Sheila Walsh Interview on her ministry and depression - read by Georgia Mossholder

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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

WORLDWIDE NEWS WITH RAY August 13, 2014

A free service of Jesus Christ is Lord Ministries

News written and delivered by Ray Mossholder

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

 

Hello America. Hello world.

From the headquarters of reachmorenow.com in Fort Worth, Texas, this is Ray Mossholder, and this is the news…….

Robin Williams as Patch Adams

 

One of the greatest comic entertainers of our time has committed suicide. Robin Williams, who kept us laughing on the outside was tragically miserable on the inside and when police found him Friday morning at his home in Tiburon, California, he had hung himself with his own belt. He was sixty-three.

No matter what movie Robin Williams was in a from “Mrs. Doubtfire” to “Hook” to “Good Morning, Vietnam,” “Dead Poet’s Society” “Patch Adams” “Popeye” or “Good Will Hunting,” moviegoers called it their favorite. Although nominated for an Academy award four times, he won his only Oscar for Best Supporting actor in “Good Will Hunting.” But he also won four Grammys and an Emmy.

 

Television fans as old as I am will forever remember Robin Williams as Mork on the “Mork and Mindy” television series. No one could have done that role more hysterically.

 

The world assumes that comedians are as happy as they make other people feel. But tragedy has marred many comedians lives. Williams was a cocaine user and alcoholic. He had been to rehab, but in the long run he remained in deep depression.

May of this year was a very bad month for Robin Williams. He began that month with his last two movies – “The Angriest Man in Brooklyn” and “Boulevard” floundering, and the television series for which he had very high hopes – “The Crazy Ones” – was canceled for lack of viewers. That hurt him the most.

Comedians get their adrenaline from crowds who love them and their humor. Serious actors get theirs from box office success. Williams felt that he was failing in both places and began to feel he just couldn’t try again. Heart surgery in 2009 got him in touch with his age and he hated the fact that he didn’t look like Mork anymore.

Then too, Robin Williams had lost many of his closest friends, among them Christopher Reeve, John Belushi and Andy Kaufman. He not only grieved that their deaths at such young ages were totally unfair, but as each of them died, he felt more and more alone.

It’s often said that circus clowns wear their makeup to hide broken hearts. Robin was certainly a magnificent clown. He definitely had a broken heart.

Hollywood is flying its flag at half mast today. They know they have lost a movie and television icon who can never be replaced.

Robin Williams dead at sixty-three – a victim of suicide.

**********

Following that story, there has been another death in Hollywood that people my age will identify with immediately. Lauren Bacall died today at the age of 89.

Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall was an actress world-famous in the 40s. She made four movies co-starring with her equally famous husband – Humphrey Bogart. Now if you’re asking, “Who in the heck are they?” I can only tell you that you have missed out on some great movies and some very tremendous acting.

Lauren married “Bogie” and they had one of the most legendary marriages Hollywood has ever known. She was twenty-five years younger than her husband. Humphrey Bogart died 52 years ago.

Outspoken, sultry, foulmouthed and sexy, were words that well described her for her whole life, though she wasn’t foulmouthed in her movies. That wouldn’t have been allowed in the 40s.

Lauren Bacall would have been ninety next month.

**********

There is a new Treyvon Martin kind of story happening now. Sunday night its racial tensions exploded and part of Ferguson, Missouri, felt its wrath It felt it again last night. Ferguson is a strong stone’s throw from St. Louis.

Rioting broke out after a policeman shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager. Stores were looted and items smashed. A convenience store was set afire and burned. The policeman who shot Michael is in hiding.

Attorney General Eric Holder is launching a full investigation of exactly what happened. Michael Brown was supposed to be entering college the morning after he was killed. He was never part of a gang, but tried to stay clear of that kind of life. His mother said she had to work hard with him to keep him in high school. But he did want no part of the gang life that was constant in his neighborhood. After awhile he became excited about the idea of going to college and dedicated himself to his studies and baseball.

Michael Brown

 

Leslie McSpadden, Michael’s mother, said “People may do things and it becomes repetitive in a certain race, but we didn’t. We don’t look like that. Not our family. We feel like we can do anything and go anywhere.

Just because my son is a 6’4 black male walking down a city street does not mean he fit the profile for anything other than just walking down the street.”

Michael Brown’s mom and dad

 

Ferguson has a population of twenty-one thousand. It erupted again last night. Police Chief Thomas Jackson said the police were forced to break up the melee after shots rang out. The police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the marauding crowd.

Ferguson has 63% black living there. But according to racial profiling data, 86% of profiling stops involve African-American drivers.

 

There are two sides to this story. One side from the many who believe Michael Brown was murdered in cold blood. The other side says Michael Brown wrestled with the policeman and tried to get his gun.

One eyewitness, Piaget Crenshaw, described the shooting this way: “He ran for his life, they shot him and he fell. He put his arms up to let them know he was compliant and he was unarmed, and they shot him twice more and he fell to the ground and died.”

