What to Do Until Love Finds You , livre ebook

Harvest House Publishers, Inc. - Michelle Mckinney Hammond

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118 pages

English

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The book that started it all--Michelle McKinney Hammond's popular first book re-releases with a dynamic new cover and all the attitude and wisdom that made it a fabulous start to Michelle's growing list of inspiring books.In What to Do Until Love Finds You, Michelle offers women practical, godly advice on how to:handle sexual temptations regardless of past experiencerelease expectations and embrace lifeget to know God's purposeThe biblical truths, honest personal insights, and refreshing take on love and the single lifestyle are as relevant and remarkable today as when this book first appeared in bookstores--and on the nightstands and coffee tables of countless single women.

Informations

Publié par	Harvest House Publishers, Inc.
Date de parution	01 janvier 2006
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780736933469
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0646€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Unless otherwise indicated all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Verses marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Verses marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version , Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. The NIV and New International Version trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society.
Verses marked AMP are taken from The Amplified Bible, Old Testament, Copyright 1965 and 1987 by The Zondervan Corporation, and from the Amplified New Testament, Copyright 1954, 1958, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Cover by Koechel Peterson Associates, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
WHAT TO DO UNTIL LOVE FINDS YOU
Copyright 1997 by Michelle McKinney-Hammond Published by Harvest House Publishers Eugene, Oregon 97402 www.harvesthousepublishing.com
McKinney-Hammond, Michelle, 1957-
What to do until love finds you / Michelle McKinney-Hammond.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7369-1718-6
ISBN-10: 0-7369-1718-7
1. Single people-Religious life. 2. Single people-Conduct of life. 3. Christian women-Conduct of life. 4. Man-woman relationships-Religious aspects-Christianity. 6. Mate selection-Religious aspects-Christianity. I. Title.
BV4596.S5M35 1997
248.8 432-DC20
96-41550
CIP
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 / DP / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my eternal husband
and the true lover of my soul,
J ESUS C HRIST
To my parents:
William and Norma McKinney, and
George and Charity Hammond
To my wonderful sisters:
Nicole, Ayodele, Annette, Jacqueline,
Karen, Yaaba, and Anna
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Alda Denise Mitchell, my patient confidante, who tried to tell me, then let me learn the hard way.
To Philomina Bunny Wilson, my friend and wonderful example, who challenged me to do this.
To Karen McDonald, my precious bud, who, quite literally, made me finish what I had started.
To my sister, Nicole Neal, who cleaned up my grammatical faux pas.
To my editor, Lela Gilbert, who made me feel like a for real writer.
To all my loving sisters in Christ, too many to name, for all their enthusiastic encouragement.
To Bill Jensen, who caught the vision and ran with it, I offer a very sincere and inexpressible thank you.
Your love and support have humbled me.
C ONTENTS

Introduction
1 The Gift
2 First Encounters
3 The Intimate Challenge
4 Dealing with Dreams
5 Promises, Promises
6 The Awakening
7 The Real Deal
8 Confrontation
9 The Truth Comes Out
10 Truth or Consequences
11 Looking in the Mirror
12 Costly Expectations
13 Love Talk
14 The Initial Surrender
15 The First Revelation
A Final Word
Recommended Reading
Study Guide
Books by Michelle McKinney Hammond
To Contact the Author
Other Good Harvest House Reading
I NTRODUCTION
Someone once said, Men are like buses-you miss one, there s always another. I don t think that remark has any particular scriptural basis, but it does trigger another train of thought (no pun intended): We have to wait for the bus to come.
Now there is more than one way to wait. You can passively wait-and perhaps miss the bus because you weren t prepared to get on. Or you can actively wait-poised at the curb with all your packages balanced, ready to make the leap when the bus arrives. How you wait is up to you. Are you waiting in doubt and resignation? Or are you waiting in anticipation of your mate s arrival? Who sits down on the bench when they think the bus is coming?
If you re sitting down on the job, it s time for you to get up. You can do a lot to prepare your heart, your soul, your head, your everything for a mate. He could be here any minute!
In one of His parables, Jesus says we are to occupy until He comes. By this, He means that we need to be actively and productively waiting for His return. And preparing ourselves for the day when we ll meet Him face-to-face can be exciting and fulfilling! In Psalm 37:4, we are told: Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
This same occupying also applies to waiting for a mate. If you are like many single women, the desire of your heart is for a husband. In fact, if you re reading this book, I assume that s true of you. If your longing is based on what God s desire is for you, then God has a man for you. Where he is and why he is taking so long, I don t know. But that doesn t mean he s not on his way.
Meanwhile, like I said, there s more than one way to wait
1 The Gift

