Hi, this is Jim Daly. I hope you and your family are experiencing a godly sense of hope and joy this Christmas season. I'm so thankful you've joined us today for more Bible-based encouragement for your marriage, parenting, and faith. And in this season of giving, we invite you to join our support team here at Focus on the Family. At this time of year, we typically raise nearly 50% of our annual budget.
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Call 800A Family or donate at focusonthefamily.com/slash family. And I remember at 12 thinking, I've got one more chance to get it right. Whatever my earthly father saw in me that made him hate me so much, my heavenly father is never going to see that I am going to be the perfect Christian if it kills me. And it almost did. We'll hear more from our guest, Sheila Walsh, on today's best of 2025 episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
When we aired this in August, our listeners really responded. Let me give you a brief recap of what we heard in part one yesterday. When Sheila was just five years old, her father suffered a brain aneurysm and became a very angry man who regularly lashed out at her. Only her, no one else in the family. And being so young, Sheila wondered why she made her dad so angry and assumed that he saw something evil in her.
He ultimately took his own life, and Sheila held on to that sense of shame and guilt as she grew up.
Now, if you missed part one, you can request the free audio collection that includes this entire message from Sheila with extra content. It's called Enduring the Challenges of Life, and it also features Tim Keller, Larry Crabb, and Johnny Erickson Tata. Or you can request the best of 2025 collection, which features the top 20 programs of the year, including Sheila's. Or you can get both. Yeah, you'll find those free collections online.
We've got the link in the show notes.
Now, today we're going to hear how Sheila's mom, Betty, coped with her life as a single mom of three kids, living in poverty, never speaking about what happened to Sheila's father. Here now is Sheila Walsh. Speaking to our staff on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I want you to go with me, if you will. To a small, very small Baptist church on the west coast of Scotland.
It's a cold, rainy, windy day. And someone is passing by the doors of this church, which suddenly open and people begin to pour out. And this gentleman is looking thinking, well, I've passed this church before, but there's usually not very many people there. But there were so many people coming out that eventually he decided to stop and ask a question. And he said, what was going on here today?
And they said, it's actually a f a funeral service, it's a memorial service. And he said, Oh, wow, is there like some local celebrity? And they said, No, no, it's just It's a woman named Betty. And he said, well Was she a book writer? Did she do, what did she do?
And they said, well, Nothing really, but she just was faithful. to God. And when he asked me, 'cause I was the person they were asking the questions of, Did you know? This person, I said, yeah. That was my mom.
You know, it's interesting, nobody, unless you lived in our little town, would be familiar with the name Betty Walsh. But the church was packed that day. Because of the way that my mom touched lives. In ways that were never lauded on television or in writing, unless it's in my books. but faithfully serve God in the way that matters.
And there's something so beautiful about living a life that heaven celebrates. And so I decided this morning To bring three things. that have made a significant impact in my own life. And they're things that actually belonged to my mum. The first one is My Mom's Bible.
She was given this Bible in 1942. She was 12 years old. She won it as a prize in a flower pressing competition. In fact, in Psalm 23, you'll still find a Scottish bluebell pressed in there. But the reason I treasure it so much isn't just that it's my mum's Bible.
It's what she wrote. When she was twelve years old. in the back of that Bible. In her beautiful penmanship, which we seem to have lost these days, my mom had the most beautiful penmanship. She wrote this.
Grace. is undeserved favour. It is love. Stooping. Grace is undeserved favor.
It is love. Stooping. I work quite a lot with girls who are caught up in sex trafficking. I work mostly in Bangkok in Thailand and Phnom Penh in Cambodia. And I'd been in this one particular area where a lot of these young girls live.
And it was about 100 degrees that day, and their homes are all built over the local garbage dump.
So the stench was quite overwhelming. And after a few hours, I slipped out of the back to just get a breath of fresh air, and I saw something that was very stark. in the contrast. On one side, you have this area where these young girls are literally dying. Starving, ill-treated, abused.
And then, right beside it was this gorgeous Buddhist temple. With the most amazing gold dome.
So I said to my interpreter, I would like to talk to one of the priests if they're willing to talk to me. And this was my question. Do you ever consider taking some of the wealth that you obviously have? and sharing it with those who are literally dying on your doorstep. And his answer was very straightforward.
He said, oh, absolutely not. The poor do not deserve our help. If they will take the little they have and give it to us, then perhaps next time they will be reincarnated into a better life. Karma. But we know that grace is the antithesis of karma.
We get what we do not deserve. You cannot turn on the news these days without seeing all the unrest that's going on, not just in the Middle East, but across our nation. And so many religions ask their followers to shed their blood to prove their loyalty. We're the only ones. We're our Saviour.