Another witness who is still coming to terms with what happened was St. Louis Alderman Antonio French. He said, “That boy was slain because he was accused of stealing gum from the store or some sort of cigarettes.”

The police have a totally different story. St. Louis Police Chief Jon Belmar “The genesis of this was a physical confrontation.”

Michael with his little brother

After the Sunday night looting, NACCP President Cornell William Brooks urged the rioters to stay peaceful and protest nonviolently.

Federal Attorney General Eric Holder said yesterday, “The shooting deserves a full review. At every step, we will work with the local investigators, who should be prepared to complete a thorough, fair investigation in their own right.”

Michael’s mother said, “Michael was so excited to be setting an example for his younger siblings. Now we can’t even celebrate. We’ve got to plan a funeral.”

Leslie McSpadden told the police, “You took my son away from me. Do you know how hard it was for me to get him to stay in school and graduate? You know how many black men graduate? Not many!”

Brown’s father said “All I want is justice and to get this resolved in the right manner. I will be a little calmer, but I don’t think I’ll ever have peace.”

**********

The Pentagon has sent military planners to Iraq to figure out a way to rescue and relocate the tens of thousands of religious minorities trapped high atop the Sinjar Mountains. Islamic militants are at the bottom of that mountain ready to slaughter any of them who come down off it.

Until this week, certain death by either starvation or at the hands of the militants, seemed inevitable. But both France and the United States have come to their rescue with bundles of food drops. However there are too many to for all to get to the food packages in time. Now the Pentagon has announced that they are designing a way to transport those tens of thousands to somewhere where it’s safe. With all the wars raging in countries around Iraq, that will be more difficult than it may sound.

**********

 

Military critics say that the airstrikes that President Obama is allowing to be conducted on Isis in Iraq, are like putting Band-Aids on bullet holes. And the airstrikes are like an amateur throwing darts at a dartboard. High-ranking officers spoke with anonymity for fear of being relieved of their positions.

They said our random airstrikes, often with drones locating a few of the Isis or the Sunnis, are without any strategy at all to do what America needs done – no strategy for obliterating Isis. Obama said in response that destroying Isis is not why he sent the planes.

The officers say that what we are doing now in Iraq will simply cause still more Muslims to become radicals and join in the vow to destroy America. And it is significant that I cannot find the United States in any biblical end- time prophecies.

There is some positive news out of Iraq that has nothing to do with America being there until now, it is that the Kurdish, who have been America’s allies throughout the Iraqi war, have taken back two cities from Isis. What is sad is that the Kurdish fighters were using out of date weaponry or they could undoubtedly have done a whole lot more.

The Kurdish have asked and asked President Obama to give them up-to-date, modern weaponry to stop Isis and the Sunni terrorists. The Kurdish are people America knows it can trust. The good news now is that President Obama, under tremendous pressure, has finally okayed the sending of weapons to aid the Kurdish. The Kurdish, the best Iraqi fighters of them all, and fully on our side, have had to go it alone until now with outdated weaponry.

Kurdish Brigadier General Shirko FAHTEE announced victories in the towns of MACHMOUR and al-Gwiere which are approximately 25 to 27 miles from Erbil.

Earlier victories in both towns by Isis and the militant Sunnis found them immediately enforcing strict Shariah law. As a result, most people in each town fled their homes, joining the tens of thousands of Christians and other Iraqis fleeing for their lives.

Talks of this war in Iraq being simply a Civil War couldn’t be more wrong. This war in Iraq, as well as several other countries, is a war for and against jihad, and it will not be stopped unless the millions of radical terrorists spread throughout the Middle East, Europe, Great Britain, and America, are stopped. With their demonic power radical Islam is growing quickly and it has just one goal – to make Shariah law the law of the entire world.

It isn’t only our military that is being shrunk to unrecognizable proportions by our president, but our international reputation too. It is almost as if that is what he intends.

**********

Senator Lindsey Graham of North Carolina sounded a warning siren on “Fox News Sunday” with Chris Wallace this past weekend. After saying, the terror groups in the Middle East are well-funded and growing in alarming number, he added “They pose a direct threat to America.” Then he spoke directly over television to President Obama, and said “Mr. President, be honest with the threat we face. They are coming. Your game plan cannot protect the United States. ”

Senator Graham’s comments followed a Vice News video that showed a militant terrorist saying, “We will raise the flag of Allah in the White House.”

**********

It’s important to realize that disapproval of President Obama’s leadership is not at all limited to Republicans. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday, “It takes an army to defeat an army, and I believe that we either confront The Islamic State now or we will be forced to deal with an even stronger enemy in the future. Inaction is no longer an option.”

She and others, both Democrat and Republican, are warning as strongly as possible, with a president who has no foreign policy, that the terrorists are recruiting and training fighters from Europe and America who could come to our nation and launch another terror attack like 9/11, or with nuclear capabilities do far worse.

