Sheila Walsh Quotes & Sayings

When our dreams seem to go sour or remain unfulfilled, hopelessness can dominate our lives-or we can hold on with open hands, knowing that we have hope because God is faithful. — Sheila Walsh

Theres not one good thought in me, apart from God. Thats the good news. — Sheila Walsh

Sometimes we simply don't want to face the truth about ourselves; the myth reads so much better. Sometimes we do not seek help because it will mean we have to change, and change is painful and unpredictable. To me, now, faith is bringing all that is true about our lives into the blinding light of God's grace. It is believing that He will still be there at the end of the journey, and so will we, perhaps a little bloodied, probably with a limp, and possibly, as the Skin Horse said, with most of our hair loved off, but we will be there. — Sheila Walsh

I now think it takes more faith to name our need than to keep believing that something will happen and not doing anything about it. It takes faith, and great courage, to get help, to take the first painful step toward the dream that is in our hearts...I know now that you can look at bricks and cement for years, believing in the vision of a home, but until you get down on your hands and knees and start to build, it will remain a dream. — Sheila Walsh

God has promised that whatever you face, you are not alone. He knows your pain. He loves you. And He will bring you through the fire. — Sheila Walsh

Don't let a storm keep you from counting on what Jesus has told you. — Sheila Walsh

When we don't deal honestly with our lives and the losses we face, when we try to anesthetize the pain and move on, then the suppressed anger or fear or guilt will deal with us until we are ready to deal with those issues. — Sheila Walsh

Be still, and know that I am God. I know I sometimes do. Countless times I've sat down to try to be still and holy. It's never worked very well. Only recently when I was studying this passage did I realize my misunderstanding of the text: the original Hebrew root of Be still doesn't mean "be quiet"; it means "let go." That's very different, don't you think? Let go and know that I am God! Let go of trying to control your spouse! Let go of your worry about your finances! Let go of your unforgiveness! Let go of your past! Let go of what you can't control - and rest in the knowledge that God is in control! — Sheila Walsh

But the witness of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus is that God's most difficult promise has been kept. — Sheila Walsh

Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name. (Psalm 86:11 ESV) — Sheila Walsh

The Father is truly the only Promise Maker who is in earnest a Promise Keeper. A promise from God is a promise kept. — Sheila Walsh

There are some of you here today who feel like dead people. It is as if you are already six feet under, staring up at the top of your own locked coffin. This morning Jesus wants to set you free. You simply have to let go of the key and pass it through the little hole, where you see a tiny shaft of light. — Sheila Walsh

Truth is always a turning point. — Sheila Walsh

God's love is a gift that can make you forget yourself at times. The Scottish writer George MacDonald said, "It is the heart that is not yet sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in his presence." God loves us as we are right now! That's one of the things I'm most grateful for. I love the freedom to be myself in God. I pray that a year from now, five years from now, I will be a godlier woman, but I know God won't love me any more than he does right this minute. — Sheila Walsh

...the greatest barrier to intimacy is fear -- fear of being known, fear of being rejected, fear of facing the truth about ourselves...

...We are afraid to be known because at some deep level we fear that the truth about us, when out in the open and reflected back to us through someone else's eyes, will be shocking to ourselves. — Sheila Walsh

It is one thing to say that the Lord is my Shepherd; it is quite another to be lost and have Him guide me home. — Sheila Walsh

We have to separate promises that may never be kept from God's promises, which will never be broken. — Sheila Walsh

If you feel stuck, bring your whole self to Christ, not just the problem, but you. Ask God to change your heart. Commit yourself to pray to that end. It's God's heart to give good gifts to His children. — Sheila Walsh

In these uncertain times, I know 100 percent that I can stake my life on the unshakeable, unchanging promises of God! — Sheila Walsh

I never knew You lived so close to the floor,
but every time I am bowed down,
crushed by this weight of grief,
I feel Your hand on my head,
Your breath on my cheek,
Your tears on my neck.
You never tell me to pull myself together,
to stem the flow of many years.
You simply stay by my side
for as long as it takes,
so close to the floor. — Sheila Walsh

Christ knows all that is true about our story, the parts we own and the parts we would delete, and He invites us to bring them all into the spotlight of His grace. — Sheila Walsh

