Living with Clinincal Depression

Last week, best-selling author, singer and dynamite Bible teacher Sheila Walsh rocked the house at the Houston, Texas stop of the Women of Faith conference Unwrap the Bible. Walsh taught from John 4:1-26, the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, and her message to the 6,000 women in attendance was simple but so profound: “The Good News will never be good news until you know that God knows all of your bad news.”

Like the woman at the well--and every other person on earth--Walsh had some bad news. Twenty-three years ago, she left her job as the co-host of The 700 Club show on Christian Broadcasting Network and checked herself into the psychiatric ward of a hospital. That seemed like bad news because having clinical depression as a Christian, and particularly as a ministry leader, is misunderstood as a problem of faith by many in the religious community, instead of a serious medical issue with many medical solutions.

“If you have a brain tumor, you can show people an x-ray and they can see something physical and they’ll pray for you right away,” Walsh tells Guideposts.org.

Read the entire article, "How God Loved Sheila Walsh Back to Life," by Brooke Obie here.