Shed his blood.
So that we could be Free grace. Unmerited favor. It is love. Stooping. The second thing I brought to show you are the pearls that my mom wore on her wedding day.
Okay. you can kind of tell. By the box that they are in. that, yeah, there you go, that they're old. I have the picture of my mom and my dad on their wedding day, and my mom is wearing those pearls.
And I treasure them because she loved them. But there's a deep spiritual truth. in those pearls. If you think about it, if you think about how a pearl is formed. You know, the grains of sand will get inside an oyster and irritate the flesh.
And so what the the fl the oyster will do is coat those grains of sand with calcium saliva. And it's a an ongoing process. It could take about three years for a perfect pearl to be formed.
So if you think about it. A pearl is simply this. a victory over tribulation. A pearl is a victory. over tribulation.
If you have lived more than ten minutes, you know that life can be irritating. If you're a Christian, make it eight minutes. Life is hard. But you and I have the opportunity. to spend the rest of our days making Pearls.
That's what I watched my mom do. Every irritation that came into her life, every hardship, she coated it with prayer. And she lifted up to the Lord. She spent her life making pearls. Let me give you just a little example of the way that my mother's faith impacted me.
My brother, who's three years younger than I, Has hit one of those spurts that boys do when they suddenly shoot up several inches overnight. And he needed new long pants for school. But my mom lived on a widow's pension, which there was just nothing in the budget. There was no. Extra gift.
So after dinner that night, she said to my sister, my brother, and I, come and join me by the fire. And we sat there and she said, We're going to ask Jesus for long pants for your brother. I remember thinking.
Okay. Does he keep long pants in heaven? Do the angels wear long pants? But my mom prayed a very simple prayer. Lord, thank you that you are a husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless.
We present our need before you tonight, and we thank you in advance.
So your provision. She said amen and went back to the kitchen. I sat by the chimney 'cause I'm thinking What's the delivery service? Few days later, One of my mom's friends was over having coffee with her, and when she left, she left a brown paper package on the chair. And when my mum opened it, there were three pairs of long pants.
And I said to my mom, Did you tell Aunt Maureen that Stephen needed these? She said, No, darling, don't you remember? We told Jesus. He told Jesus My mum. spent her life Making pearls.
I wonder what you face on a daily basis at the moment.
Somehow, I think we cope with the big things that we didn't see coming. better than the daily irritations. There's something about a big thing that you realize, okay, this is something that we have to decide how we're going to move through this. But all the daily irritations can be so hard. But you and I get to choose.
Will we allow them to impact us? Maybe nobody sees it on the outside, but inside we're just mad, we're fed up. Or will we determine that from this moment on We will spend our life making. Pearls. Yeah.
I read a beautiful piece by Billy Graham's grandson Will Graham, his wife Kendra, they have a child who has a learning disability. It can take her a lot longer to do her homework than her siblings. But one night on the Discovery Channel, they were watching a program about life under the water. And this particular episode was all about how pearls are made. And after the show, they talked about it for a little while bit and then went on.
Few days later, Kendra's in the kitchen getting dinner ready and she can hear her daughter in the other room sitting at the dining table trying to finish her homework. She's been working on it for an hour. It would have taken most of the other children ten minutes. And she hears her daughter pick up her pencil and throw it against the wall. And so she says, Honey, hang on.
If you'll just give me two minutes, I'll come through and I'll help you finish. And this eight-year-old girl said, No, mom. I'm making pearls in here. We get to do this. It's like we're part of God's secret kingdom.
The way that the world responds, the way that we're told to respond, we don't have to do that. We can live every day Openly, gratefully receiving the grace that we know we don't deserve. and also facing everything. Knowing. that we can make pearls.
And one day, Perhaps we'll get to throw them at his feet. I'm not going to show you this third thing. Right away. And I'll explain why. It was about four o'clock in the morning and the phone rang.
I hate when the phone rings in the middle of the night. You always assume there's something wrong with someone. And it was my sister calling from Scotland to say that my mom had taken her last breath on this earth and her first breath. in the presence of the Lord. And she was about to take 80 turn 88.
In fact, I had her birthday gifts wrapped ready to send to Scotland. But I just I don't think you're ever ready to say goodbye to your mom.
So I flew to Scotland and In Scotland, funerals are very different than I've experienced here in the States. My husband is from Charleston, South Carolina. And when his mom and then his father Yeah. It was a much bigger event. You know, there was a viewing.
And then Casseroles. A lot of casseroles. I don't quite get it. Your mother's dead. Here's a sausage casserole.
But there you go.
Well, in Scotland, it's not like that. In Scotland, what happens is that you're just placed in a simple white robe, put in a pine box, and that's it. I wanted to see my mum one last time. I knew she wasn't there. I knew she was home.
