by Sheila Walsh

Are you a Christian who has suffered emotionally with depression, brokenness, shame, guilt? Did you suffer a second time through the ignorant but cutting words of a Christian brother or sister? If you or someone you know has endured this type of "double-wounding" then Sheila Walsh's book Honestly should be purchased and read immediately.

I used to love watching the 700 Club when Sheila was the co-host. In fact, she was the reason I started watching it. I considered her bold, honest and "just like me." However, it wasn't until I read this book that I realized how much like me Sheila really was. On TV she seemed invincible...undaunted by circumstances or pain. But I discovered that image wasn't as true as I had assumed it to be. I discovered that Sheila was well aquatinted with pain and so much so she had to leave her friends, family and an entire "world" of people to get the hope and healing she needed.

In the book Honestly Sheila tells us what led up to her decision to leave the 700 Club, the reaction - positive and negative - to her leaving, and where her life is today because of that life-saving decision. She tells of her misgivings about herself and of those who, by denying the existence of emotional and mental illnesses, give an unbalanced message to those who suffer without relief.

One of my favorite quotes comes at the very beginning of the book: "There were many areas of my life that did not always make sense to me. I loved my job. I loved being able to talk about the love of God to such a diverse audience every day. And I received hundreds of letters from viewers telling me how the show impacted their lives. I knew this was true, but sometimes I felt like a second hand car salesman; I had a sickening sense that what I just sold people may not get them all the way home."

Well, maybe what Sheila said then wasn't enough to get suffering people "all the way home" but this book is. It is exactly what the title and Sheila's new life declares...Honest(ly).

Review by Kathleen Anne Gabrielle