Hello, Ladies and Gentlemen, Gloria Edozien of Bella Naija (The Inspire Series) recently interviewed Michelle Hammond and she talked about God’s goodness in her life; how she got inspired
to start writing books, finding her father in Ghana, her difficult moments, the
accident that changed her life, her ‘man
fast’, yes! Man- fast and her understanding of men which I believe is very
profound.
Michelle
McKinney Hammond is a bestselling author and Emmy award winning talk show
host. The author of over 30 books which include best-selling titles, ‘The Diva
Principle’, ‘Sassy, Single and Satisfied’, ‘101 Ways to Get and Keep His
Attention’, ‘Secrets of an Irresistible Woman’ and many more.
In all, this is the testimony of a proverbs 31 woman who
trusts God with all her heart and God has been faithful to her. It is my prayer
that God will imbibe more women with the grace to be women of honor, dignity
and blessing to nations.
Finding
Purpose
Today,
Michelle lives in Ghana – the home of her birth father. For several years
Michelle lived a full and successful career as an award winning advertising
executive. Tragedy struck, when she has hit by a car and suffered a devastating
leg injury which led to 3 major knee operations and 18 months of rehab, which
included having to re-learn to walk (it was during her period of recovery
that she wrote and published her first best seller ‘What to do until Love Finds
you’). Michelle also tragically lost, Scotty her boyfriend at the time. Life
has brought other challenges, or as she prefers to call them, “opportunities”
which she says have shaped her into the woman she is today.
She
chatted openly with me about the difficulties of being different from a young
age and the blessing of finding her birth father.
“I wish that more people could understand that some of us are
created to be unique. We are a different type of vessel all together….I don’t have time to discuss the foibles of my life with
the devil or to even listen to his conversation, when he grabs me around the
ankles, I drag him across the floor because I’ve just got to keep moving”
Glory:
Many people saw you as different when you were younger. What would you say to
women who feel inadequate because they don’t fit into society’s mold?
Michelle: I had a hard childhood, I am not going to deny it. Moving
from London to Barbados to America, I went through 3 different accents. I was
always odd, I was always the different one but I think even that was
preparation and I wish that more people could understand that some of us are
created to be unique. We are a different type of vessel all together and if you
have the right set of parents, it’s great if they can speak into your life and
say ‘well you are going to be leader and not a follower’ or ‘you are special’. But
if you don’t, it could be hell for you, as you try to work out within yourself,
‘who am I and why am I here and why don’t I fit in’. I think that for a long
time I was in that club of ‘who am I, why am I here and why don’t I fit in’. It
made me who I am and it made me a strong individual. I learnt how to stand
alone and become an individual, because I was, whether I liked it or not. So I
had two choices, I could either cower in it and be depressed about it or I
could embrace it and celebrate it and use it for my good. It molded me into the
unique person God wanted me to be in the first place. It’s kind of like a
caterpillar blossoming into a butterfly, that fight that gives it the ability
to fly. If it didn’t have that fight its wings would never develop and it would
never fly and it would die. The choice was to fly or die for me and I chose to
fly.
Glory:
How did the experience of looking for and finding your birth father shape you?
Michelle: I think the most significant thing is that it showed me the
power of God and His attentiveness to our desires because it wasn’t really a
long journey for me. I remember simply praying as a child that I’d like to see
my father one day. It wasn’t something that I consciously pursued. I had one
picture of him and I thought he was so cute. And I said, one day I’d really
like to know my natural father. The father, I had was wonderful. I didn’t feel
fatherless but it was more out of the curiosity of who I was in my natural
father that I wanted to locate him. So when my aunt traveled to Ghana and
miraculously just happened upon the spot that he visited every day, I knew that
was just a move of God. It was a divine appointment in my personal history
because of where God knew he was taking me in the future, because if that meeting
never happened, this meeting (the interview) would never happen. I would never
have made it to Africa, I would still be in the west Indies or America or
England or where ever, as opposed to coming to Africa. God was setting up my
life long ago and it just blows my mind every time I think about it.
Glory:
What was life like before your accident?
Michelle: My life was very active. I think I am still the same
person. I don’t think it changed me, I think it changed the direction of my
life. I was just as driven, I had a full life, I was using all my gifts, so
none of that was different. What the accident did for me was make me focus on
what was I supposed to be doing because I was at a transition in my life. I had
left the ad agency, I was doing freelance work, but I knew there was something
else I was supposed to be doing but I hadn’t gotten that far in figuring it
out. It was about making life happen and paying bills and finding the next job
and when I wasn’t in the position of running around and finding the next job it
was like ok! What am I really supposed to be doing with my life? I’m a big
proponent of sitting and being still and hearing what the next move in your
life is supposed to be.
Glory:
Like many of us, you’ve been through a few seasons in your life, how have you
managed to keep it together through those times?
Michelle: I scream in private a lot (laughs)! I don’t know, I think
that somewhere along the way, I made a decision that quitting is not an option.