Real rest comes with knowing the grace of our salvation in Jesus. We don't have to earn it. — Sheila Walsh

If we mistake God's silence for indifference, we are the most miserable of people. If we give up when we no longer understand, we reject His caring, steadfast love and cut ourselves off from our only real hope. — Sheila Walsh

You're chosen by the One who will never unchoose you. You're loved when the crowd cheers and when the lights go out and they all go home. — Sheila Walsh

What I think we as the church lack, though, is a place to talk about how things really are right now. In our desire to be an inspiration to one another we often veil what is true, because what is true is not always inspirational. It's not easy to watch or personally experience a marriage on the verge of divorce, or a child battling cancer, or a betrayal of the worst kind, or dreams lost in the dust, or overwhelming feelings of despair or emptiness. But these things are real. And hurting believers whose lives are in tatters need real help. If we were able to put aside our need for approval long enough to be authentic, then, surely, we would be living as the church. — Sheila Walsh

A rabbit, it has been said, can outrun a lion. But the rabbit's great fear of the lion paralyzes it, making it easy for the lion to catch and consume it. — Sheila Walsh

will triumph over evil, and that, in the end, truth will be revealed and the story will come full circle. It all happens within a few pages, and it all happens on this earth. But we do not live in Hans Christian Andersen's world. We live in this world. As Christians, we know there will come a day when all tears will be wiped away, when peace and joy will be the only songs we know, but we have a long road to walk until that Day of the Lord. For the moment, we have to live with one another, with all the good and bad that come with it. The sad truth is that we will let one another down. We will bruise each other. We will fail. So how should we live in the midst of this reality? — Sheila Walsh

It's my absolute passionate belief that every single human being, man, woman, or child, is aching to find a face-to-face relationship with God. — Sheila Walsh

Lord God, I long to hear Your voice but not just secondhand through teachers, as wonderful and godly as they can be. I long to hear Your voice firsthand. — Sheila Walsh

While walking through a dark season, if we attempt to navigate our lives by what we feel, we will run aground onto the rocks. We must navigate by what we know is true no matter what we feel. — Sheila Walsh

My times of silence before God are very important to me now. I put everything else down, every word away, and I am with the Lord. When I'm quiet, life falls into perspective for me. I have a very active mind and I'm a worrier, but in those moments when I choose to put that away, I rest beside the Shepherd in still places. Why don't you give yourself a gift today? Turn off the television or the car stereo, put down the newspaper or the business plan, and in the quietness, rest for a while beside the Shepherd of your soul. — Sheila Walsh

Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive. - C. S. LEWIS, MERE CHRISTIANITY — Sheila Walsh

I got pregnant and turned 40 at the same time. — Sheila Walsh

You are loved, you are beautiful, you are treasured, and you are a daughter of the living God. — Sheila Walsh

I've never walked to an altar in my life. I gave my life to Christ in my bedroom as a child. — Sheila Walsh

When I work with Women of Faith, I probably talk to anything from 15- to 20,000 women a weekend. They are dying to hear somebody tell their story out loud and not self-combust, to bring all the secrets out of the shadow into Gods light. — Sheila Walsh

One of the things I am very aware of not having in my life is the love of my father ... but I know now that it is hard to make up that loss in the life of a daughter.
It's your dad who tells you that you are beautiful.
Its your dad who picks you up over his head and carries you on his shoulders.
It's your did who will fight the monsters under your bed.
It's your dad who tells you that you are worth a lot, so don't settle for the first guy who tells you you're pretty. — Sheila Walsh

The world is not looking for Stepford-type Christians. People are tired of pretense. We struggle with failures; we long for intimacy. So why are we feigning perfection before God and one another. — Sheila Walsh

Children are the best recorders of information - they miss nothing; but they are the poorest interpreters. — Sheila Walsh

If you find yourself right now in a place where you are heartbroken, I want to remind you that Christ is very close to the broken. Our culture throws broken things away, but our Savior never does. He gently gathers all the pieces, and with His love and in His time, He puts us back together. — Sheila Walsh

You might categorize your own fear as anxiety. But while the reality of fear is different for each of us, one thing remains constant: fear robs us of joy. When fear takes center stage, we find it impossible to live in the "what is" because of the "what might be. — Sheila Walsh

