Michele Hayes Grisham

I attribute my success to my faith in God and perseverance. When I was bedridden for a year at one point in my life, I was crying out to God, asking to end my life because I felt like dead weight and useless to my family. But when you draw near to God, He draws near to you, and the Holy Spirit told me that every value I built inside of me is still there, that I can still listen and love and hug. Even with my health problems and 14 autoimmune diseases, I can benefit others because God made me an encourager, and that's what I want to do. After losing our second daughter, God let me see her in heaven, and when I kept asking for another child, the Holy Spirit told me He would put many children in front of me to love. It's now been hundreds of children. I always pray for those divine appointments where Mama Michelle can help someone in some way. Being a preemie, puny person who thought I had no value, I learned that when you draw near to God and work in your strengths, you see wonderful things happen.

The best advice I received was to take a spiritual gifts assessment test. I was like so many people who think they don't have any spiritual gift, that they're just shy and quiet. But when you take that test and see in black and white what God probably created you to do, and you start working in that area, you see your value, you start working in your strengths, and you see wonderful things happen. That assessment helped me discover that my spiritual gift was encouragement, and once I knew that and started working in that area, everything changed.

I encourage young women entering this industry to discover and work within their strengths, such as through a spiritual gifts or strengths assessment. Understanding your unique abilities helps you contribute with confidence and purpose. Just as importantly, know your value and use it to encourage and uplift others with authenticity and sincerity.

The biggest challenge right now is that there are so many rights being taken away from us. Some places will no longer let anything religious be posted. They're calling it freedom from religion instead of freedom of religion, saying they don't want anything in the schools or courthouses. This minority is beginning to control what we thought were self-evident things that our nation was founded on. That's why I wrote 'How to Show God You Love Him' about the Ten Commandments and the Fruit of the Spirit, because we can no longer post those in places, and it's so important for people to realize there is a right and wrong. I've even had a few posts that Facebook didn't post, and I did get thrown into Facebook jail a couple of times. What we were founded on is being taken away, and when you study the Constitution and understand why they had it the way they did, you realize how thoughtful and how much time and effort they put into making it unique. There's a reason why everybody wants to come to the United States, and we just take that for granted.

The most important values to me are faith and being of service to others. I believe that even with my health problems and 14 autoimmune diseases, I can still benefit others because God made me an encourager. I've learned that every value you build inside of you is still there, and you can still listen and love and hug, even when you're struggling. I always pray for divine appointments where I can help someone in some way. When somebody crosses my path, I think about who would this bless, who needs to hear this message. I still have peace, joy, and contentment every day despite my challenges, and I want to share how I found that so other people can have it too. Why have money unless it's doing a benefit to somebody? The wonderful comments I get from people when I give my books away make me wish more people could have that encouragement.