Our Called-Out Heroines: The Ones We Had Not Yet Named - Part Four
Hello Called-Out Woman!
You asked, and rightly so, whether we had truly covered all the significant women of Scripture. We had not. Here are five more from the Old Testament whose stories carry weighty lessons for you as a woman building something that will outlast her, a business, a household, a legacy for the children and grandchildren coming behind you.
Each entry here includes a Legacy Note, written specifically for you as a businesswoman thinking generationally, not just about this quarter, but about what you are building for the women who come after you.
Legacy-Bearing
Rachel and Leah
Genesis 29–30, 35
“And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.” Genesis 29:31
Rachel and Leah were sisters married to the same man, Jacob, in a household defined by competition neither of them chose. Leah was loved less but given children first, Rachel was loved more but endured years of barrenness. Their rivalry played out through their sons' names, each one a small prayer or protest embedded in Hebrew meaning, and yet together, without either woman intending it, they built the twelve tribes of Israel. Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin, her final son, on the road to Bethlehem, and was buried there, a place still marked and visited today.
What is easy to miss is how differently these two women processed the same painful family structure. Leah, initially naming her sons out of longing for Jacob's love, eventually shifted her language, naming her fourth son Judah, meaning “praise,” saying simply “now will I praise the LORD” (Genesis 29:35), letting go of the comparison entirely. It was through Judah's line, not the favoured Rachel's firstborn, that both David and ultimately Christ descended. The less-loved sister carried the greater inheritance without ever knowing it in her lifetime.
Consider the businesswoman today building alongside a sister, co-founder, or colleague where comparison quietly shapes the relationship, who gets more recognition, whose contribution gets named first, whose child or protégé seems to be favoured. Rachel and Leah's story does not resolve neatly; it tells the truth about how painful that comparison can be. But it also shows that God was building something through both women at once, and that the sister who stopped measuring herself against the other was the one whose line carried the greatest legacy.
For You
You may be in a working relationship, a family business, or a ministry team where comparison with another woman quietly wears at you. Rachel and Leah show you that God is capable of building significant legacy through more than one woman in the same story, and that peace comes not from winning the comparison, but from releasing it..
Legacy Note
If you are raising daughters, or mentoring younger women in your business, watch the language you use around achievement and favour. Leah's shift from naming her sons out of longing to naming Judah out of praise is a pattern worth teaching your own children and grandchildren: measure your worth by gratitude, not by comparison to a sister, a colleague, or a rival
Declare This Over Yourself
Father, I release the comparison that has quietly shaped my story. Whatever I have named out of longing, let me now name out of praise. I trust that the inheritance You are building through me does not depend on being the favoured one, only the faithful one.
Protective
Zipporah
Exodus 4:24–26; Exodus 18:1–6
“Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.” Exodus 4:25
Zipporah was Moses' wife, a Midianite priest's daughter, married to a man who had just been commissioned by God at the burning bush to confront Pharaoh. On the road back to Egypt, Scripture records a strange and urgent scene, God met Moses and sought to kill him, apparently because his own son had not been circumcised according to covenant. Zipporah acted immediately and decisively, performing the circumcision herself with a flint stone, in what must have been a moment of genuine crisis, and Moses' life was spared.
This is one of the strangest passages in the Torah, and it is a woman, not the prophet himself, who resolves it through fast, decisive, uncomfortable action. Zipporah did not wait for Moses to act or for the situation to become clearer. She recognised what needed to happen in her household to protect her husband's calling and her son's covenant standing, and she did it herself, without ceremony or delay.
Think of the businesswoman today married to, or partnered with, someone stepping into a significant calling or venture, who sees a practical or spiritual gap in the household that needs urgent attention, paperwork, covering, alignment, before the larger assignment can move forward safely. Zipporah shows her that protecting the foundation of the household, even through unglamorous or uncomfortable action, is sometimes exactly what makes the larger calling survivable.
For You
Zipporah's story tells you that your role in protecting the covenant foundations of your household, spiritually, legally, practically, is not a lesser calling than the public assignment your husband or partner carries. Sometimes the whole mission depends on the thing you handled quietly at home.
Legacy Note
As you build your business and your household together, do not neglect the unglamorous covering work, wills, guardianship arrangements, spiritual dedication of your children, clear succession plans. Zipporah's quick action protected her son's covenant identity before he was old enough to understand it himself. What foundational protections are you putting in place now for your own children and grandchildren, before a crisis forces the issue?
Declare This Over Yourself
Father, give me the courage to act decisively when my household needs urgent attention, even without ceremony or delay. Let me recognise what needs to happen and do it without waiting for someone else's permission.
Strategic
Jael
Judges 4:17–22; Judges 5:24–27
“Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent.” Judges 5:24
Jael enters Deborah's story at its most dangerous moment. Sisera, the defeated Canaanite general, fled the battlefield on foot and sought refuge in Jael's tent, trusting the peace treaty between his king and her husband's clan. Jael welcomed him, gave him milk when he asked for water, covered him, and let him fall asleep believing himself safe. Then, while he slept, she drove a tent peg through his temple with a hammer, ending the threat that had oppressed Israel for twenty years, exactly as Deborah had prophesied a woman would.
Jael's action is jarring precisely because it was so calculated. She used the tools of her own domain, hospitality, dairy, a tent peg, items any woman running a household would have close at hand, to accomplish what an army could not. She did not wait for permission or for someone else's weapon. She recognised the opportunity in front of her and used what was already in her hand.
