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Sheila Walsh Interview on her ministry and depression
By Dan Wooding, Special to ASSIST News Service
LAKE FOREST, CA (ANS – October 21, 2015) – For many,
Sheila Walsh’s life epitomizes success. Coming originally from
Scotland, as a talented singer, Sheila had her own television
show on BBC TV in London, and then after moving to the States,
she became the co-host with Pat Roberson of the 700 Club, while
at weekends, Sheila would have sold-out concerts across the
country.
Besides that, she is a powerful Bible teacher and best-selling
author with over 5 million books sold. And her international
ministry has reached more than 5.5 million women by combining
honesty, vulnerability, and humor with the transforming power of
God’s Word.
But, despite all of that success, Sheila, who now lives in Texas,
has had to deal with mental health issues, and after speaking
recently about her own battle with mental health at Rick and Kay
Warren’s recent Gathering on Mental Health and the Church
(October 8-9) at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California,
she bravely shared with me in an interview about her own story.
I began by asking Sheila why she had spoken at the conference,
and she replied, “There are two reasons. One is because I
personally suffer from that problem. I was diagnosed with severe
clinical depression about 23 years ago and I think I struggled with
it long before I was ever diagnosed. I was prescribed medication
all those years ago and I still take it to this day. I take that little
pill every morning with a prayer of thanksgiving that God has
provided help in this world for us who need it.
“And I know that there’s help available for people, but over the
last 20 years, traveling around the States with Women of Faith
and talking to other women. the very moment that I say from the
stage that I suffer with depression and I take medication, it’s like
it unlocks a key into other women’s lives and they’re they’ll come
up and say this is the first time I’ve ever told anyone about this.
“The second reason is that I have such a profound love and
respect for Kay and for Rick Warren. I remember when the
tragedy happened in their family (when their son, Matthew shot
himself), I remember literally falling to my knees and sobbing
because I knew that their son had struggled for some time. But
the way that they have turned what was a devastating tragedy
into an offering is really breathtaking to watch. Rather than allow
that to let them sink, they determined that they will raise others
up.
I have known Sheila Walsh now for about 40 years, and have
learned that she does not pull her punches when talking about
her own struggles, which she said, began as a child.
“I was born in a small town on the west coast of Scotland and I
was really blessed to have a mom and dad who just didn’t go to
church, but they really loved Jesus,” she stated in my interview
for my Front Page Radio show. “My dad was kind of my hero and
was very funny and had a beautiful singing voice. He was just a
great adventurer. I was a tomboy so I just adored my dad.
“But then my father had a massive brain aneurism one night
which really affected his personality. He was paralyzed down one
side, he lost the power of speech, and was never able to talk
again. But as his illness progressed the blood clot in his brain
began to move and press on an area that affected his personality.
So he just became a stranger in our home and ultimately a
violent stranger.
“And the last day I ever saw my father alive was turning just in
time to see that he was about to bring his cane down on my skull.
I was 5 years old at the time, my sister was seven and my
brother was two. It was a life altering moment, because my mom
immediately called 999 (in the UK, 911 here) and so my father
was carried out of the house that day by four men to our local
asylum and I lived with such shame thinking that I had destroyed
my family.”
She went on to say, “My father committed suicide after he had
escaped from the hospital and drowned himself in the local river.
And I believed that I’d taken my mom’s husband away I’d had
taken my sister and my brother’s father away. And I thought a
lifetime will never be enough to pay for this.”
So, although it was nothing to do with Sheila, she admitted that
she took this terrible burden onto her young shoulders.
“Children,” she said, do that. Like if there’s divorce in the family
or sexual abuse, children are the best recorders of information
but they’re the poorest interpreters of that information. Children
always think, ‘I did something. This is my fault.’
“So often, we think it’s a lack of faith and if only I had more faith
— and Christians will often rub salt in our wounds by saying, ‘I
can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’ You say
that to someone who just broke their leg and they’re lying on the
ground and you say to them, ‘Why don’t you get up and skip.’ it’s
ridiculous. Instead of using Scripture as the healing balm, often
we use it to punish people.
“So I would simply say, ‘it’s not your fault’ and ‘there’s help
available.’ In fact, there’s wonderful help available.”
One of the most dramatic turning points in Sheila’s life was the
day that she walked off the set of the 700 Club and admitted
herself into a psychiatric hospital for treatment. So, I asked her
what had led up to it?
So what led up to you walking out one day and going to the
psychiatric hospital?
“A lot of things led up to it,” she said. “There are signs where
you’re just slowly disappearing a little more every day, but it
literally during one morning’s show that I had a guest and I asked
her the first question and before she answered, she said, ‘You sit
here every day asking us questions, but I would like to know how
are you doing?’ She meant it kindly, but I wasn’t expecting it and
there was a look in her eyes of true compassion and so I started
to cry.
