Sharon Merhalski

Many of my articles can be found on the web magazine which I co-founded: Titus 2 Men and Women

And our blog:New Hope Outreach

My personal blog: Oasis Well

My journey to cellular health: Sharon's Health

Survivors of abuse and ill health: Choosing To Be Well

Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention: Child Abuse

For the first twenty-one years of my life I lived on the gorgeous Pacific Coast of the United States. Beautiful sunrises, sunsets, sea lions sunning themselves on the rocks just off shore. The sea--sometimes calm and sometimes tumultuous. The seashore--a place to dream, a place to hurt or a place to escape the confusion and loneliness of life. Everyone should have such a place to go.

Those first twenty-one years of my life were not full of good things because I was raised in a very dysfunctional home. Therefore I want to begin by telling you that God has worked overtime in my life to make me a very optimistic, joyful, thankful, trusting and serving woman. About twenty years ago my pastor asked me if there was anything I would change about my life if I could. I stunned him with the word, "no". In the deep, deep valleys of my life God has been so very precious to me. As I have taken the time to listen to and for His still small voice and as I have searched the scriptures and worshiped him in silence, My LORD has, in spite of myself and my circumstances, taught me, shown me, loved me, kept me, and ever-burdened my heart for others who hurt.

I was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1948. The family that God chose to place me in I would never have chosen for myself. My mother and father were not Christians. My mother was a very bitter woman who delighted in doing evil deeds to her husband and children. Her life taught me the reality that bitterness is truly worse than cancer.

I was living in the bay-area of California in 1954 when the end of the Polio epidemic claimed me for a victim and spent a year on an isolation ward of a county hospital. While growing up I attended a couple of churches as a bus kid and accepted Jesus as my Saviour when I was fourteen years old. When I was twenty-one I met my very handsome husband soon after he returned from Viet Nam. For the first time in my life I felt unconditionally loved and accepted. We were married in 1969. The following year my husband accepted the Lord as His Saviour, we both dedicated our lives to God, and our son was born. Five and a half years later God entrusted us with our daughter by adoption.

My husband moved our family to his home-state of Wisconsin in 1971. Peter loved California but sensed that I desperately needed to get away from my family. I now understand that God needed me to be where He could begin to give to me, "Beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that He might be glorified." (Isaiah 61:3)

I was twenty-two years old when we settled in Wisconsin. I was a mess and didn't realize it. So much had transpired in my life that left such scars---both emotional and physical. The Polio epidemic when I was six years old, nine major surgeries later, the loss of my senior year of high school to an auto accident caused by a drunk driver, and my mother's three attempts to murder me during the year after I graduated from high school, had all left me with an abundance of "ashes, mourning, and heaviness" as well as anger and some bitterness.

I fell in love with Wisconsin. I had never experienced the changing of the seasons or the love and warmth of a close and loving family. My husband has four brothers and being the first girl in his family I was accepted as a daughter and spoiled accordingly. When I married my husband God blessed me with a mother who would love me unconditionally. I was also blessed with a pastor's wife who became my "mom" and together with my husbands' mother-as I yielded my heart to God and their teaching-they taught me by their examples and the Words of God how to be a wife, mother, and servant of Christ.

I was thirty-four years old when my deteriorated physical condition and unexplainable spiritual and emotional condition dumped me at a crossroad in my life. Everyone who knew me---even my husband---saw me as a person who had all things "together". Only I knew how miserable I was and stood one autumn night ready to never go back to church unless the Lord showed me why my heart ached so much. That night God held my heart in His hands as He opened a tightly locked room of my heart and helped me to see what I had buried there as a hurting child. That night God sat my spirit free and enabled me to fully surrender my life to Him. That night God enabled me to understand that He had not abused me too...rather, He had worked overtime to keep me alive and continually make the "all things" of my life able to glorify Him and help others.

It took a few years to deal with all of the hurt in my life and allow God's Word to change some wrong thinking about the LORD and me. I had to let God give me Christ-esteem as I learned to love myself in Him and see myself as a Princess in the court of the King of Kings. Berating myself had to become a thing of my past and a lot of false guilt and false shame had to be dealt with and released. At this time I began journal-writing which helped me to heal my heart. This daily exercise has been a continual blessing to my life. When God gave to me my life's verse all of the pieces of the puzzle of my life seemed to lock in to place: "Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." (Isaiah 48:10).

The Lord began entrusting me to speak to women about their abusive pasts. He also allowed me to teach a women's Sunday School class and be a conference speaker. Me%u2026a woman who had accepted an 'F' grade each time anything oral had to be done for school then worked many hours to do extra-credit work to maintain a B+ average in High School and College. And me a woman with a tracheostomy who would not have a speaking voice save for the vow I made to God to speak for Him all of my of my life. I am still in awe of His grace, mercy, and love for me!

Years have passed but His teaching has not waned. To get from mountaintop to mountaintop one must pass through a valley...precious valleys of fellowship with God OR miserable valleys of anger and despair...the choice is ours. Almost eleven years ago I became extremely thankful for each and every valley of my life---thankful that I had learned to trust God and wait on Him because He is always faithful and always good.

