Skip to content Depression, Mental Health & God’s Healing Grace with Sheila Walsh May 22 · 58 min ...more
Depression, Mental Health & God’s Healing Grace with Sheila Walsh
May 22, 2025 · 58 min
In this episode, Haley and Dustin are joined by Sheila Walsh, co-host of Praise and Better Together on TBN.
Sheila shares her inspiring story of how the Lord pursued her and gave her hope in the midst of severe depression while in ministry. Together, they discuss the power of God’s presence and grace, how the Lord meets us in our pain and brokenness, and gives us grace to break down the walls we build and be healed.
If you or a loved one struggle with a mental health issue, you do not want to miss this episode – it is such an encouraging, insightful, and genuine conversation that points to the compassion and grace of God.
Sheila is also speaking at our summer event on Mental Health and the Church - see link below for details.
Subscribe to the podcast and tune in each week as Haley and Dustin share with you what the Bible says about real-life issues with compassion, warmth, and wit.
So you have every reason for hope, for every challenge in life. Because hope means
everything.
Hope Talks is a podcast of the ministry of Hope for the Heart.
Listen in to learn more
(10:24) - Finding Hope Through Surrender and Faith
(22:22) - Friendship and Prayer
(33:05) - Embracing Vulnerability
(42:09) - Loving and Listening Through Pain
(53:06) - Leaning Into God Through Pain
(57:33) - Thankful Prayer and Support
--------------
Resources from Sheila Walsh
Learn more about Sheila Walsh and her ministry at https://sheilawalsh.com/
Connect with Sheila on social media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sheilawalsh1/?hl=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sheilawalshconnects/
X / Twitter: https://x.com/sheilawalsh
Hope for the Heart resources
Connect with Hope for the Heart on social!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopefortheheart
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopefortheheart
Learn more about the ministry and resources of Hope for the Heart: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/
Learn more about Hope Talks and catch up on past episodes: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/hopetalks/
Want to talk with June Hunt on Hope in the Night about a difficult life issue? Schedule a time here: https://resource.hopefortheheart.org/talk-with-june-hope-in-the-night
God’s plan for you: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/gods-plan-for-you/
Give to the ministry of Hope for the Heart: https://raisedonors.com/hopefortheheart/givehope?sc=HTPDON
Series Hope Talks
Hope for the Heart is a worldwide biblical counseling, coaching, and caregiving ministry founded by June Hunt in 1986. We’re passionate about helping people
May 22, 2025 · 58 min · Hope Talks
In this episode, Haley and Dustin are joined by Sheila Walsh, co-host of Praise and Better Together on TBN. Sheila shares her inspiring story of how the Lord pursued her and gave her hope in the midst of severe depression while in ministry. Together, they discuss the power of God’s presence and grace, how the Lord meets us in our pain and brokenness, and gives us grace to break down the walls we build and be healed. If you or a loved one struggle with a mental health issue, you do not want to miss this episode – it is such an encouraging, insightful, and genuine conversation that points to the compassion and grace of God. Sheila is also speaking at our summer event on Mental Health and the Church - see link below for details. Subscribe to the podcast and tune in each week as Haley and Dustin share with you what the Bible says about real-life issues with compassion, warmth, and wit. So you have every reason for hope, for every challenge in life. Because hope means everything. Hope Talks is a podcast of the ministry of Hope for the Heart. Listen in to learn more (10:24) - Finding Hope Through Surrender and Faith (22:22) - Friendship and Prayer (33:05) - Embracing Vulnerability (42:09) - Loving and Listening Through Pain (53:06) - Leaning Into God Through Pain (57:33) - Thankful Prayer and Support -------------- Resources from Sheila Walsh Learn more about Sheila Walsh and her ministry at https://sheilawalsh.com/ Connect with Sheila on social media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sheilawalsh1/?hl=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sheilawalshconnects/ X / Twitter: https://x.com/sheilawalsh Hope for the Heart resources Connect with Hope for the Heart on social! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopefortheheart Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopefortheheart Learn more about the ministry and resources of Hope for the Heart: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/ Learn more about Hope Talks and catch up on past episodes: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/hopetalks/ Want to talk with June Hunt on Hope in the Night about a difficult life issue? Schedule a time here: https://resource.hopefortheheart.org/talk-with-june-hope-in-the-night God’s plan for you: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/gods-plan-for-you/ Give to the ministry of Hope for the Heart: https://raisedonors.com/hopefortheheart/givehope?sc=HTPDON ...more Show the full description Show less In this episode, Haley and Dustin are joined by Sheila Walsh, co-host of Praise and Better Together on TBN.