But it mattered to me, so I went in. And I just knelt down beside it and said, Well done, Mom.
Well done. You did it. You ran your race. You lived in the grace of God. You made pearls every day of your life and you made it all the way home.
You were faithful. At the end of the service, my sister and I went back to the house so that we could take all my mom's things. And Francis, my sister said to me, you know mum wants me to have her gold watch and she wants you to have her engagement ring. And I said, yeah, I remember that.
Well, we found the watch, but we couldn't find the engagement ring.
So I said, well, I'll go talk to the matron.
So I went down and I said to the matron, hi, I'm Betty Walsh's daughter. And I was wondering, do you know where my mum's engagement ring is? And she said, Oh no. There's a story there. That's auto-tel.
And she said one evening when all the ladies were gathered in the lounge, One of their sons had bought a huge box of Belgian chocolates for his mother, and your mom was kind of eyeing them up. And then eventually she said, I'll swap you. And the woman said, So what are you going to give me? And my mom said, my engagement ring. And the women said, deal.
So the matrix said to me, Sheila, don't worry, I can get the ring back. And I was like, nope. If my mom enjoyed the chocolates, let that woman enjoy the ring. Because there was only one thing I wanted, and it was this. little picture.
I hung above my mom's bed all my life. She was given that when she was just a little girl. And it's how she lived her life. On the days that were the hardest days in life, she laid her head. down on the pillow.
Under that declaration, yes. Lord. When she'd get up in the morning with not enough money to pay bills, not quite sure how she was going to manage to raise three children herself because she never remarried. the first thing that she would cast her eyes on was that. Yes.
Lord. And I used to tease her when I was a know-it-all teenager. I used to say to her, You don't know what you're saying yes to. And she would say, No, but I know who I'm saying yes to. And this is the thing that I treasure.
the most. From my mom. Living a yes Lord. Life. When our son Christian was about ten years old.
He asked me first of all if I would make him a thermos flask of hot chocolate. And I said, Yeah, sure. Are you going outside to play? It was an unusually cold day in Dallas. And he said, No, mom, today I am running away from home.
I was like, wow, that's huge news. Thank you for telling me. And I said, can I ask you just a couple of questions? I said, Did I do s did I hurt your feelings? Did dad say something?
He said, No, Mom, it's nothing like that, but think about it, there's you. There's the dog? There's dad. Nothing big ever happens here. If I don't go now, I will never have stories to tell.
That that's so true.
So true.
So I said, well Where do you intend to go? And he said, north. I believe I'll head north. And I said, and What are you gonna do for money? He said, Don't worry, mum, I intend to return home on weekends.
Huge relief to me as his mother.
So I gave him the thermos full of hot chocolate and he'd put it in his backpack. with a dog's blanket and a soccer ball and a few books, and he said, Goodbye, mum And I'm like, traveling Mercies, do stay in touch. And off he went. at the back door.
So I ran upstairs to the balcony where I could keep an eye on him, and he was walking around this lake where we used to live. And eventually, after a while, he sat down by the tree where he and his friends sometimes fish. spread out the dog's blankets, poured himself some hot chocolate. and began preparing for life in the north. But eventually I realized he was actually coming home.
So I ran back downstairs and That night, when he was all tucked up in bed and we'd said our prayers, I said, Christian, tell me about today. Did you enjoy your adventure? And he said, I did, Mom. But I think I would have enjoyed it more if my bag wasn't so heavy. I thought about that a lot.
What would it be like? For you and I. to make it all the way home. And for Jesus to say, did you enjoy the journey? And for us to have to say, well, yeah, I did, but...
I think I would have enjoyed it more if my bag wasn't so heavy.
Some of you might be surprised by how much. stuff you've been dragging through your life. Perhaps sad to realize how for What a long time you've been carrying it. But this would be My question. If you saw it Would you want to take it home?
Or would you want to take Jesus up on that glorious offer, last two verses of Matthew chapter 11? Come unto me. All who are weary. and heavy laden. And I will give you.
Rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for my yoke is easy. And my burden is Light. Ending up in a psychiatric hospital at 34, is one of the greatest gifts that God ever gave me. because it became so clear in the months that I was there.
that this life that Christ paid so dearly for, is so that we can be free. Not burdened by the things from our past, not weighed down by the things that we have done or have been done to us. I sometimes think, what would it have been like if when you came in here today, you said, slight change of plan. Instead of having Sheila Walsh talk, we're actually going to show a movie of your life. Everything.
Everything you've ever said, everything you've ever done. Even just the things you think, well, it's not technically a sin because I just thought about it, I didn't really do it. But it was up there. on the screen for everyone to see. How would that make you feel?
