NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — Best-selling author and Bible teacher Sheila Walsh wants women to know that just because she’s famous, that doesn’t mean her life is perfect. She’s had her share of ups and downs and she hopes her story will inspire others during a women’s conference March 4 and 5 at the Jones Center for Families in Springdale.
“I want to let women know I’m not up there because I have all my ducks in a row,” said Walsh, who began her ministry career as a contemporary Christian singer in Scotland in the late 1970s. She came to America in the ’80s to tour with Phil Keaggy.
Today, she’s known for much more than music. She writes books for adults and children - the “Gigi, God’s Little Princess” series - and tours the country with the popular Women of Faith ministry along with other mega-stars in the Christian community, including Sandi Patty, Luci Swindoll and Amy Grant.
She has also been a talk show host.
Viewers of The 700 Club will remember Walsh as Pat Robertson’s co-host in the late 1980s and early 1990s. What was to be a three-day guest hosting appearance turned into a job offer. From her first day, Walsh said it was clear she wasn’t the Scottish version of Barbara Walters.
“Pat asked me what my perspective was on the current situation in the West Bank,” Walsh said. “I was so intimidated by the live audience and my mind was blank. What came out of my mouth was, ‘I’m with Bank of America.’”
The humorous response struck a chord with Robertson and he invited her to join the show as co-host.
“He said, ‘You have a lot of work to do but I feel that God has called you,’” Walsh said.
Her run on the show was successful and she received the go-ahead for her own show as well - Heart to Heart With Sheila Walsh. She was a rising star in the evangelical world, and by outward appearances Walsh had it all. But inside she was struggling with depression.
The happy facade came crashing down one day in 1992.
“I went from being on The 700 Club one morning and by that evening I was in a locked ward of a psychiatric hospital diagnosed with clinical depression,” Walsh said.
The depression had been festering for years, she said. Her father suffered a severe brain injury when she was a child and Walsh said it radically changed his personality from warm and loving to hostile and angry. He died at age 34 - the same age Walsh was when she entered the psychiatric hospital. Walsh remembers the last time she saw him.
“He was trying to bring a cane down on my head,” she said. “The last thing I saw in his eyes was hatred and I wondered what he saw in me that was so despicable. It led to the next 20 or 30 years of me trying to be the perfect Christian woman.”
Walsh detailed her ordeal in the memoir Honestly and has since gone on to write several more books, including her latest, The Shelter of God’s Promises. She’ll talk about the promises of God during her visit to Northwest Arkansas.
“We live in a time where promises aren’t delivered,” Walsh said. “I want to let women know they can be going through a tough time in their marriage or with the economy, but here’s what you can stake your life on [the promises of God]. ... There’s nothing in this world that can separate us from the love of God.”
She’ll also share some of her struggle with depression, in part to address the stigma attached to mental illness,especially in the Christian world.
“I always include a little of the story to let people know that today I still take medication and probably will all my life,” she said. “I take that pill every morning with a prayer of thanksgiving that God has provided help.”
Walsh said she has known since her teenage years that she was destined to be in ministry and to write and sing. She hopes that by sharing her story and God’s love she can offer inspiration to others.
“The time to run to God is when you are in the biggest mess of your life,” she said. “It’s huge to me that people understand it’s not about what we get right. It’s about realizing we need help.”
Despite her own battle with depression, Walsh said she has never had a crisis of faith. Through it all, God has been a constant companion,she said.
“I’ve never struggled with feeling that God wasn’t with me,” she said. “There have been times when I’ve been angry ... but I never doubted God. He is more real to me than my breath, but I don’t always understand his ways .... It doesn’t stop me from trusting him but it catapults me deeper into his Word.” Walsh will speak March 4 and 5 at the Jones Center, 922 E. Emma Ave., Springdale. The program is sponsored by Freedom Fellowship of Tontitown. Information and tickets are available by calling (479) 236-5529 or online at
shei lawalsh. com
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Religion, Pages 27 on 02/24/2011