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LUBBOCK?”God sent me to prison to set me free,” Sheila Walsh told those gathered Oct. 26 for the 11th annual SBTC Bible Conference Women’s Luncheon at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center.
The thought of being institutionalized or even visiting such a place terrified Walsh. After all, her father died shortly after being admitted to a psychiatric ward. He was only 34 when he escaped from the facility and drowned in a nearby river. It wasn’t until many years and one nervous breakdown later that Walsh walked into such an institution. For her there was no where else to go.
Walsh said she has shared her testimony with millions of people in the hope that they will understand that God loves them “regardless of what you bring to the table.” Of her month in a psychiatric hospital Walsh said, “That was one of the greatest gifts God ever gave me.”
That journey began in a small town on the west coast of Scotland. In a country where less than 2 percent of the population attends church, Walsh said she was blessed to be born into a Christian family. Her parents loved the Lord and were faithful members of a Baptist Church. Her father even worked for the Billy Graham ministry.
“I adored my father,” Walsh told the audience.
But one night their father suffered a massive aneurism. Thinking they would lose him, their mother sent out prayer requests around the world and “God heard those prayers.”
Her father survived but lost his ability to speak and movement on his left side. Walsh said she would sit “on his good knee” and tell him about her day. It was not long, though, until the blood shifted in his brain, altering his personality. He became violent only toward Walsh. She assumed, because he could not speak, his hair pulling and spitting were his ways of expressing his disapproval of her.
One day as she was sitting on the floor playing with her dog, the dog began to growl?something he had never done. Walsh turned to look behind her only to find her father towering over her poised to strike her on the head with his cane. She instinctively grabbed the cane, causing her father to lose his balance and hit the floor hard. Her mother herded the children into a bedroom and called the doctor and the police.
Walsh listened as her father beat her mother. His strength during his tirades was enormous. He was put in a high-security psychiatric ward. At her mother’s request he was moved to a different ward with men his own age. He escaped one night and found his way to the river where he drowned.
Because tradition excluded children from funerals, Walsh lived with a sense of dread. She still believed she had done something wrong to make him so angry. And because tradition excluded children from funerals she had no real confirmation that he was dead and she worried that he would come back to finish his work.
That anxiety carried over into her faith.
Walsh made decisions based on what she believed would make God happy, not what she desired.
“Surely he’ll know how much I love him,” she said.
Her choices lead to a stint with Youth for Christ and then a recording contract that brought her to the United States. A one-shot TV appearance on “The 700 Club” with Pat Robertson?which she believed she flubbed miserably?landed her a job with the ministry and, eventually, her own segment on the program. She said the best way to hide troubles is to throw oneself into Christian ministry. Her five years of zealous work and tireless efforts were seen as a devotion to the cause.
