Sheila Walsh: Testimony of Healing from Clinical Depression | Women of Faith on TBN

my guest instead of answering my question turned the tables and said to me sheila you sit here every day asking how we're doing how are you doing and she meant it kindly but i wasn't prepared for and i hadn't time to pull up that wall and i fell apart on national television and by that evening i was in the locked board of a psychiatric hospital [Music] people think man my life if it was only as great as sheila walsh's i mean everything must just go perfect for her growing up it just must have been all rosy and great but i want you to tell us the real story what happened in your life and tell us how god brought you to this point in your life well i was born um in the west coast of scotland a small fishing village and i was born to a mom and dad who loved jesus which wouldn't be unusual in the states but in scotland at that point less than three percent of our population even went to church wow so to have a mom and dad who didn't just go to church but who really loved jesus was such a gift my sister who's two years older she's kind of what every mother hopes for you know she liked all the kind of ribbons and sticky outy dresses but i was a tomboy so i adored my dad i thought there was nobody on this earth quite like my father um but when i was about five years old my father had a massive brain aneurysm which changed his personality and he went from being this warm loving dad to a confused and ultimately violent stranger and the last day i ever saw my dad i turned just in time to see that he was about to bring his cane down in my skull and i don't know whether i pushed it or pulled it but he lost his balance and lay on the ground just roaring like an animal and the last look in my father's eyes was one of absolute hatred and he was taken off that day to what was then called our local lunatic asylum it's what you'd call a psych hospital these days he was 34 years old wow but he managed to escape one night and he drowned himself in the river behind the hospital and you didn't take children to funerals in scotland to a gravesite all i remember is my mom coming home in a black dress with a black hat on and taking every single picture of my father off the walls or off the table and putting them in a little suitcase which she locked and pushed under the bed and we never mentioned his name again wow i think we know so much more now about how to help children process grief i think my mom thought i'll let sheila bring the conversation up sure she had no way of knowing that there was a question that burned inside of me that no one could answer what did my dad see in me that made him hate me so much so i grew up with what i call a profound sense of shame and here's how i differentiate between shame and guilt if i said something unkind to you i would feel guilty until i could say listen please forgive me that was all my fault right so guilt tells me i've done something wrong right shame tells me i am something wrong wow and what do you do with that and i remember the night i gave my life to christ when i was 11. my mom prayed for me and she said something that would be good news to most people she said sheila not only is christ your savior and your lord you have a heavenly father watching out for you watching over you but i remember 11 thinking i've got one more chance to get it right whatever my earthly dad saw in me that made him hate me my heavenly father is never going to see me i'm going to be the perfect christian if it kills me wow and it but you know it nearly did yeah wow yeah you know i i mean that can just put you in such a performance trap so quick absolutely it's why i went to seminary when i was 19 i went to london theological seminary to train to be a missionary in india because i couldn't think of anything i would hate more wow i actually thought how you know how proud of god of me god would be thinking look at her she's traveling which she hates to do going to a country with very large crawly beasties um all because she loves me for the girl so it's like to please god something that i don't want to do like watch me lord watch me wow um and god redirected my steps i ended up working with billy graham and his crusades wow and then um i got an invitation to become pat robertson's co-host on the 700 club incredible for five years but inside i was still the same scared little broken girl who wouldn't let anybody get close to her in case you saw what my father saw do you know it's possible to be very well known and desperately lonely yeah that's how i lived wow you know it's crazy you can be rich and be lonely you can be married and be lonely you can be worshiping god with all your heart on sunday and be lonely yeah it's amazing how that happens now you know i just want to ask about something too you just you talked about your mom she probably just did the best she could oh absolutely my mom just didn't know amazing no one talked about mental health issues at least that i remember until the last probably what five or ten years and particularly in scotland i mean in scotland you know i was brought up in a very conservative in my church my great great grandfather made the communion table you know we came from this long line of godly strong women but we didn't talk about the things that really hurt us you know we just carried on but god and his mercy that's what blows me away about the love of god yeah you know he god knew i was just surviving and he set up a rescue plan that i would never have signed up for but god's plans are so much greater than we could imagine yeah and what happened to me was one morning on live television my guest instead of answering my question turned the tables and said to me sheila you sit here every day asking how we're doing how are you doing and she meant it kindly but i wasn't prepared for and i hadn't time to pull up that wall and i fell apart on national television and by that evening i was in the locked ward of a psychiatric hospital wow wow goodness so you know it's interesting you say that because i think god allows people to make a giant mistake or a fall or a failure or just kind of fall apart in in a public setting because that way you can't deny it or hide it any longer so now you have to deal with it yeah so here you are in the psych ward and you're like i'm this christian leader everyone looks to and my life is crumbling what's going through your mind at this point you know it was interesting because the person who was the most supportive and loving toward me was pat robertson wow you know he was i mean he was my boss he was the man i looked up to a mentor he should have been the one saying you know we're talking about healing and miracles here and you've fallen off your chair yeah but he was the most loving and supportive but one of our senior staff took me for a walk around our building before i headed to the hospital and he said you can't do this if people find out where you're going they will never trust you again your ministry will be over wow you're the weak link here you know the enemy is trying to use you to destroy this ministry and i felt so i mean i already felt so guilty yeah and it just made me feel so much worse and he said you need to save your ministry he meant it good he meant it well i'm sure but i but what i said to him was i'm not trying to save my ministry i'm trying to save my life wow wow and that's the amazing thing about god wow that's incredible you know sheila the thing is is that i don't think your situation is unique at all i think this is something that people really resonate all over the world but nobody wants to say it i know it's the elephant in the room yeah you know what was interesting was i hadn't even thought about the fact that this unit i was in was a christian unit within a psychiatric hospital wow so it hadn't occurred to me that some of these other patients would know who i was and that first morning you know they take away your belt your hose your makeup your hair dryer anything you'd hurt yourself with i remember saying to the nurse trust me i have no intentions of blow drying myself to death right she was not impressed yes but the next morning up on my bathrobe and i wandered along to where the other patients were and it was one of those moments when you know everybody's talking until you walk in and they're just like silence and this one guy eventually said are you sheila walsh and i said yeah he said what are you doing here and i said i'm a patient and he said yeah right and i said you think i'm here to do a documentary in my bathrobe i don't think so and he said something that was hard to hear but it was part of my healing he said hey i don't mean to offend you we all watch you every morning you're supposed to be helping us wow but when you finally fall off yourself yeah and join the rest of people who love god but don't have all the answers those who are beautifully broken by christ that's so good that's so good wow you know i remember the first time i shared in church some shortcomings and my wife was like people are are going to freak out that you struggle with this or that and the exact opposite happened people were drawn to it i just believe god uses a brokenness and in you to this day it's attractive it draws people to your ministry into your words gives you more influence not less influence exact opposite what we think yeah and i think we need to decide who is the hero of our story i'm not the hero of my story jesus is the hero of my story i'm not the good news

Channel: Women of Faith on TBN

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Keywords: sheila walsh, sheila walsh testimony, depression, abuse, testimony, testimonies, sheila walsh songs, sheila walsh albums, shiela walsh mental health, mental health, clinical depression, sheila walsh sermons, prayer, women of faith, mental health in church, mental hospital, death of a parent during childhood, abusive father, depression in the church, sheila, walsh, women of faith on tbn, praise, praise on tbn, women in ministry, women support women, W9O6F3, WO96, OF63, 9W6O3F, WOF963

Id: PypSfNsy6fw

Length: 9min 18sec (558 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 24 2022