Resignation is not an option, apathy is not an option, and depression is not an
option. I could be depressed if I want to be and I have certainly had many
reasons why people would think I was quite justified in being depressed. But if
I rule it out as an option, it forces me to keep moving. My friends would tell
you that ‘the one thing they know about Michelle, is no matter what happens in
her life, she is going to keep moving’. I have always said I don’t have
time to discuss the foibles of my life with the devil or to even listen to his
conversation, when he grabs me around the ankles, I drag him across the floor
because I’ve just got to keep moving. I think that’s the only way to survive
and thrive. The bottom line is that everything that comes into our life is so
momentary. So if you park there, you can stay there forever.
Glory:
You always said that your books are written from the perspective that striving
for a perfect life does not work perfection in us. So what does?
Michelle: Perfection is a process and we won’t be perfected until we
leave here. But I think it’s in embracing in the journey of becoming along the
way and celebrating the unfolding. I think we can look at it as torture or
privilege to constantly be evolving and transforming and growing. If I have a
made up mind that I want to make God smile everyday and I want to be the best
me that I can be, I make my decision early in the day that no matter what comes
my way, I am going to let the best of me come out. I am going to develop
another part of me into a stronger part of myself because if I do, I give
strength to somebody else. Somebody is watching. I don’t even know who that
person is. But somebody is looking at me and they are saying, ‘wow, if she can
handle that, I can get through this’. I get the opportunity everyday to live a
life that says whatever is going on, God makes me flourish in spite of it.
Her passion
Michelle
sees her books as one long conversation with her audience and over the years
she has kept those conversations going. But unlike other relationship books,
Michelle’s advice is based on biblical principles. Principles that she says she
couldn’t have lived with out. In this section she tells me about being single
and her year long man fast…would any woman dare to join in?
“I
challenged God and said listen I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired,
I’ve just really had enough. And I don’t want to get married until you can
prove to me that I can be happy with just you. That’s a very dangerous prayer.
But I think He took me up on the challenge”.
Glory: Your books focus
predominantly on love, femininity, and womanhood, any particular reason why?
Michelle: That’s my passion. Those are the discussions that have come
to me. My books are just long conversations with my audience on the continuing
dialogue of the issues of their hearts. That’s what moves me to write, I don’t
really write a book until I hear a conversation that kind of titillates me and
makes me go…hmm! I am always seeking answers so people can live their lives. I
really want people to get on with their lives. I want them to celebrate where
they are, I want them to not see the obstacles as obstacles but as stepping
stones, see them as opportunities to get to the next level of themselves.
Glory: You’ve spoken about the
‘wilderness’ years of your life when you hated being single, how did things
change for you?.
Michelle: It’s hard to say, I think that it was so gradual that I
didn’t notice when it was happening. I remember the day I challenged God and
said ‘listen I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired, I’ve just really
had enough. And I don’t want to get married until you can prove to me that I
can be happy with just you’. That’s a very dangerous prayer. But I think He
took me up on the challenge. I really don’t think that I got happy until I
wrote ‘What to do until Love Finds you’. That was my book of processing for
myself. But what happened after I wrote that book was first of all, it settled
my issues for me and it put me on a path of purpose as opposed to just pinning
for a person. And all of a sudden my life became very full and I had way less
time to think about being alone and as the time and the space in my life got
filled with touching other peoples lives, loving on other people, answering
their questions and being distracted by their own pain from my own…one day I
woke up and I said ‘wooo!! I am happy, how did this happen’? And that’s when I
wrote, ‘Sassy, Single and Satisfied’. And I just laughed when we came up with
the title, because I thought this is God’s big joke to me! That you can be single,
sassy and satisfied and I actually am.
Glory: Was this when you went
through your man fast?
Michelle: Yes! That’s when I thought forget it! I keep picking the
wrong people that drive me crazy, let me just stop this madness and deal with
myself. I did declare a man fast and I didn’t realize how long the man fast
lasted. God actually challenged me, He said “give me a year of your life, don’t
ask me about a man, don’t ask me about your husband, don’t ask me if you are
getting married. Give me a year of your life, I want to show you some things”.
It was such whirlwind year, everything just took off. Speaking engagements, TV
stuff and I remember at the end of the year saying ‘God, I think I need another
year’!
Glory: Many women feel some type of
emptiness, or hunger because they are single What would you say to women who
feel this way?
Michelle:
There have been times that I have
gotten up in the middle of the night and I have gone to the fridge because I
was hungry, but I didn’t know what I wanted. So I taste one thing and that’s
not it, but I eat the whole thing anyway and five tubs of tasting things later,
I’m full but I still not satisfied. I think we need to be careful that we don’t
fill ourselves with things that are not conducive for filling the right space
in our hearts and in our spirits. Because most of the time, it’s a spiritual
hunger and God is trying to draw us closer to Him, to tell us something
different, to make us turn the page on something new in our lives. He creates
that dis-ease so to seek, that hunger for something more. We need to stop and
listen to it as opposed to just guessing what it is. It usually is not the
obvious.
Words Every Woman needs to hear
Personally,
I feel many relationship books tell us women what we already know but refuse to
practice. That said, Michelle has made a living, giving out advice from her
boudoir of relationship wisdom, I asked her to share some of her best kept
secrets….