Sheila shares her inspiring story of how the Lord pursued her and gave her hope in the midst of severe depression while in ministry. Together, they discuss the power of God’s presence and grace, how the Lord meets us in our pain and brokenness, and gives us grace to break down the walls we build and be healed.
If you or a loved one struggle with a mental health issue, you do not want to miss this episode – it is such an encouraging, insightful, and genuine conversation that points to the compassion and grace of God.
Sheila is also speaking at our summer event on Mental Health and the Church - see link below for details.
Subscribe to the podcast and tune in each week as Haley and Dustin share with you what the Bible says about real-life issues with compassion, warmth, and wit.
So you have every reason for hope, for every challenge in life. Because hope means
everything.
Hope Talks is a podcast of the ministry of Hope for the Heart.
Listen in to learn more
(10:24) - Finding Hope Through Surrender and Faith
(22:22) - Friendship and Prayer
(33:05) - Embracing Vulnerability
(42:09) - Loving and Listening Through Pain
(53:06) - Leaning Into God Through Pain
(57:33) - Thankful Prayer and Support
--------------
Resources from Sheila Walsh
Learn more about Sheila Walsh and her ministry at https://sheilawalsh.com/
Connect with Sheila on social media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sheilawalsh1/?hl=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sheilawalshconnects/
X / Twitter: https://x.com/sheilawalsh
Hope for the Heart resources
Connect with Hope for the Heart on social!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopefortheheart
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopefortheheart
Learn more about the ministry and resources of Hope for the Heart: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/
Learn more about Hope Talks and catch up on past episodes: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/hopetalks/
Want to talk with June Hunt on Hope in the Night about a difficult life issue? Schedule a time here: https://resource.hopefortheheart.org/talk-with-june-hope-in-the-night
God’s plan for you: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/gods-plan-for-you/
Give to the ministry of Hope for the Heart: https://raisedonors.com/hopefortheheart/givehope?sc=HTPDON
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0:00 I think so often we think we have to clean ourselves up to come to God. And I think he invites us to come as we really are, to be honest, to be open, to be transparent. He already knows everything. He knows us way better0:11 than we know ourselves. But I think a lot of people get stuck in their faith because maybe they've got something inside that's making them angry, and they don't even wanna talk to God about it because they think he's0:22 responsible. God is big enough to handle everything we're going through.0:28 Welcome to Hope Talks. We're your hosts. I'm Haley Scully along with Dustin Anderson, and we wanna give you every reason for hope for every challenge in life because hope means everything.0:42 Dustin, guess what day it is?0:43 I think it's guest day.0:45 It's guest day. Sheila, I have 1 way of introducing guest day, and it's that. It's guest day, Dustin. So, Dustin, today, we have miss Sheila Walsh with us, and we are so honored. This0:57 is first time that we get to connect with her, but we have couple other times planned with her soon. So thank you, Sheila, for being here. We are just honored that you're with us.1:07 I love being with you, and I like short openings. That was1:11 Yes. Well, honestly, there's more to come. Dustin Dustin has a bit more destined. Yeah. Tell us about Sheila Walsh.1:19 Yeah. I think many of our listeners probably remember Sheila Walsh from cohosting the 700 Club on TBN. Also currently cohost on praise and better together on TBN, but just beloved bible teacher,
1:31 conference speaker, 3 time Grammy nominee, and also bestselling author of a lot of books, including it's okay not to be okay, Holding On When You Want to Let Go, Praying Women, and your latest book
1:42 that came out last October, The Hope of Heaven, which I'm hoping we'll get to a little
1:48 bit later in there. Mhmm.
1:50 Yep. But you write and speak a lot on healing, faith, God's grace, prayer, and mental health, and you're also speaking at our upcoming event on mental health in the church.
2:01 Just a little plug right there.
2:02 Yeah. Little small plug. But and, yeah, we kinda wanted to jump into those themes, but first, I'll pitch it over to Hayley to talk about your hope story.