The good news of the gospel is God has seen your movie. God has seen your movie and he Loves you. And I think But just little shift in our understanding. Of being open to receive this outrageous grace of God. Of seeing every little irritation and distraction as an opportunity.
to coat it with prayer. And to wake up every day. And every night to lay our head down with these two words. Yes, Lord, I even had them. tattooed to my wrist.
Sorry, mom. Because Christianity is loves us.
So much. When I first moved to Virginia Beach to host the 700 Club, my number one thing I wanted to get was a dog. I'm just a dog person. I love, love, love dogs. And I found this little West Highland white terrier, and I called him Charlie after Bonnie Prince Charlie.
And this dog had one tennis ball that it loved. It was an awful-looking thing. Chewed up and I tried to buy him new tennis balls. No, thank you. He liked this old tennis ball.
And one day we were out in the park, and I was throwing the ball, and he would bring it back, and I'd throw it. but it had been raining and the road was a little slick. And I realized I threw it too far. And the tennis ball Punta. through the park gate and out.
And my little Charlie followed it. And I'm calling his name to try and get him to stop, but he's not listening. All he sees is this ball. which disappears. down a storm drain.
And so does my little Charlie. I do everything in my power. to to lift that metal grade. I broke broke all my fingernails. I couldn't do anything, so I began to knock on my neighbours' doors.
And one of my neighbours came out with his teenage son, and I explained what was happening. And he got a crowbar from his garage and was able to get the metal plate off, and there I could see about six feet down. It was my sweet little dog on a shelf, and I knew If Charlie fell off that ledge, he would be gone. And I said to the man, I don't know what to do. And he said, I do.
He said, my son is tall and skinny. I'm going to hold him by the ankles. and lure him down This boy is now in my will. Shm. Gonna hold them by the ankles.
And I'm going to lower him down, and he's going to grab your little dog. And I said to him, When you get to him, he's going to be scared. You know, he might nip you, or he might bark, or he might wriggle, but when you get there, Grab hold of him and don't let go. And this darling boy, brought my little Charlie back to me.
So Imagine for a moment A day in heaven's courts. And the father says to the son, I'm gonna lower you down. into the darkness. And when you get there, They're gonna wriggle and scream. And they're going to hurt you.
But don't Let Go. And Jesus said, Yes, Lord. That is how much we are loved. What a vivid word picture there from Sheila Walsh on this best of 2025 episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Isn't she an amazing storyteller?
I could listen to her all day. And if you'd like to hear more from Sheila, I want to recommend her book called Holding On When You Want to Let Go: Clinging to Hope When Life is Falling Apart. We have that here at Focus on the Family, and we'd be happy to send you a copy for a donation of any amount. We're working hard throughout the year to bring hope and joy to hurting families. And when you donate, you become a part of our ministry.
So, thank you. We have all the resources and delivery systems in place. We just need donations to provide the rocket fuel to get these resources into the hands of families that are hurting and need our help. Please join us as we work to help even more families thrive in Christ in 2026. And here in the season of giving, we have a free.
Gift for you. We've assembled a collection of audio downloads that are designed to give you encouragement for very difficult times. Maybe you're in a tough spot. Look for the collection called Enduring the Challenges of Life when you visit us online. It features wisdom from Johnny Erickson-Tata, Dr.
Tim Keller, Dr. Larry Crabb, and Pastor Dwayne Miller. Plus, we'll include this presentation from Sheila Walsh with extra content. And all this month, we're also offering our best of 2025 collection absolutely free, featuring the top 20 programs of the year. And that collection includes Sheila's message as well.
And by the way, please call us if this show brought up some issues from your past. It's such a tender program. Our friendly staff would love to hear your story and pray with you. And if needed, you can request a callback from one of our caring Christian counselors. Please let us come alongside you in the name of Christ.
And you can reach us by calling 800 the letter A in the word family. That's 800-232-6459. And of course, you can follow the link in the show notes to request free access to those two audio collections to donate and to get your copy of Sheila's book. Coming up next time, we'll hear from a counselor about how you can help your child navigate difficult emotions. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
Please take a moment and leave a rating for us in your podcast app and then be sure to share this episode with a friend who might be struggling with something in life that seems overwhelming. they'll be encouraged by what Sheila had to share. I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Jesus Christ is the ultimate source of truth. As we celebrate his birth this Christmas, I hope you'll be inspired to share God's truth with grace and love.
Become better equipped by listening to my podcast, Refocus with Jim Daly from Focus on the Family. Every episode, I talk to fascinating guests about important cultural issues and how we can reach people for Christ and share his joy. Listen at refocus with JimDaily.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