“Stay
true to yourself. Never allow anyone to talk you into something that doesn’t
align with your spirit. Know the value of your love and never compromise.”
Glory: What do you do with yourself
after another failed relationship?
Michelle: You have to stop and heal, because men are not bandages. People
will say, you should go out and find somebody new, the best fix for that is
just another guy. No its not! You need to stop and deal with what happened in
that relationship. You need to deal with your heart condition, you need to deal
with who you are and how you define yourself based on what happened before you
move on to someone else. I think you need that time, you deserve that time and
you should take that time for yourself. To love on you and love yourself back
to wholeness, so that you are not carrying bags into the next relationship.
Glory: If you could go back and give
your younger self some advice, what advice would you give?
Michelle:
Stay true to yourself. Never allow
anyone to talk you into something that doesn’t align with your spirit. Know the
value of your love and never compromise. Never settle for less than what its
worth. If you choose to love, love with open hands and that way you’ll never be
sorry that you loved. Make God your greatest treasure because everything else
will fail you. So don’t place divine expectations on humanity.
Glory: There’s a lot of pressure for
women to be at a certain place at a certain age you know married, etc…what’s
your advice to them?
Michelle: It’s a godly dream to be part of a family unit, to be a
wife to be a mother. But because of where we are in the world everyone is not
going to work in that space and that is just a harsh reality of the times that
we live in. Does that mean something is wrong with you, no it doesn’t. It means
that you are here doing the best that you can, and there is still time for it
to happen, so work with an expectancy. But if it doesn’t, it doesn’t mean that
anything is wrong with you and it doesn’t take away from your power to
contribute something meaningful to the world. I think that it is important for
us to get over ourselves, to get over our cultural, traditional types of
mindsets that insist that this is what a normal life looks like. There is no
such thing as a normal life anymore. The world is not conducive to having these
cookie cutter molds for what life is supposed to look like. You have to make
your peace with where you are on any given day. Walk in expectancy that things
can change and that being a wife or a mother can be an opportunity for you but
if its not, you can still have a life filled with the opportunity to have great
men friends and brothers. You still have the opportunity to have a life filled
with children, there are so many children that need to be mothered, that are
available to be mothered. I think we need to stop insisting on where we find
love and how we find love and be open to all the avenues of expressing love on
any given day.
Glory: What are some of your
relationship rules?
Michelle: Let the man choose you. It’s huge because I think we set
ourselves up for a lot of disappointment by choosing men and then they find the
one they want to run after they do that. Let yourself be chosen, know the worth
of your love, don’t compromise your standards and turn into someone that you
are not to get that person, because they should love you for who you are. So
stay authentic to who you are, be transparent, be soft. Women are so afraid to
be women these days, they’ve got this hard shell. Men are still looking for
women, they really are and they are so happy when they find one. Keep that
vulnerability, not loosing the little girl inside but making wise choices as
women, is a wonderful blend and combination that is intriguing to any man that
you meet.
Glory: How do you manage not to be a
man basher with all the horrible stories we hear about men?
Michelle: Women can be traumatizing too. I guess that’s the thing
because I really do feel sorry for men too, we traumatize them to a great
degree. Men are so afraid of women, they understand our power better than we
do. They know the power that we have over their lives and I think that they
respect it more than we do to be perfectly honest. I’ve been fortunate, even
though I have my own bad experiences in love and with guys. I have also had
amazing friendships with men and I know their hearts and I know that they are
precious, special and strong and when they are in your corner, they are in your
corner. I think if we nurtured more of that, we would have much more good men
walking around who would be much more responsible, in interactions with women.
We also have to take responsibility of how we set ourselves up for
disappointment with men. It takes two people to have a relationship and it
takes two people to mess it up, it can never be one person’s fault. Whether its
something you did or didn’t do, said or didn’t say. Basically if you allowed
it, you are part of the equation, so you have to own your part. It kills the
whole male bashing thing, because you’ve got your own part to deal with in the
drama of your situation. Men only do what we allow them to. And we allow them
to do a lot in the name of desperation and loneliness.
Glory to God!
Very expository
ReplyDeleteThank you
ReplyDeleteI just love your testimony. I started reading many of your books after I became single through a divorce. ... but I got SAVED through that divorced :) ... and since I've just been trying to "live the life" and love the Lord. Just reading that you now live in Ghana blows my mind. I've been there twice to help finish a clinic that was Dr. Donkor's vision. (He lives here in Farmville VA most of the year, but is from there and has a home there as well) What a small world. You're an inspiration to single women everywhere, I'm certain. Maybe I'll run into you in Ghana one day. Love it! Be Blessed! (Cheri Garrett on FB)
ReplyDeleteMichelle, I stumbled into your u tube one day giving a wonderful testimony on a talk show. I was married for a very long time and have been single for the past 6 years. I believe you give LIFE ADVICE for all women. I pray your life is going wonderfully well in your move to Africa. The Lord no doubt has great and mighty plan in store for you. So glad I found you..Diane
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