This speaks to the businesswoman today facing a competitive threat or a difficult negotiation who does not have the conventional tools her competitors have, capital, connections, credentials, but who has real resourcefulness within her own domain, relationships, reputation, timing, skill. Jael shows her that decisive strategy does not require borrowed weapons. It often requires clear eyes to see what is already in her hand and the courage to use it at the right moment.
For You
Jael's story is not gentle, and it is not meant to be. It tells you that God can use the resources already inside your own domain, however ordinary they seem, to accomplish what looks impossible from the outside. Do not underestimate what is already in your hand.
Legacy Note
Take an honest inventory of what is already in your hand as a businesswoman, your network, your reputation, your specific skill set, and teach your children and grandchildren to do the same rather than waiting for resources they believe they lack. Jael did not need Barak's army. She needed clarity about the moment and confidence in what her own tent already held.
Declare This Over Yourself
Father, I trust that I do not need the tools of anyone else's battle. Whatever is already in my hand, my relationships, my reputation, my timing, is enough for the assignment You have given me. Let me use it with courage.
Sacrificial Provision
The Widow of Zarephath
1 Kings 17:8–16
“For thus saith the LORD God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the LORD sendeth rain upon the earth.” 1 Kings 17:14
In the middle of a severe famine, Elijah was sent by God to a widow in Zarephath, a Gentile town outside Israel, and asked her for bread. She told him honestly that she had only a handful of meal and a little oil left, enough for one final meal for herself and her son before they expected to die. Elijah asked her to make his portion first, with a promise attached, that her supply would not run out until the rains returned. She obeyed, and the meal and oil sustained her household for the length of the entire famine.
Notice what this widow was actually being asked to do, give away resources at the exact moment she had calculated she had none to spare, based on the word of a stranger from another nation, with her own son's survival on the line. This was not generosity from abundance. It was radical, tested obedience from the very edge of scarcity, and it became the mechanism through which God sustained her entire household.
This speaks directly to the businesswoman today navigating a genuinely lean season, cash flow tight, reserves thin, who is asked to give, to invest, to tithe, or to extend generosity at the exact moment it feels least logical. The widow of Zarephath does not promise that giving in scarcity is easy or risk-free. It shows that God's provision sometimes moves through obedience given at the point of greatest apparent lack, not after abundance arrives.
For You
This widow's story tells you that the barrel does not have to look full for God to make it last. If you are being prompted toward generosity or investment in a season that feels too lean to afford it, her obedience, not her abundance, was what sustained her household through the famine.
Legacy Note
Model generosity for your children and grandchildren in the lean seasons, not only the abundant ones. What they will remember and repeat is not how you gave when it was easy, but whether you stayed faithful with tithes, investments, and generosity when the barrel looked nearly empty. That is the pattern that teaches a family to trust God with money across generations.
Declare This Over Yourself
Father, I choose obedience even at the edge of what feels like my last resource. Let my giving in this lean season become the very mechanism through which You sustain my household. I trust You over my own calculations.
Visionary Hospitality
The Shunammite Woman
2 Kings 4:8–37; 2 Kings 8:1–6
“Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick.” 2 Kings 4:10
The Shunammite woman is described as “great,” meaning wealthy and influential in her own right, and she noticed that Elisha the prophet passed through her town regularly. Rather than offering occasional hospitality, she proposed something structural to her husband, building a permanent, furnished room on their roof specifically for Elisha's use whenever he passed by. This was investment thinking, not a one-time favour. Her generosity was rewarded with a promised son, born the following year exactly as Elisha said, and later, when that son died suddenly, her faith and persistence brought Elisha back to raise him from death.
What happens next in her story is just as instructive as the miracle itself. Years later, during another famine, this same woman left her land for seven years on Elisha's advice, and when she returned, she went directly to the king to reclaim her property. Because Elisha's servant Gehazi happened to be recounting her story to the king at that exact moment, her land and all its produce during her absence were restored to her by royal decree (2 Kings 8:1–6). Her earlier generosity toward a prophet ultimately protected her own property rights years later.
This is the businesswoman today with the means to build something structural and lasting, not just occasional charity, but a permanent resource, a scholarship, a mentorship programme, a physical space, dedicated to serving people carrying a genuine calling. The Shunammite woman shows her that strategic, structural generosity can outlast the moment it was given in, and that faithful stewardship of what she builds often protects her own inheritance further down the road.
For You
The Shunammite woman shows you that generosity does not have to be occasional to be powerful. Building something permanent and structural for the sake of someone else's calling, a room, a fund, a resource, can shape the trajectory of your own family's future in ways you will not see until much later.
Legacy Note
Consider what structural, not just occasional, generosity could look like in your business, a standing scholarship, a permanent mentorship track, a dedicated fund for women coming up behind you. The Shunammite woman's built chamber outlasted a single visit and ultimately shaped her family's protection for generations. What is the equivalent chamber you could build now that your children and grandchildren will still be benefiting from decades from now?
Declare This Over Yourself
Father, let my generosity be structural, not occasional, planted with intention for what You are doing through others. And when what is mine is threatened, give me the boldness to stand and reclaim it, trusting Your timing to restore what was taken.
Always Remember:
I love you all — but remember, God absolutely dotes on you. 💖
Part Five closes the full series with the women of the New Testament we had not yet named.
Marian Bonney-Ankrah is a Financial Protection Specialist and the Founder of The Called-Out Woman, a community that empowers women to live set apart, lead with wisdom, and influence every sphere of life through faith, purpose, and excellence.
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