2:11 Yeah. Sheila, we have a lot of guests that sometimes people know their stories pretty well, or they feel like this is the thousandth time I've shared it. But, you know, we know that it's so many times it's new to people.
2:22 A hope story is new. And we've encouraged people sometimes the hope story that they share, it might be the time of salvation. But, like, for me, really learning to put my hope in the Lord and
2:34 with his yeses and with his noes, that wasn't necessarily my salvation moment. Those were some different times that I went through. So just any hope story that you would like to share with us today to kinda make hope
2:45 real and tangible. So that's our question. Sheila Walsh, what would your hope story be today?
2:51 Thank you, Haley and Justin. Honestly, I have so many hope stories because without Jesus, I don't think I would still be alive. I mean, he has literally breathed life into me. But the 1 moment that
3:03 kind of comes back to me more than anything, and it really, it stemmed from a wound in my childhood. My father was my hero. I just loved my dad. He was an amazing man. But he had a serious brain
3:15 injury when I was 5 and became a different person. He became violent and was taken off where he died, took his own life in a psychiatric hospital. And
3:26 I just kind of buried that pain because the only person he'd taken his anger out on wasn't my brother or my sister. And until the last day, it wasn't my mom. It was just me. So I felt like somehow I had done something
3:38 wrong. That this man who once really loved me, now really hated me because he tried to take me out before he took his own life. And even though I became a Christian when I was 11, and I remember so clearly my mom
3:50 saying to me, Sheila, not only is Jesus your savior and your lord, but you have a heavenly father watching over you, I remember thinking, I've got 1 more chance to get it right. Whatever my earthly dad saw
4:02 in me that made him hate me, my heavenly father is never gonna see that. I'm gonna be the perfect Christian if it kills me. And it almost did. I pursued perfection because I thought that's what God
4:14 wanted Mhmm. From all of us. And fast forward a few years, I end up living here in the States. I was born in Scotland. You can probably tell by my accent. Mhmm. But I moved to the States, I was a
4:25 cohost of the 700 Club, as Dustin mentioned. And but inside, I was still the same scared, broken little girl because I grew up in a family where we didn't talk about stuff like that.
4:38 And after my father's funeral, I don't remember us ever mentioning him again. We just moved on as if everything was fine. There's only so long that you can stuff those things because you've
4:50 buried them alive, and they're gonna deal with you until you deal with them. And so 1 day on the 700 club, I had a kind of a mental breakdown. I just couldn't stop crying. And by that evening, I was in the
5:01 psychiatric hospital, same age as my dad when he took his life. And, honestly, I have never felt so abandoned in my life. I felt as if God was angry with me. I remember
5:13 when I was driving from the Christian Broadcasting Network to the hospital in Virginia, and there was this terrible storm came up, and the sky turned a funny shade of green. And I honestly
5:25 thought it was because God was angry with me. And I felt so desperate, but I had something really unusual happened. After I checked into the hospital and I would be there for
5:37 a month diagnosed with severe clinical depression, I didn't get into the bed the first night. I pulled the blanket off the bed, and I sat in the corner of the room, and I was on suicide watch. I was checked every
5:49 15 minutes during the night. And I never looked up when they came in. I just kept my head on my knees. But at 3 o'clock in the morning, the person who came into my room walked all the way to where I was on the
6:00 corner, and they handed me something. But it was something you would give a child. It was a little little stuffed lamb. And then they turned and they walked to the door. And when they got there, they stopped and they
6:12 said just 1 thing. They said, Sheila, the shepherd knows where to find you. And then he was gone. I never saw him. I was there for a month. I never saw him again. I honestly believe it was an angel. But that moment of
6:24 thinking, I'm lost. God is angry with me. I'm a huge disappointment to people. I'm a failure. I'll never be enough. That beautiful message of the shepherd knows where to find you
6:36 lit a flame inside of me that even in dark days since then has never gone out because I know every 1 of us who placed our trust in Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, he knows where to
6:48 find us.
6:49 Yeah. Almost just wanna sit still in that for just a second. First of all, believing in the miracles of what God does and who he sends to us when we need him the very most.
7:02 Like, there aren't coincidences. We don't have to explain those away. God does come for us. And if we don't believe that in his word and when it physically happens in our lives, that is a real moment of hope, and
7:14 that is awesome. 1 of the things you said, you know, you went about pursuing perfection, maybe to try to please the heavenly father like you got a do over. So why do you think that's 1 of the
7:25 first instincts that we have to try and be super moral, super perfect, super obedient? And how did that kind of undo? How
7:37 did you unravel that expectation?
