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Sheila Walsh communicates her Christian faith through broadcasting, singing, writing songs, writing books, and speaking at conferences, most notably Women of Faith. In her books, such as Honestly and Living Fearlessly, she revealed her own journey of faith in an unusually unguarded way. Her latest is titled All That Really Matters (Waterbrook).

In your books and speaking, you've been very honest about your struggles. How have people responded?

Well, it's really important for me, Dick. I mean, it was 12 years ago that I was in the psychiatric hospital, but this year at all the Women of Faith Conferences I talk on Friday night about the fact that, you know, many of you know I went through that experience and struggle with that. But what you might not know is I'm still on medication. It's an ongoing battle for me. I'm not fixed.

But I find that really delightful that God uses our brokenness to be a bridge to other people. A number of people who have written to me, after conferences and said, Look. I've tried to be okay. I came off my medication. I've been really in trouble. How do you talk? The thing that surprises people is you could be involved in something. God can still use you when you're not perfect.

Why does the church have such a difficult time handling honesty?

There's this little echo inside where you think, if you knew the real me, I wouldn't belong here. That, to me, is such a shame. We should be able to be the most honest people, the most vulnerable, the most transparent.

We know that we come to the cross because we've blown it, because we're sinners, because we're hopeless. And then we spend the rest of our life trying to prove to God he probably didn't need to do that anyway because we've got our act so together.

The first chapter of your new book, All That Really Matters, focuses on moving from a performance mindset to understanding what really matters to God.

Two thousand years ago a man asked Jesus a question that, if we understood it, would transform the way we are living our life right now. This guy said to Jesus, What's the one thing? What's the one thing, amongst all the things out there, that really matters? And Jesus said, Look. There's only one thing. Love God with everything you have and are, and love your neighbor as yourself.

We want to think there's something we could do, or one speaker that we could hear, or one church that we could go to where it seems like God's doing something special—then suddenly we would get it. All the little things in life that are not working would suddenly fall into place.

It's settling for so much less than Jesus actually, the plan that he offered for us. The thing I think is outrageous about God is that he looked down and saw that we have no idea what he's like. You know, even in our best moments we don't have a shadow of a glimpse of what he's like. So the God of the universe entered our stage in the womb of a teenage girl to show us. Everywhere Jesus went, he was saying, Look at me. This is what God is like. This is what it looks like, to love God with everything, and to love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Where do we go from there, once we recognize that we're on the wrong track?

Part of it in my own life has been getting to know who God actually is as opposed to who I think he is. My father died when I was young and it was a fairly traumatic experience for me. And I projected all those ideas and pictures onto God. And so one of the ways I began, just a couple of years ago, was I actually studied and asked, "God, what have you told us about who you are? What have you revealed about who you are?"

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September (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47