Book Review – Let Go by Sheila Walsh

“I will deliver you.” 

Sheila Walsh, Women of Faith speaker, opened her book with these words from God spoken in her spirit.  She felt “discouraged and bone weary.”  Just like so many of us women at so many times in our lives.

She needed “more peace about the issue.”  So she began a “quest to study and understand what it means to be delivered.“

A sense of frustration dogged my reading in the beginning because I wanted Sheila to “bleed.”  I wanted to know exactly what struggle, what issue required deliverance.

I continued to read in my usual manner with pencil in hand, marking statements that spoke to me or seemed to relate to the theme of letting go.

Stuff like…

• Accepting what is enables us to embrace a different future.
• What should have happened did.
• When we are unable to forgive or refuse to forgive, we become hostages to the pain of the past.
• Forgiveness unclenches our fists and allows us to let go.
• The most difficult person to forgive can be the one we see in the mirror every morning.
• Resting in the love of God means letting go of all the broken pieces we cling to and clinging instead to him.
• It’s hard to fall off a pedestal when you are washing someone’s feet.
• Guilt tells me I’ve done something wrong.  Shame tells me I am something wrong.
• If I place my hope in anything or anyone other than Jesus, I will be disappointed.

And then she bled.  She shared the story.  And the intense spiritual struggle.  And wise words from a child.

And what seemed disjointed (which is often the way of healing) and all of my markings came together.  And carried more meaning.

Sometimes in order to hang on, we have to let go.

Thank you, Sheila, for being open and vulnerable.  For letting go of the need to protect yourself.  We’ve all been there in some form, and your overcoming gives us hope.

Copyright © 2009 by Sandra Heska King