7:40 It's funny. If you I don't know if you guys have children or work around children, but children are the best recorders of information. You think they're not listening, they're missing nothing, but they are the poorest
7:51 interpreters of that information. Children always think it was something they did or something they didn't do. And I think when trauma hits childhood, it just sets us up for expecting the same
8:03 kind of thing. Even like 10 years ago, my husband said to me 1 day, do you think I'm a good driver? And I was like, yeah. I think you're a good driver. And he said, well, why do you always look so tense when
8:15 I'm driving? And so, I mean, I took it seriously because I know it's always a big joke between husbands and wives, but I thought, Lord, why do I do that? And it came to this kind of thing of me thinking the person who
8:25 should love you most is the 1 who's most likely to take you out. So it's been daily unwrapping things and bringing them before the Lord. 1 of my favorite words in the whole English
8:36 language, and it's not very popular, but is the word repentance. I love the word repent because it means we always think it's to do with, oh, you did something terrible and got mad with you. But no, it's to stop going in
8:47 1 direction and to turn around and go in a whole new direction. That even as I became a mom, you know, I remember we took our son to camp, to Pine Cove camp, and driving
8:59 home, Mary and I stopped somewhere to just grab a snack. And he said to me, Do you mind if I ask you something? And the way he said it, I knew it was something that I had to really pay attention to. And he said, do you
9:11 ever feel a slight distance between yourself and Christian and I? And I thought about it for a while. I thought, you know, when you build a wall around your life to protect you
9:22 it's something that doesn't all fall. I mean, I think the hospital, the psychiatric hospital took the first brick out of the wall. I'm still finding that I have to bring those insecurities or those
9:34 those things that you feel are not exactly how God wants you to live, not what Jesus because Galatians, Paul says, it's for freedom that you have been set free. I think God wants that for every 1 of us, but it's a
9:46 process. It's a journey.
9:48 So how would you define putting your hope in, I like to call it, like, the goodness of God as opposed to being able to please him or be
9:59 obedient to him? How did that look for you and really putting your hope in him, and how did that begin to bring peace to you?
10:06 I think for me, it was understanding. The more I researched and the more I read and the more I studied I'm kind of a nerd, so I'm always getting commentaries of things delivered from Amazon Prime. Thank you,
10:17 like nerds here.
10:18 Yeah. But the more I studied, you know, what happened during the crucifixion you know, Martin Luther back in the sixteenth century, he said that for those who saw it that day,
10:30 they assumed Jesus was the worst because they always put the worst criminal in the center. So anybody who was coming into Jerusalem for Passover would and they weren't way up on a hill the way I used to sing
10:42 in Scotland. They were ground eye level with people. People could look at them, and they would assume that man in the middle is the worst of the worst. And in many ways, they were right. He was a perfectly innocent lamb
10:54 of God, but he was about to take on the worst of the worst. And when he went through everything that he went through on the cross and then declared that thing that we all love
11:05 where he said, It is finished. I remember when I was doing some research for a book and I came across something that was an old tax document round about the time
11:17 when Christ would have been on earth, and it had stamped on it. It had stamped on it bill paid in full. And I think for me, that was 1 of those moments where I
11:29 thought, you know, I used to pursue perfection, but now I get to pursue Christ who is perfect because I will never be, and I'm not expected to be. But the thought that it's finished, that Jesus said, I have done it
11:41 all, now you get to rest in me because I am the hope of glory.
11:46 Wow. Yeah. So he was so beautifully patient with you. You were already serving him. You were speaking for him. You were saying his name. You were glorifying him in so many ways, and then he
11:58 allowed the break to set you free.
12:01 Sometimes God will take you to a prison to set you free. Right. That's what I discovered. It's funny. I was speaking at a in a maximum security unit in a woman's prison, and they gave me this 1 girl to kind of help me
12:12 navigate all the different places I was to go. And she was a young girl, beautiful, looked like she could've been my daughter. And I didn't really want to ask her why she was in, but she said to me, let me tell you why
12:23 I'm in prison. And she said, I murdered my husband. He had been tremendously abusive for years, and 1 day I snapped. And I think she could see in my face just this overwhelming sense of
12:35 how hard life is and how unfair life is. And she put her hand on my shoulder, she said, no, Sheila. I want you to know Jesus brought me here to save me.