I have had many opportunities entrusted to me from God to learn well what grief is and what it is not for a Christian.

I want to serve God and use all that He has entrusted me with to bring glory to His name. My prayer for the last several years has been the prayer of Jabez: (I Chronicles 4:10) "...Oh, that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!" "BUT GOD" is my answer and I make sure that my words I'm not supposed to be able to speak glorify my precious LORD.

Psalm 30:11b-12 "...THOU HAST PUT OFF MYSACKCLOTH, AND GIRDED ME WITH GLADNESS; TO THE END THAT MY GLORY MAY SING PRAISEUNTO THE AND NOT BE SILENT.O LORD MY GOD, I WILL GIVE THANKS UNTO THEE FOREVER."

Life was exciting and full of blessings until Joe was diagnosed with a brain tumor at the age of twenty-four. There is a rhyme which goes, "Love wasn't put in our hearts to stay, love isn't love 'till it's given away." Hurt puts a song in our spirits and that song is a love for others and it is not heard until we give it away. Joe gave away the song of his hurt. He had a passion to help other people bear their burdens while never complaining about his own. His dad called Joe, "a sweet and gentle man", and he was. Joe learned the rest of the verse so many Christians only half quote, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death. Joe suffered with dignity and strength that caused all who knew him to call him a hero of the faith.

Our son Joe graduated to heaven and my husband, my daughter, and myself choose NOT to say that we 'lost' a loved one for we know perfectly well where Joe is. We choose to tell others that God graduated our son/brother on October 8, 2001for a perfect healing in a perfect place-Heaven. Revelation 14:13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them. Joe is perfectly well and very happy now.

I waited almost five months to write that text so that I could tell others what I knew to be true five months previous--so that I could tell you from even a seemingly short five months experience-- that God's amazing grace is absolutely sufficient for hearts severely broken.

Those months were both a time of grief and a time of tremendous blessing as we experienced our God in every hard place and teardrop. We have wept, we have questioned and we have experienced a peace that truly passes all understanding.

Our long climb up Mount Moriah began when our son was born expected to die....

To read the complete article:Our Joe Graduated

In 1981 our daughter, then five years old was molested by our pastor. She and eight other little girls were molested over several months inside of our church building during school hours. This was a devastating time for our family.

"Mommy, he touches me and hurts me! " This news that our trusted friend and pastor had repeatedly molested our precious five year old daughter inside of our church and school building was-to the core of our beings--devastating!

Over twenty-seven years have passed and as I write this I still feel the rage of that moment deep in my heart. I remember my husband's agony and his humanity of a father wanting retribution. In my mind's eye I see our very precious little girl hurting and stunned at the pain on her mom and dad's face and in our words. I remember how tightly my husband and I held each other as we wept asking, "Why? We are Christians, he is our pastor..why?" As parents, guilt and shame engulfed us for we had been violated also.

How did this happen in our family? It happened because, like so many other families around the world, we never considered this devastating event could happen to us: Somehow we felt immune from evil because we were Christians.

In so many ways we had learned how to avoid disasters in our children's lives before they even had a chance to happen. We put safety tabs in the electrical outlets, we locked up or stored up high, dangerous chemicals, we put the side rails up on the cribs,etc. Then one day my husband and I sadly realized that there is a far greater disaster that should also be prepared for--sexual predators. We berated ourselves for years for not recognizing that abuse happens-even in Christian communities!

We never fathomed that a heart could hurt as badly as ours. The question that ate at us was "why didn't she tell us?"

For the rest of this account and important information on child abuse awareness and prevention please visit:

Please read Kristina's healing journey: Trust From Ashes

Our daughter never gave her family a moment of rebellion or grief. She is now 33 years old and has matured into a marvelous servant of Christ, wife and mother of three children under the age of 4. Her dad and I are so proud of her and I am honored to be her mom and share a wonderful friendship with her.

I am available to meet your needs for a seasoned workshop and seminar speaker and will do so for a love offering and travel and lodging expenses where necessary. I will speak in all Bible-believing churches.

As an abuse survivor and mother of an abuse victim and survivor I have been able to fulfill a passion of mine as I have facilitated many child abuse awareness and prevention workshops for adults and child safety workshops for children. I absolutely believe the only way child abuse statistics can start to take a downward spirial is through education for awareness and prevention which must start at home.

Recommendations and my bio are available on request.
E-mail: Sharonk.m@att.net

Many of my articles can be found on the web magazine which I co-founded: Titus 2 Men and Women

My personal blog:
Oasis Well

"Just beyond The Shadow of God's Wings" was conceived in a woman's mended heart eighteen years ago. On its pages she tells how she spent fourteen years searching for the root cause of her inner turmoil...turmoil that remained hidden from everyone but herself. The author tells about finding herself at a crossroad in her life where she, a faithful servant of the God she loved, almost decided to quit her God and His church. his book is a book of hope for those once abused. The author tells a story of God's tough love and His perfect healing of her very damaged emotions. She conveys some very tough lessons learned from a God who worked overtime in her life to give to her "Beauty for ashes."

This 120 page book may be ordered for $14.00 including S+H from Sharon at:
new-hope-outreach@sbcglobal.net