Honestly
By Sheila Walsh

Have you ever watched someone on TV and thought how great it must be to be them? How much fun and interesting their life must be? I think we all have at some point wanted to be like someone else, perhaps someone on TV. But things are not always as they seem.
Such was the case with Sheila Walsh. Successful, beautiful and talented, Sheila was on the 700 Club for millions to see. But what the millions could not see was the tragic struggle that was warring within her. Trying desperately to be a good Christian example and worried about the people who may now turn away from the help she'd been trying to give them, Sheila checked herself into a psychiatric hospital.
While Sheila's story is not so unlike many others, it is a bright reminder that we all are forgiven, regardless of who we are. And sometimes, it is not until we quite literally lay it down at the feet of Jesus, that will we have the inner peace to recognize that we are loved unconditionally by God.

I once had the opportunity to meet Sheila Walsh in person, and to hear this story first hand, as she was the guest speaker at our first ever HeartBeat Conference. And as an avid reader, I often give voice to those people or characters in the books I'm reading. So as I read the finer details of this already familiar story, it brought back the sound in Sheila's voice that urged "We are not alone!". When we decide to live our lives "honestly", and put God back in charge of what he has called us to do, the chains that bind us to our worldly ways will surely break free, honestly.