12:46 Amen.
12:46 I'm more free behind bars than I ever was in the real world. And I think a lot of us have experienced that, maybe not physically at prison, but God will take us to the place where we can finally stop and
12:58 listen and be still in his presence.
13:00 Yeah. That's great. That's great.
13:03 I wanted to ask about I mean, this connection. I'm trying to think of a connection between, like, the perfectionism you were pursuing, but also you said, you know, you're diagnosed
13:14 with severe depression. Do you think back to those years or days, like, would you have called yourself depressed? Did you know you were depressed? Like,
13:25 or That's a great question, actually.
13:27 Did it just come across as like, if people looked at you, it'd be like, no. She's she's totally fine.
13:32 No 1 would have known. I mean and neither did I. I didn't know there was such a thing as clinical depression. I mean, back then, that was in 19 92, people didn't talk much about that kind of stuff, certainly not within a
13:43 church or Christian context. It was just things like I would go to the ATM machine and I couldn't remember my 4 digit PIN, or I couldn't sleep, or I would feel this more than
13:55 just a bad day. It felt like someone had taken a heavy blanket and soaked it in ice cold water and wrapped it around my shoulders. Just this weight, this heaviness that I carried around. But honestly, in my
14:07 mind, I kind of thought, well, maybe that's just the way things are until I get to heaven. You know, once I get to heaven, then I'm home free. I just have to get through this life. But, you know, I discovered that's
14:19 not what Jesus wants. He doesn't want us just to survive. He said, I've come that you might have a life and have it abundantly.
14:26 Yeah. I just wanna ask you. This is a little bit of a different direction. You know, we have a lot of hope conversations, conversations, and we're coming up on a year of this time. And so we've talked a lot about hope.
14:36 We've shared some of our personal stories, Dustin's story and my story. I don't have kids, and I've never been married, and so just singleness and not having children and those types of things. So but we've shared how we
14:48 have hope not in God's answers, but in God's goodness. And sometimes I feel like surrender to God's plans and purposes. Surrender, like,
15:00 surrender to maybe some of the struggles that you've had, like accepting God's will. Christ accepted God's will. He said, if you take it from me, that would be great, but your will not mine. So what would
15:11 be to you? How would you talk about the difference between being willing to surrender to God's will and to continue to hope, to continue to pray? So the difference in hope and surrender, those
15:23 are couple of things to balance.
15:26 Yeah. That's a great question, a very insightful. You're right. Because to me, hope when I place my hope in God, it's not hope in a result. I'm not hoping in Christ so that
15:37 he'll do this or he'll do that. But it's rather like, let me give you a practical example. When our son was 5, I believe, maybe just turned 5, I felt there was something wrong with him. And I couldn't
15:49 put my finger on it, but I just knew there was something wrong. And so I took him to the pediatrician, and he ran some tests, he said, no. He's absolutely fine. And we went home, and I I was still like, nope. He's wrong.
16:01 So I took him back again, and I asked if he would do more blood tests.
16:05 Mhmm.
16:05 And he did. And then he came back and he said, I'll call you all tomorrow. I just need to wait for the final results. And he was a friend of ours. I knew him personally. And so as Barry and our son,
16:17 Christian, went out to the car, I stayed behind. I said, listen. Tell me what you think. And he said, Sheila, I don't know definitely. It's between 1 and 10. And I said, well, what's 10? And he said, leukemia. So I
16:29 remember we drove home, and that night Christian said, can I sleep in your bed? And I'm like, yes. Do you want a pony? You made
16:36 Here's the keys to the car, 5 year old.
16:40 But I didn't sleep all night. I walked the floors. And I walked the floors, and I walked around. I anointed my son with oil gently while he was sleeping. And I had
16:52 this ongoing conversation with God as to you know, I was 40 when my son was born. I didn't think I'd ever have children. And to give me this beautiful boy only to take him away. And but
17:04 what I found during the night was I wanted, I thought I wanted answers. You know, I thought I need to know what's gonna happen. I need answers. What I discovered and have continued to discover is what I
17:15 really wanted was God's presence because God's presence changes everything. Time dawn was breaking that morning, I thought, you know what, Lord? You love Christian way more than Barry and I do,
17:28 and you have a perfect plan for his life. It says in Psalm 139 before he was even born, you knew every single day. So rather than clinging on to what I think
17:39 hope should look like, I'm gonna cling to you because you are what hope looks like.
