Related Links Visit Michelle's Web site Buy Sassy, Single, and Satisfied Check out Aspiring Women, the TV program Michelle co-hosts Visit Harvest House Publishers to learn more about Michelle

SINGLES

God's Got His Best For You!
An Interview with Michelle McKinney Hammond

By Laura Bagby
CBN.com Producer

For those of you who don't know Michelle, she writes extensively on women's issues and relationships, is co-host of the Emmy-nominated TV show Aspiring Women, and founder and president of HeartWing Ministries. She also sings and is the voice-over talent for many television commercials. She is the penultimate Renaissance woman!

Sitting down with Michelle was like sitting down with a close friend. Michelle is extremely gracious and thoughtful and she has a great sense of humor. I hope you enjoy as much as I did getting to know this gifted woman of God...

Read Part One: Get Happy, Girlfriend!

I am sure many others have asked you this, and you may be sick of answering it, but I will ask it anyway because it is the most obvious question: Do you want to get married?

MICHELLE MCKINNEY HAMMOND: I am actually kind of ambivalent because I have a lot of really great male friends. I am kind of spoiled with not having that whole male void thing. God has provided so much that it would take a really special man for me to want to spend the rest of my life with him at this point. I have met people that I have liked, but nobody that I thought I just couldn't live without. My life has been so rich and so full. I think I really do treasure my peace. I went through so much as a single in the wrong types of relationships, the drama they brought and the angst that they brought, that when I finally found that I could actually be happy and not have a man in my life -- Now, don't get me wrong. Men are great. When you get the right man in your life, it is awesome. I have a host of friends and good marriages to look at, so I am not one of those who is jaded and thinks it cannot happen. I know it can happen with the right partner and the right amount of work, but the bottom line is it has to be God's choice for me because I am not willing to venture out and experiment at this point.

You sort of covet that relationship you have with God. Not that God is your husband in the flesh, but He can be a Provider.

MICHELLE MCKINNEY HAMMOND: He is pretty good. I finally broke down and got the home. It was like the last frontier for me. In the end, I found out that the place that I got someone else had bought. Their contract had fallen through, but after they had put down 20 percent and had paid for tons of upgrades to this place. Legally, I could not be charged for them, so they had to shave all of that off of the price when I bought that place. That is such a God thing. My sister said to me, 'You had better not ask God for a husband again because no man can keep up with the way He takes care of you.' That is just one story of many that have happened in my life almost on a daily basis. I feel so spoiled by Him. It is really cool. It is kind of scary at the same time because it is a very special love relationship that I have with Him and I don't want anyone interrupting that.

For me, because my burden is so much for single women and married women who are hurting in their relationships, and the burden is so great for me to be able to reach them and tell them things that will help them and strengthen them, I guard that fiercely. So anyone who comes into my life it is not just a personal move for me, it is a career move. This person can affect my ministry and what I am doing. Am I willing to sacrifice the needs of other women for this one person? No, I am not, to be perfectly honest. Anyone who comes into my life who endangers my ability to ministry effectively to women has to go.

That is a hard choice sometimes.

MICHELLE MCKINNEY HAMMOND: It is a hard choice, but I am very clear about that.

I call it choosing between God and a man. If you have been around long enough and single long enough, you have those choices to make. What would you say to the woman who is in that situation? She doesn't have anyone to fall back on and she is older. Everybody around her is getting married.

MICHELLE MCKINNEY HAMMOND: Hold on! Which one is not going to fail you? It is very simple. It really becomes what is most important to you. It is very interesting how trapped women are in their mindsets about what makes someone worthy of being a valuable person.

I have wrestled with that, too. I tell myself, 'Laura, you really need to get married. You aren't really valid until you get married.' That is a terrible waste of time and energy.

MICHELLE MCKINNEY HAMMOND: It is! When I was looking for my house, I spoke to a realtor friend of mine. He said, 'What do you want?' I had a very specific list of what I wanted: my budget, the neighborhood I wanted it in, what I wanted to be close to, down to the square footage. I had it all lined up. He said to me, 'You will never get that in the neighborhood where you are looking. You are living a fantasy.' This place that I am buying is all those things and more because God manipulated it to my benefit. But the thing that resonated after I got that place was I had this specific list which I was told was impossible to meet and yet God in His sovereignty provided that and more. He filled my list and a few extras. Can't He do that with a man?

Whoever he is, he will be all right with you. Yes, God does surprise us and allow us to get ourselves in situations that we never dreamed would make us happy. If somebody said, 'Hey, did you know you would marry someone short and bald?' Absolutely not. But then you meet this guy and he is kind of cute to you and he grows on you and you are deliriously happy with this person. You think, 'I never thought I would go for someone like you.'

There is a story of Jesus in the Scriptures where He spit and rubbed dirt in this guy's eyes and said, 'Be opened!' Be open to what God wants to do in your life because whatever it is, you are going to love it! He is not going to wrench your heart out of your chest and manipulate you into liking someone you do not like. It doesn't go that way. He knows what we desire, but He also knows what we need. He puts them together in such a beautiful way that we go 'Wow!' It is always above what we expect.

'You receive not because you ask not. 'Sometimes we don't ask enough. I think a lot of Christian women are at that point. How do you speak into their lives to help them to see that there is more out there?

MICHELLE MCKINNEY HAMMOND: It is also about having a knowledge of God's heart for you. If you know that He wants you to have the best, and you begin to believe that, and you begin to expect the best from Him, then He gives it to you. There is one little Scripture that I find scary -- I should write a book about scary Scriptures: 'Scary Scriptures, Dangerous Prayers.' There is a Scripture that says the people were murmuring and groaning and complaining when they were talking about going to the Promised Land, like, 'Oh, we can't do it.' Moses goes to the mountain because God is mad at them, and God says, 'I heard what they were saying about Me, and I am going to give them exactly what they said.' That is a scary Scripture! You take that and you hear the average person say, 'God will never give me that,' and God says, 'Fine. I will give it to someone who will believe Me for it.'

Ouch! Gets you in the heart.

MICHELLE MCKINNEY HAMMOND: What are you really believing? What are you really expecting from God? Do you really believe that you deserve true love? Do you really believe you deserve this wonderful man to come into your life, love you the way you want to be loved and treasure you and be godly and be protective and really be the covering that you always imagined your knight in shining armor to be? Or do you think God is going to send you this ugly-looking person who is godly but has nothing else to offer you and you are going to be stuck with this boring Christian guy. What are your expectations? They have to change. Just think what an insult to the heart of God it is when you expect less than what He wants to give you.

How do you discover your purpose in life?

MICHELLE MCKINNEY HAMMOND: I don't think that you can come to any conclusions about your purpose, because it isn't over until it is over. As long as you are living, it is not over. I have an aunt who got married for the first time at 67 years old. She had the most fabulous wedding and was able to pay for it and is still living happily ever after, so how do you know? How can you draw conclusions and say it is not going to happen? You can't because it could happen at any time. What is before me to do today? I just busy myself with that because tomorrow is going to come with its own dramas and another long list of things to do. It is never over.

That's a good way to keep your balance -- not to look at your past and think this is what happened, or look to the future and think this might not happen, but to view today. So what is in the future for you? Do you have another book in mind?

MICHELLE MCKINNEY HAMMOND: I just finished two books: 101 Ways to Get and Keep His Attention and In Search of the Proverbs 31 Man. I am still pondering a novel idea I have. I am working on a music project, and I am working on moving into my new house.

All right! You are busy. Well, I appreciate your time today.

MICHELLE MCKINNEY HAMMOND: Thanks. It was a great conversation.