“It was live on television and the studio audience and crew didn’t
know what to do. Eventually they ran through to a commercial
break and I took my mic off and went to my dressing room and I
called a friend of mine, Dr. Henry Cloud, and I said, ‘Henry, I
think I’m losing my mind.’ And he asked me some questions and
then he said, ‘No, you’re not, but you need some help and you
need it quickly.” So by the next day I was in the psych hospital.”
Even that wasn’t without humor as Sheila told me.
“That first morning, when I showed up with in the patients
lounge, it was one of those moments when you walk into a room
and everyone’s talking and suddenly they stop and stare at you.
And one guy said to me, ‘Are you Sheila Walsh? I said that I was
and he then said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And I said, ‘I’m a
patient.’ and he answered, ‘Yeah. Right!” So I said, “Do you think
I’m here to do a documentary in my bathrobe?’ Then he said this
line that really impacted me. He said, ‘Look, I don’t mean to be
rude, but we watch you every morning and you’re supposed to be
helping us.’ And it was actually a very freeing moment where you
fall off the shelf and you just become one of those who are
broken. It was the beginning of what I call the ‘companionship of
brokenness.’ Where you’re not the one with all the answers, but
you begin to walk beside people.”
After completing her treatment, Sheila moved for a while to
Southern California, and I was able to persuade her to “get back
on the horse” and do a series of concerts for ASSIST, where she
would tell her story, sing many of her songs, and then pray for
people in the audience who were feeling suicidal. It was quite
amazing to see how so many broken people were ministered to
by someone who had been broken herself.
“There were a lot of people at that time who wanted to help me
put my career and ministry back together, but I didn’t want to do
that,” she said. “I was really ministered to by that verse that
talks about unless a seed falls to the ground and dies it produces
no fruit,’ and I wanted to let go of everything and really that’s
why I decided to go to seminary. I just want to study God’s word
and start at the beginning the foundations of our faith. I had no
idea I would ever stand on a stage again. That was just
something that God had prepared.”
Sheila enrolled in Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena,
California, where she did a Masters in Theology.
“I remember at my very first class, the professor, Nate Feldman,
was just the loveliest man,” said Sheila. “He did his doctorate
degree at Edinburgh University and the class was about early
church history. One of the things about depression is that it
affects your memory and I thought I wondered if I’d be able to do
this. I sat in the very back of the classroom with a yellow legal
pad and a pencil and I remember he stood up at the front and he
said. ‘This is our story so let’s start at the beginning.” And I just
wept. It was so incredibly moving.
“I used to study scripture and listen to messages through the
window of my pain and I always thought, ‘Well, that applies to
you but it doesn’t apply to me.’ But when you’ve been reduced to
nothing and in that moment discover how loved you are by God,
it was like hearing everything for the first time. I had very little,
but I felt as if I had everything.”
Sheila has since married Barry, who she met while in Southern
California, and they have son called Christian, and now she is
able to minister again, she said that she particularly aims her
message at people who are feeling depressed and, even suicidal.
“Most people think that it’s just them who have these feelings,”
she said. “They think that no one thinks ‘what I think’ and ‘no one
feels the way that I feel,’ and so I have to set aside a little time
every day to answer the private Facebook messages that I get
from every single weekend’s event and there are so many. At last
conference that I was at in Dallas, a woman came up to me and
said, ‘You won’t remember me, but I came years ago and I
intended to take my life. I had the medication in my purse, but I
just wanted to give God one last chance. She said after she had
listened to my message and heard where I’d been and where God
had taken me, she said, ‘I went to the bathroom in the arena and
I flushed the medicine down the toilet.’ And she talked about how
her life is now so rich and so beautiful.”
Now Sheila is launching a new ministry called Braveheart
Sisterhood (Braveheartsisterhood.com) for women.
“God is raising up a ragtag army of women all around the world,”
she explained. “I’ve been in Russia, Ukraine, London, and
Australia. It’s not a generational thing, it’s not a denominational,
it’s a remnant thing. There’s a remnant of women who
understand that something bigger is going on.”
If you would like to hear the entire radio interview, with lots more
information in it, just go
About the writer: Dan Wooding, 74, is an award-winning
author, broadcaster and journalist who was born in Nigeria
of British missionary parents, and is now living in Southern
California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been
married for more than 52 years. They have two sons,
Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the
UK. Dan is the founder and international director of ASSIST
(Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST
News Service (ANS). He is also the author of some 45
books and has a radio show and two television programs
all based out of Orange County, California.
Sheila Walsh Interview on her ministry and depression
Sheila Walsh Interview on her ministry and depression - read by Georgia Mossholder