17:45 Yeah. I love that. Thank you for sharing that. I think God's presence, that's the peace that I think so many people we're looking for peace. We're looking to figure out ways to
17:57 cope and to heal and trying to find how many hours of sleep do I get, what am I supposed to be eating, how much, you know, if I walk 20 minutes after the dinner, then the and how to we're trying to solve
18:09 so many things, but that we really want God's presence. That's what brings peace. That's what would make the surrender of, like, Christ, his surrender,
18:21 our surrender. It's to reconcile and to be back in the presence of God, to have him with us, which I know he's always there, but it's like getting that opportunity to have that step of faith
18:32 and make that choice, to understand the beauty of that. It's your presence that I want, and that's what's gonna come what may. I can relate to that. My 5 year old niece was diagnosed with leukemia.
18:44 She's 31 now, and praise God. But that story of coming to those pivot points where it's like, what do I believe right now? Like, this is the hard
18:55 moment, and what do I believe about who you are and about what's gonna bring me hope? Yeah. Thank you.
19:02 In fact, I had just last year I mean, this is much more recent, but I did a silly thing. I had this jar of cream, face cream that my husband had bought me at Christmas, and it was quite expensive.
19:14 And I thought it was empty, but I saw there was some left at the bottom. So being Scottish, I didn't want to throw any of it away. So I was scraping the bottom to get all this cream out. And all I did, it was a simple
19:24 thing I'd probably done 100 times. I just bent forward to get my hair out my face and flipped my hair back. And in that second, there was a crack, and I couldn't move. I immediately threw up. I was in
19:36 a very bad place. Oh, no. And I thought I'd broken my neck. And, eventually, my husband, when he didn't hear anything from upstairs, came up, and it was a bit of a plava, but we finally got to the emergency
19:48 room. Mhmm. And they told us it'll be about a 6 hour wait, and we're busy today. It turned out to be 18 hours. Oh my. Oh my goodness. But the interesting thing for me was when I was about to go into the
19:59 MRI machine, which and I'm a little claustrophobic, so I don't really like that. Yeah. But the engineer, the technician said to me, here's a panic button. He said, I'll be in the other room, and you'll be alone in here.
20:11 And the minute he said that, I thought, no, I won't. I will not be alone. And I didn't tell him that in case he moved me to another section of the hospital.
20:18 Right.
20:20 But I was trying to explain. It'd be hard to explain to him. But I knew I was not alone. I know that there's nowhere I can go for God's presence. And even in that laying in that
20:31 tube just waiting for results, it turned out I just torn ligaments in my neck, which, you know, would eventually heal.
20:37 Yeah. I pray
20:38 that. What I discovered is the peace of God is available even when you don't know the results. Because so often we think if you'll just get me through this, if you answer this 1 prayer, then I'll have your peace. Yeah.
20:49 But I think Christ has promised peace in the middle of a storm. Yeah. And I experienced that myself. It was very palpable.
20:58 Yeah. That's so good. Yeah. I'm a Band Aid ripper offer. I want God to just rip the Band Aid off. Just do this real quick. Tell me yes, no. Where are we going? Where are we headed? Because obedience and surrender, I got
21:09 it. You know? Like, let's just do it. And he's so far, Sheila, has not aligned completely to my
21:18 directions. Surprise. Surprise.
21:21 Which is kind of a miss on his part if he were to miss something, but we're gonna go ahead and let him make the decisions, I guess. Yeah. Okay. Just
21:29 I'm thinking of just the the couple of places you've mentioned, like, I'm just imagining you in a lonely psych ward room, then later pacing in your
21:41 bedroom over your son and just enclosed MRI machine. These are all, like, places where it's just kind of, like, alone in some sense. So I wanted to ask just like, it seems like God has
21:53 met you in these places where it some sense feels hopeless. And so I wanted to ask about, like, what's been the role of just, like, prayer? It sounds so simple. The role of just prayer
22:05 and the word of God in your life kind of in these type of moments where it just feels like it's just me and him right now.
