5 Minutes with Jesus is a daily devotional series for people in the midst of real life, whether facing anxiety, grief, questions of purpose, or simply needing encouragement and connection. Hosted by Sheila Walsh, each five-minute episode offers Biblical truth, honest reflections on faith and emotions, and closes with a moment of prayer.
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| Sheila Walsh: Loved Without Limits | 5 Minutes with Jesus | February 12, 2026
- We can be so hard on one another.
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- We can be so judgmental.
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- We can be so casual.
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- Comments that cut deep.
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- Words matter.
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- So i just i want to say to you,
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- If you're living with things in your head and heart
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- That somebody else has spoken over you
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- That don't line up with god's word.
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- I want you to take all that to him.
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- One of the most basic human needs
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- Is to be fully seen and fully loved.
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- But at times we're afraid if we were fully seen,
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- We wouldn't be loved.
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- So then we trade away being known.
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- And that can make for a lonely life.
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- Rejection is a very tough thing to deal with.
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- When i was 19 years old,
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- I went from my little fishing village
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- On the west coast of scotland to london theological seminary
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- To train at that point to be a missionary in india.
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- That's what i believe god was calling me to.
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- And i was so excited because in my little town,
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- There were very few believers my own age.
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- So to suddenly be in seminary
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- With so many people who love jesus,
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- I thought, this is just going to be like heaven on earth.
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- Well, one day and i was one of the youngest ones there.
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- A lot of the other girls
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- That was two thirds men and two and one third women.
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- But a lot of the other women were a little bit older.
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- They were in their 30s and preparing
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- For life on the mission field.
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- So i'm 19 and i'm young.
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- And one day i'm walking from one of my classes
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- And i realize there's a group of women
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- And it looks like they're in a prayer circle out on the lawn.
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- And i think how great i'm going to join them.
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- So i walk up really quietly
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- Because they're in the middle of praying,
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- And i suddenly hear what they're praying about.
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- And one of them saying, and, lord,
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- For that new student, sheila walsh, lord,
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- Will you do something to help her
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- Get over that jezebel spirit and those red boots?
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- And i was honestly devastated.
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- I turned and i ran back to my room,
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- And i lay on my bed and i just wept
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- Because i thought these were my sisters, my bigger sisters.
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- And we're all going to be like a family.
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- But all they saw was somebody who had spiky hair
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- And red leather boots, and i didn't look like them,
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- And i felt they were judging me.
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- And i can remember going to our seminary
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- President, a man called girl gilbert kirby.
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- Man, i love to this day, he's safely home with jesus.
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- But i remember crying and telling him,
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- I think i'm going to have to leave.
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- And he said to me, ask me this question.
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- He said, sheila, in life,
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- Whose
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- Approval are you really looking for?
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- Do you want that?
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- Everybody else around you.
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- Is it enough to live your life for the approval of the lord?
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- And he said to me, do you think the lord looks down
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- And sees you like that? and i said, no, i don't.
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- And he said, okay, so here's your challenge.
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- Your challenge is not to let to take that on
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- And not on or to separate yourself from these women.
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- He said, my challenge to you is be the more loving
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- Be the more caring.
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- And honestly, by the time my time in seminary was over,
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- Some of these women were
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- Some of the best friends i ever had in my life.
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- But sometimes rejection is worse than that.
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- It can honestly feel soul destroying.
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- When i was 34 years old, i was hospitalized
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- In psychiatric hospital for severe clinical depression.
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- And it was really to do with the fact i had never dealt with
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- What happened
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- In my father's life when i was just five years old.
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- You know, the change in his personalities
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- And how violent he became with me before
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- He took his own life.
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- I had just buried all of that, and i became a christian
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- When i was 11, and i thought, i'm just going to serve god.
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- But honestly, kind of in the back of my mind,
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- I don't think i would have thought this consciously,
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- But i think i thought if your own dad, who once loved
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- You, could seem to now hate you,
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- That must be possible for god too.
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- So i'm going to be the perfect christian if it kills me.
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- Yeah. and honestly, almost dead.
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- So when i ended up at 34 in a psychiatric hospital,
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- I had come to a place where i thought, lord,
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- I don't know anything anymore.
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- I will never be enough.
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- I'll never be good enough.
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- I'll never be able to keep your love.
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- And then when you're in a psych hospital,
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- People are not allowed to come visit you.
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- Particularly for the first 72 hours.
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- But i got a letter
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- From someone who was one of my closest friends.
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- And this letter was
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- Basically saying, you know, i'm so disappointed in you.
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- I thought you had more faith than this.
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- You know, if you really did love jesus,
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- You wouldn't end up in a place like that.
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- And it was pages.
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- And i read the whole thing, and i was just devastated by it.
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- And i remember the next morning taking the letter to
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- A therapist that i was working with
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- And just seeing, you know, i felt as if god's done with me.
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- Q i have it in writing from somebody who is a dear friend,
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- And this person helped me understand
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- That we live in a world that is very confusing.
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- You think it'd be different in the church?
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- Yeah. no, not so much.
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- We can be so hard on one another.
- 00:05:13.269 --> 00:05:15.271
- We can be so judgmental.
- 00:05:15.271 --> 00:05:16.939
- We can be so casual.
- 00:05:16.939 --> 00:05:18.908
- Comments that cut deep words matter.
- 00:05:18.908 --> 00:05:22.979
- So i just i want to say to you,
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- If you're living with things in your head and heart
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- That somebody else has spoken over you,
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- That don't line up with god's word.
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- I want you to take all that to him.
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- You know,
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- Maybe you've tried
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- Sharing something in a prayer group
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- And somebody kind of looked at you
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- Like, no, i idea you would do that.
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- We find it so much easier to condemn
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- Somebody else's doing
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- And not see that what we are doing is just as bad.
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- And just was the same road that led jesus to the cross.
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- I love the scripture where it says he came
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- Into the very world.
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- He created, but the world didn't recognize him.
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- He came to his own people
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- And even they rejected him.
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- But here's the good news for you and me.
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- But to all who believed him and accepted him,
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- He gave the right to become children of god.
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- I don't know what words have been spoken over you.
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- Whether you have that single mother, that divorced person.
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- I want you to hear what god speaks over you.
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- You are my child and i love you.
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- Let me pray for you.
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- Father, i want to thank you that you understand
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- Our brokenness and you understand our pain.
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- And when we feel rejected
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- Or judged by someone else, it's so hard.
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- But lord jesus, you understand that you were rejected.
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- You were judged, and yet you kept on loving.
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- So, lord, i thank you that we can tuck ourselves
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- Under the shelter of your wings, that you are our covering.
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- But i ask you, lord two, for the courage
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- To bring all the things that hurt us.
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- The labels have been stuck on us.
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- Let's just tear them apart, lord,
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- And determine, from today onwards, we're going to live.
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- Knowing who you have said we are.
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- I am a child of the king.
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- I'm a daughter.
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- I'm a son of the most high god.
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- That is who i am.
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- And i thank you in jesus name.
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- Amen.
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