Some people will not understand what the love of Christ compels you to do; do it anyway. — Sheila Walsh

It takes deliberate and continuous effort to carve out time in our overfull schedules to listen to the voice of God. — Sheila Walsh

One day we will all stand alone and answer to God for the choices we have made in our lives. It will not be enough to say we did not get help because no one would come with us. Life is not easy, but we make it much more difficult when we refuse to be honest about what we feel. For the short term, not being honest may seem easier, but in the long haul, we pay a heavy price. — Sheila Walsh

David would enter the crucible of suffering where truly great servants of God are made. Perhaps you are there now. One of the most devastating realities of this kind of suffering is that often the one you thought would be your protector becomes the one who measures out the pain. All that longing for justice, for fairness, for having everything as it should be seems useless. As you think on the glory days of the past, your heart aches to turn back the clock, but you can't. In these moments it's tempting to believe that God has forgotten about us, or even worse, that He simply doesn't care - His favor has moved on. If you are there right now, my heart aches for you. No one signs up for this school of suffering, and yet the deep work that God does in this painful, lonely place is rarely produced anywhere else. — Sheila Walsh

Peace is not the absence of trouble, but the presence of Christ. — Sheila Walsh

I believe that doubts, honestly expressed and wrestled with, produce a faith that is stronger and more intimate than doubts suppressed under the veneer of faith. — Sheila Walsh

It is much more difficult to deal with the truth about your life when you have no idea that you have feet of clay and it suddenly begins to rain. — Sheila Walsh

Suffering is seldom an item on our list of requests to the Lord. But when it crosses our path and we are able by his grace to keep on walking, our lives become messages of hope to the world and to the church. — Sheila Walsh

God talks to His people-to each one of us-through His Word, through the counsel of godly friends, and through the Holy Spirit. — Sheila Walsh

I was one of the loneliest people on the planet. You can be incredibly well known and very alone. And thats who I was. I was a well-known person who was very alone. — Sheila Walsh

Sometimes God will take you to a prison to set you free. — Sheila Walsh

Jesus never encouraged His friends to cover over the pain in their lives, but to bring it into the light, where healing is found. Sometimes we don't do that because we fear being rejected by others. Yes, rejection may well happen, but bringing the pain to the light is still the best way to live. It will take much courage, but it will bring freedom. — Sheila Walsh

Whether Jesus calms the storm or calms us in the storm, His love is the same, and His grace is enough. — Sheila Walsh

Lord Jesus, Your love is beyond my understanding but I believe it's true. Right now I offer You my shame, the filthy rags of my past. I choose to step out of this storm of condemnation and into Your peace. Thank You for loving me and for making me worthy, In Your great name, amen. — Sheila Walsh

I know it all, and I still love you." That is the convicting, convincing, liberating truth that comes from an encounter with Christ: all is known; there is no need to pretend anymore. I wrestled with that truth. It's hard to lay aside a mask when it looks just like you, and you have worn it for so long that you can't remember what you look like without it. — Sheila Walsh

Can't you tell when you're with someone who's listening? She hears you, really hears you. He hears the sadness in your tone or catches your joy. Be a listener, to music, to life, to others, to God. Life is noisy, but there is music in every heartbeat. God is waiting to bring joy and peace to the confusion of our days. — Sheila Walsh

My brokenness is a better bridge for people than my pretend wholeness ever was. — Sheila Walsh

I was driving down a familiar road one fall day when I almost drove off the road, the beauty was so intense. It looked as if God had sent in a team of the world's finest artists overnight-and I was privy to the opening day of his spectacle. As I slowly drove along this festive row, leaves danced in the air and brushed against my windshield. It seemed as if I had landed in Oz. I was strongly tempted to get out and clap at God's imagination. — Sheila Walsh

Perhaps, too, in the "shift-the-blame" society we live in, we have forgotten how to weep over our sins. David, the psalm writer, said, "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long" (Psalm 32:3). I wonder if so many of us rush off to self-help groups because we have lost the ability to be real in our churches. — Sheila Walsh

The love of Christ knows no boundaries, recognizes no labels. — Sheila Walsh