22:12 Yeah. Yeah. Great question. I have this thing that I do, which my husband knows about, but most other people don't unless I walk into my living room. When I was 18 and I was about
22:24 to go off to seminary in London, I decided I wanted for the summer just to volunteer somewhere in my hometown of Scotland. So I volunteered at this senior center, which was a place where I could go and, you know,
22:36 feed lunches, serve coffees, play, do all sorts of stuff with these senior citizens. But there was 1 gentleman I could never reach. He always sat with his back to the wall and wouldn't come to the table for lunch, so I
22:48 would always take it to him on a tray. But 1 day I thought, I'm just gonna try harder. So I took the tray to him and then I got a chair and I sat beside him. He didn't look up. And I
23:00 said to him, Hi, my name is Sheila and I'm from this town, but 1 day I'm gonna go to America. And his face lit up like he had just won the lottery. And he said, My name's George. I'm from
23:12 America. If you ever get to Poughkeepsie, tell them George said hi. I said, I will. I have no idea what a Poughkeepsie is, but I will. But here's the thing that was so sweet to me.
23:24 In the remaining few weeks, probably 4 or 5 weeks that I had left, after my father's suicide, we lost our home. We lost our car. So we were living in government housing, and I would take 2 buses to get to
23:36 the center. So occasionally, if the bus was late, I'd be a little late. But no matter what was going on in the center that day, no matter who was speaking or anything, the minute I walked through the door, George would
23:47 cry out, she came. Yeah. So what I do is I put a chair in the middle of the living room and I sit in God's presence. And I hear heaven crying over
23:59 me, she came. Yeah. There's something so beautiful about just being with the Lord. You know, I used to have like, I was brought up a good Scottish Baptist where we had to have a quiet time
24:11 and, you know, and it was almost like checking things off your list. Mhmm. So I felt like, well, I've done that. I've read a bit of the bible and I've prayed, and now I'm good. I live my life now.
24:20 Mhmm.
24:20 Whereas it's just not that way for me anymore. I mean, the moment I wake up in the morning, when I'm aware of being awake, my first thing is, good morning, Lord. I don't know where you're going today, but wherever you're
24:31 going, I'm coming with you. Yeah. And then when I take I have a wee dog, Maggie, who's a Yorkie, and she's such a barker. I mean, I've even found our neighbors just oh, it's awful. We have there's a verse in Proverbs
24:43 that talks about her. It says, when they see us coming, they walk the other way.
24:47 Oh, Maggie,
24:48 relax. Yeah. But in the morning, I'll take her out for a walk, and I think of Adam and Eve, how they were able to walk with God in the cool of the evening, that that was something that was supposed to be normal. And so
25:00 when I would step outside the front door, I'll say, Lord, here we go. This is our walk. And I talk to him all day. I have never in my life had a friend like Jesus. My husband
25:12 and I have been married for 30 years and I love him, but I have never loved anyone the way that Jesus has loved me back to life. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome.
25:23 It reminds me of a story. Do you know the author Brennan Manning?
25:27 Oh, I love Brennan.
25:28 Yeah. He tells a story about a guy who is that kind of hospice kind of end of life care, and he didn't understand how to pray. And so Brennan had taught him just I'll set a
25:40 chair next to you. And, you know, he's in bed kind of all day bedridden. And so he just said, just Jesus says, you know, I'm with you always. So just in faith, talk to
25:51 Jesus. You don't have to make it super complicated. So he learned to pray like this. And when he finally passed away, the way he tells the story was that the guy's head was not
26:03 in bed, but he was resting on the chair.
26:06 Oh my gosh.
26:07 And there was just kind of a beautiful, just simplicity about what prayer means, what it means to be in the presence of God. Mhmm. And it sounds like you've had just like, you've cultivated that kind of
26:19 prayer life of just he's with me. I'm with him. And so
26:24 It's so funny because I I wrote a book some time ago about prayer. It's called Praying Women. But I went on all my socials before I started to write because I wanted to know. And so I said to people,
26:35 okay. If I say the word prayer, what comes to your mind? And don't say what you think I want to hear. This is a place where we're just gonna tell the truth. And some of them I expected, like, people would say, well, I
26:47 get distracted. I'm halfway through praying, and I think, did I defrost the chicken? Or, you know, all those kind of things. But some of them were a little more heartbreaking. I prayed that my husband wouldn't leave, and
26:58 he left anyway. I prayed that this wouldn't happen, and it happened. So why would I pray anymore? God's already decided what he's gonna do. Why pray? And 1 of the things I love when our son he's
27:10 now a clinical psychologist, but when he was doing this undergraduate degree at Texas A and M, we would go up and watch football games, there was a hotel we liked to stay in, and it was because of the fragrance in the
27:22 lobby. They had their signature fragrance. And the minute you walked I
27:26 love that.