For years I walked in adamant denial of my singleness. I refused to attend singles events, read singles books, or accept the apostle Paul s rationale that we should all be single crusaders for Christ. After much discussion (I came to call them moan sessions) with my other Christian sisters, I was forced to ponder another question: Was I the unsuspecting recipient of the gift ? The gift was the capacity to walk through life being totally sublime and undisturbed about one s marital status. Those possessing the gift were busy being concerned with spiritual things. They had spiritual battles to fight, Scriptures to explore, unsaved souls to conquer!
Of course I was concerned about spiritual things. I devoured Scriptures, and, yes, I was even actively involved in winning souls for Christ. But there was still an undeniable void in my life. I decided that the answer, for me, was no. I was waiting for God to give me the desire of my heart, and I was not going to try to beat myself into submission to a gift I had not been given. I felt that I had been created to be a part of someone else s life, and no how-to-be-happy-and-single manual was going to remove my frustration over my other half s late arrival.
Learning to Listen
You re not ready, all my married friends said. Yes I am, I angrily answered, and proceeded to careen through one painful relationship after another. My diligent search for my mate led me into dangerous territory: the land of compromise. Against the warnings of my friends, I decided I could probably convert one of those handsome, witty, unsaved men I knew and be done with it. But after emerging bloodied and discouraged, from what I decided was my last traumatic romance, I waved the white flag of surrender. I sat down at the feet of Jesus, finally ready to hear what He had to say.
To my relief He agreed that I did not have the gift. However, He enabled me to see that I had a lot to learn before He could send me into the arms of the man He had designed me for. He encouraged me to begin my preparation by studying the Old Testament heroine Esther. As I studied, to my surprise I learned that there was a time of preparation, 12 months to be exact, before Esther s king would even see his potential bride-to-be in order to determine whether or not he wanted her to be his wife! Those 365 days were called the days of beautification. There were six months of treatments with oils, then six more months with spices and cosmetics before Esther was ready for her unveiling. Meanwhile, she was receiving instructions on how to please the king.
Of course I spiritualized all this information. How wonderfully significant, I thought. First, we have to be submerged in the Holy Spirit, and the fruit of the Spirit has to be operating fully in our lives, thus creating a sweet-smelling aroma in the nostrils of God! (Ah, the smell of it!) And our outward countenance should radiate our holiness!
But there was one fact I could not spiritualize. Esther chose to take the advice of the eunuch who was in charge of all the king s women. Now I had long since worn out my closest married friend in this area. I absorbed all her advice with untiring relish, and just as quickly discarded it to carry out my own whims. After all, what did married people know? Well, Esther listened, and Esther got what she wanted. I decided to take the hint.
In Search of the Right Role
I also studied another Old Testament book-this time about a woman called Ruth. Ruth was one cool cucumber. She set her mind on the business of gleaning the fields. And by following her mother-in-law s advice (there s that word again), Ruth got her man. Ruth knew some things about submission that I had yet to learn. She was not ashamed to make her needs known, but she was acutely aware that timing was everything. I suspect she learned the importance of a quiet spirit while watching her mother-in-law deal with her husband and sons in the land of Moab.
I have to admit I initially spiritualized this story, too. Oh, how marvelous, I sighed. What a poetic way of portraying being caught up in the Word, and being busy about the work of harvesting souls for Christ! While I m busy doing God s work, my husband will notice me from a distance, become intrigued, and this overwhelming desire to protect and care for me will come over him and-voila!- victory, victory will be mine. I ll be married in no time! As time passed, however, I learned that these timeless stories contained far more than spiritual lessons. I ll share some of their practical wisdom with you in the pages that follow.
Gradually as I studied, listened to others, and sat at the feet of Jesus, I came to accept that there were certain principles that have to be followed in the course of courtship. This is not because love is a game, but because God has designed a certain role for women and a certain role for men. Now for all you women s libbers, I am not referring to becoming dishwash