Sharon Hoseley:Author: Godwinks and Bridges: a Journey of Faith

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In episode eight, Jan introduces Sharon Hosley, an inspiring author and speaker with a rich family history and remarkable life stories. Sharon has written four books, including "Jesus, Lord of My Seasons" and a trilogy of memoirs spanning her grandmother's life to her own.

 Sharon shares profound and heartwarming stories from her family's past, highlighting moments only God could orchestrate.

 From her grandmother Susan's struggles on a farm in 1910 to Sharon's own journey through faith and challenges, each tale reveals the transformative power of God's love and provision.

 Sharon's stories include miraculous encounters, the trials of living through harsh winters, and the unexpected blessings that come from trusting God.

Listen in as Sharon recounts her journey from a difficult marriage to becoming a devoted mother and teacher, and how God used her to touch lives in extraordinary ways. 

Her experiences of teaching kindergarten and working with families in need offer profound insights into the impact of faith and compassion in everyday life.

Join us for an episode filled with touching testimonies, reflections on God's faithfulness, and encouragement for listeners of all ages. 

Discover how God's plan can unfold in unexpected ways and be inspired by Sharon's unwavering faith and resilience. 

Tune in to "Just Talking About Jesus" for an uplifting and transformative listening experience.

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Transcript

[00:02] Jan: Welcome to just talking about Jesus. I'm Jan Johnson, a seasoned believer who loves relationships and, you know, just talking about Jesus.

[00:13] Jan: Welcome, listeners, to episode eight. I'm so very happy you're joining me today. A few weeks ago, I went to the Northwest Christian Writers Conference, where I met a number of amazing authors. One of those was Sharon Hoseley, who has written four books, Jesus, Lord of my Seasons, and a series of three memoirs spanning her grandmother's life to her own. She writes and direct's children's plays, is a column writer for the Lewiston Tribune, and she speaks to women's groups concerning the important role each person has in influencing others. Sharon is a delight, and we found that not only did we have writing in common, we had both had the joys of teaching kindergarten and doing dramatic. In this episode, she shares some of her family's history and some stories only God could orchestrate. I apologize in advance for the lack of sound quality on this recording. We had quite a time of getting our Zoom interview to work, and because of that, the beginning of her story was lost. She begins by telling about her first book, a bridge named Susan, about her grandmother who was born in 1910 on a farm where boys were more important than girls. The struggle to win her mama's love drove Susan to work hard and be a good girl. And then one day, she encountered a God wink. Let's hear her story.

[01:37] Sharon: Had to carry the water from the pond out to the garden with a big bucket and water each plant singularly with her ladle. And it was a hard job. And her mom gave her these hard jobs because she wasn't a boy. And she was resentful that she wasn't a boy and strong and could do things. So she's sitting by the pond, resting a little bit in between, carrying buckets. And she reached out her hand to this sound that came from the bushes there, not knowing what it was. And it was a little green frog. And she had always wanted her mom to love her. And she didn't have any pets. She didn't have anything as a young child. And frog, she just sat very still. And this little frog jumped onto her hand and she said, oh, are you going to be my friend? Look at her. And croaked. And she said, oh, this is what I've always wanted. I've wanted my mom to build a bridge between me. My hand is the bridge between me and this frog. And so every day when she would do the watering, she would go down there and that little frog would come and hop onto her hand. And so that's where the name of the book started and I called it a bridge named Susan because she really created her own branch to this little friend that she had made. Wow.

[03:15] Jan: That's just like in that. Just like God, to provide what she needed, I mean, in who knows what ways he's going to provide for the desires of our heart.

[03:28] Sharon: Yeah. And she really had a heart. And she has some extremely hard lessons in her life because she lived. She got married at the age of 18 to get out of the home because of her mom. And she married a man that was. He didn't know how to handle life, so he would have. He would become silent. You know, that silent treatment thing. They lived the first year of their marriage, they lived in a tent on 15 acres. They were supposed to cut down the lodgepole pine. It was a government program on Indian land. And they had 6ft of snow and -15 degrees and lived in a tent through that first winter.