 

Senator John McCain said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Sandy Crowley, “The Islamic State, which some lawmakers referred to as Isis or Isil – or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – is getting stronger all the time. They have attracted one thousand men from around the world who are now fighting on their side. Isis is metastasizing throughout the Middle East. And their goal, as they have stated openly time after time, is the destruction of the United States of America.”

 

The reason Isis is so well funded is because every time they seize a town, the first thing they do is go to the banks and take every bit of the money inside them. They have become millionaires and make the outlaw Jesse James look like an amateur.

**********

Hillary Clinton, who is the Democrat front-runner for president in 2016, did an 8,000 word interview for The Atlantic Magazine and she is beginning to create a definite gulf between her and President Obama. She no doubt has been reading the polls.

In the magazine interview, she criticized the president’s handling of Syria. She said “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid things’ is not an organizing principle.”

Hillary refused to answer the question whether President Obama is responsible for the rise of Isis. However she did say about Syria that Obama’s failure to help build up a credible fighting force there “left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.”

 

On hearing this remark from Hillary, one that he is heard before from both sides of the congressional aisle, is an expletive that I can’t, and wouldn’t, repeat because of it is so crude.

 

Mrs. Clinton said the United States supports Israel’s right to defend itself against rockets by Hamas. She also said that international criticism of Israel is unfair, saying that “civilian casualties happen in the fog of war,” and she defended Israel for the bombing of the United Nations shelter where children died, unlike the Obama administration’s condemnation of Israel for that bombing which Obama called “disgraceful.”

If you want to see many of Hillary’s opinions both foreign and domestic, I recommend you pick up a copy of the Atlantic Magazine with Hillary’s picture on the cover, and read what she is saying. It’s a serious interview.

But I’m wondering if Hillary Clinton has forgotten that she was the Secretary of State while all of this was happening.

**********

National guards at the Texas border seem to be having a strong affect on stopping more of those who should not be entering. Texas Governor Rick Perry reports a large number of illegal immigrants from Syria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan have been apprehended at the Rio Grande border. The National Guard have already discovered a plot by Iranian terrorists who had plans to sneak across the border and do great harm to us.

 

Governor Perry lamented that since 2008, two hundred and three thousand illegal immigrants have been put in Texas jails, and those illegal immigrants have been responsible for three thousand homicides and almost eight thousand sexual assaults.”

 

Perry said “I wish the President would respect the desire of Texans and the citizens of this country to secure the border. That’s the real issue here – and one that all too often gets deflected by the conversation about unaccompanied minor children.”

 

Lightning played havoc in Western states where more than fifty large fires are still raging out-of-control in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana.

Fire burning homes in Cle Elum, Washington

Fire burning just outside Yosemite National Park tripled in size overnight

Both Portland and Seattle experienced their hottest days of the year this weekend – 96 in Seattle and 99 in Portland. The weatherman is predicting cooler weather for them both by tomorrow, but storms will replace the he

**********

President Obama may not have time on his vacation to write you a postcard, but I thought you might want to know what he is doing each day at Martha’s Vineyard. He is playing golf at Farm Neck Golf Course.

 

Residents describe his daily entourage as a large motorcade that includes a SWAT team, plus two snipers who peer out of an open trunk. And between holes he chats with his golf buddies. I do wonder how much they had to pay in order to play eighteen holes with him.

Meanwhile, golf enthusiasts that Martha’s Vineyard are out of luck way before our president arrives at the golf course and during all the time he plays. Security scours the field and surrounding areas before our president arrives. When he gets there he has Farm Neck all to himself and his friends. If you play golf, wouldn’t you just love that?

President Obama and his daughter, Malia

**********

The Joker Jinx roller coaster at Six Flags America

in Upper Marlboro, Maryland

 

You know the old saying “What goes up must come down?” Well, it sure wasn’t true at Six Flags in Upper Marlboro, Maryland on Sunday. They’ve got one dandy roller coaster there – The Joker Jinx they call it. It goes 60 miles an hour and turns upside down four times on each ride. And it fully lived up to its name Jinx on Sunday. It went up, but it didn’t come down.

24 riders – 17 adults and 7 children – were stranded high in the sky as the Joker Jinx screeched to a sudden halt. Fortunately, the riders weren’t upside down at the time. But during the five hours that it took to get them down, most of them probably didn’t know which way was up. With all the nausea, backaches and cramps the two dozen had, they undoubtedly wished this was the one time they had been writing the merry-go-round instead.

Happily, no one was seriously injured.

The Six Flag roller coaster operator offered all 24 an immediate free ride so they could try the Jinx again, but not one of them took him up on it.

Oh, a Six Flags America spokesman said the coaster’s computerized safety system “performed as it’s designed to.” But somehow that didn’t seem to comfort the still dizzy riders.

 

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Some people love roller coasters, horror movies, mountain climbing, even tight rope walking. Then there are other people who are sane, like me.

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And until the next time, this is Ray Mossholder praying for you. Have a miraculous day!

WORLDWIDE NEWS WITH RAY August 13, 2014