyed or understood their Bible until they found these resources!

I think the combination of these simple, easy-to-understand printables, combined with my life experience as a wife and mother relates to so many other women who are going through something difficult and need encouragement to take care of themselves through their own personal and spiritual growth.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I use both WooCommerce and Etsy to sell my products. I create printables so it was important that these platforms could handle digital products and I’ve found both are very easy to use.

I wanted to sell directly through my WordPress site and WooCommerce was the simplest to integrate into what I was already doing. WooCommerce also offers additional extensions to customize your store that aren’t available through Etsy. Of course, using a program built into your site increases conversion rates because of fewer clicks to get the sale.

However, I also sell my same products on Etsy because they have their own built-in SEO which brings in business without me even having to promote my shop at all! I use Etsy more as a one-and-done platform for passive income, and focus all of my marketing and sales over in my WooCommerce shop.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

I love being able to communicate with my readers and shoppers in my online community. I want it to be more than a transactional relationship—one where I get to know the actual person behind the purchase. In my emails, I often encourage people to write back to tell me about their story and send them a blog post or a printable that I think they would enjoy.

I also created a Facebook Group of over 700 members where I hope to do more listening than talking as more people join and share what’s going on in their lives. Each of these places are an outlet for us to discuss what Intentional Christian Living really looks like in the real world and be a safe place to share our struggles.

In addition, I am always learning and researching to provide my customers with the best quality products I can offer and once or twice a year will send free updates to any changes I make.

Contact Info:

• Website: AmySenter.com
• Instagram: @senteramy
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/183753026040770
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKTN45FU1kE5fhhJjHvlAew
• Other: Pinterest: pinterest.com/senter_amy