27:26 Oh, it was awesome. But here's what I love the more I study God's word that God has chosen a fragrance for heaven. We read about it in Psalms and in the revelation given to John on Patmos, and it's
27:38 the prayers of his people. It says the angels hold up these great bowls of incense before the Lord, and they are the prayers of his people. Then I think of people who think I'm not good at prayer. I don't know what to
27:49 say. Why would God listen to me? There's not a single prayer that hasn't been held up in the father's presence.
27:55 Yeah. Wow. That's so good. I love that. I was laughing at myself with the Lord. Like, I write everything down. I always say,
28:08 I'm gonna have to burn these journals someday just to make sure that nobody gets them. Because and I usually, it starts out, okay, Lord. Then I just write everything. And I I went back, and I was reading
28:19 something. I have these little prayer cards where I've been writing some prayers on there. And I went back, and I read 1. And I literally wrote out, oh, I forgot to tell you yesterday. Like like we were on the phone or
28:31 something talking. But I think it's a constant conversation with him. And just like our best friends that wanna hear our hearts and that we get to like you know, I
28:43 have a group of friends that I really get to just I never wanna be somebody different in any room that I'm in, And I'm 56 percent Scottish. I did work it in. Woo. Yeah.
28:53 No. I could kinda tell.
28:54 Could kinda tell. You. But yeah. Like, I'm super excited about that according to my DNA. And, Sheila, we we've had 1 other international guest from Scotland. So apparently awesome. Yeah. Gareth
29:06 Russell, he's a friend. He's lives in the UK. He and his wife, Andy, but he was on our show too. So we've had 2 international guests and both Scottish. I think that we're coming for them. We're coming for you, America.
29:18 But anyways, I think when we have those friends that we can just really breathe deep with, and not put our makeup on, and not do our hair, and sit in our pajamas, and talk, when when we realize that
29:30 we have that opportunity with the Lord, like, both the reverence and the intimacy, both the awe of who he is and the knowledge that he hears us and then trusting
29:42 him with that, trusting him when you think your son is sick, what do we do with that? And when we're going through the really hard times and recognizing that those hard times are so many
29:53 times where he sits us still so that he can set us free. Yeah. I mean, I'll sing What a Friend We Have in Jesus. That's the song that's in my head right now. I'm trying to hold still on it. But What a Friend We
30:05 Have in Jesus. Absolutely. And that that his word and his spirit truly comforts us. Now I have said there are times when I will not be consoled, that I'm a little bit mad, and I don't
30:17 let him encourage me because I don't wanna be encouraged. I don't wanna hear it right now. And so I know that there's times that I have bowed up, and I blame my parents for that. They should have parented
30:29 that out of me.
30:30 Clearly. Clearly.
30:31 Listening. That's on them. But I think that he is a friend. And if we have a hope story, if we have a hope talk, yes, healer and savior and all of those things, but also
30:42 that that he is our friend, think, is 1 of the most important. I love that him said it that way.
30:48 And you have to bring who you actually are to him. That's 1 of the things that has been really important since our son was little. When my mother-in-law died, my father-in-law moved in with us, which was
31:00 great for our son because he would let him do things we would never let him do. And so it was just a perfect arrangement between a little boy and his grandfather. Yeah. But Christian and I were the only 2 home the night
31:12 that William died. Barry was at a meeting in Florida, and he had a heart attack. And so we called 9 1 1. So Christian and I in the car following behind the ambulance
31:24 because they were able to revive him. But by the time we got to the hospital, he had passed. And over the next few days and couple of weeks, Christian did what I expected. You know, he cried. We talked
31:36 about it a little bit. He just missed him so much. But then 1 day, he did something a little out of character. We had adopted this enormous cat from the shelter, and Christian loved this hairy beast. ButShow more
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