[04:18] Jan: Holy moly.

[04:19] Sharon: And my mom accepted Jesus as her savior when she was 16 in a schoolhouse. She lived out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Idaho, central Idaho. And her faith was so strong and she was such a strong person through that. I don't think I would have stuck there. I would have gone back to my mom and dad. But she did. She stumped it out and became such a strong person in God and she became a Christian when I was 14 years old. And that was just. She prayed all those years. They were married twelve years before I was born and I ended up being their only child. My dad always thought it was his fault. They wanted at least six children and it was his fault because his dad had beat him growing up. Life was tough in those days and especially on farms. There were all kinds of things went on with children. We just had no idea.

[05:36] Jan: One of the differences is now there were a couple of things that I think happened, at least for my mom, who lived through the depression and all of those times, you know, how did they know how to parent other than to model what their parents were? And it's not like now you can get every bit of advice anywhere on how. How to parent. And I think there were some twisted scriptures about how to treat children and how to train them up and, you know, that kind of thing too. So I don't know that you can totally fault them, but still, you know, it was hard.

[06:19] Sharon: But my mom was pretty wise and she listened to God. And when I was about two years old, she went to a neighbor lady that she trusted, had made friends with. And she said to her, you have ten kids, and they all seem to be so respectful, so, such good kids. Can you give me your seat? How do you do that? I want to know how to raise my daughter, which was me. And she said, well, Susan, the plan is you love them, be kind to them, respect them, and be courageous and give much and expect much from them. And most of all, respect your children, because then they will respect you. That's huge how my mom raised me with those things in mind. And of course, she wasn't perfect, but she was a great mom. And my, and my dad loved me greatly when I was a young kid. As I got older, we sort of clashed heads because he still had that old, like you said, the parent attitude of some of the scriptures.

[07:49] Jan: Yeah. And did you feel like just because you lived with a great mom that knew the Lord, that you knew the Lord, did you? Was it osmosis or what was your story?

[07:59] Sharon: When I was three years old, my mom said to my dad, I think our daughter needs to go to Sunday school. By this time, they were living in.

[08:09] Jan: A larger city and not the tent.

[08:12] Sharon: And he said, okay, she's your daughter, then you take her. Does he have anything to do with church at that time? And there was a Sunday school bus that ran. And so mom and I got on the Sunday school bus and went to the community church, and then she worked in vacation Bible school and helped with that. And they had a bus and the vacation Bible school bus, and we went to church. When I was five, I got to go to vacation Bible school, and I was in a little room up in the attic of this church. And now that I think about it, it was such a fire hazard. It got up the little stairs to the back room, and the lady that was my teacher that year was a missionary home on Lee from Venezuela, and he told the story of Zacchaeus, about being a little person. And I was five, we were all little people. And at the end, she said, and you're a little person, but you can meet Jesus. You can be Jesus, too. You can have him live with you. And anybody that wants to have Jesus live with them should just stay. After we dismissed class and we'll pray. I did. And, boy, did Jesus just blossom inside of me. This was so exciting and so wonderful. And I was the only one in the room with her. She prayed with me. And then we went down those little tiny stairs, going into the big sanctuary where they were holding the closing of the vacation Bible school day. And I walked in that door that was right in front of the sanctuary. And I threw my arms up. Hey, everybody. I just asked Jesus to take my life.

[10:26] Jan: Oh, my gosh.

[10:28] Sharon: It was. I floated down those stairs. I still remember that feeling to this day.

[10:34] Jan: It was so real, you know? And sometimes people discredit little people, you know, kids, what they really believe, what they say or whatever, you know, but such an impact that's planted in your heart at that age. It's just. Yeah.

[10:52] Sharon: And he's never let me go. You know, I've made some really poor choices in my life, but he's never let me go.

[11:00] Jan: Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Because he's so faithful. Where has been a but God moment in your life?

[11:08] Sharon: But God? Oh, my goodness. And I think that must be it, because no matter what kind of messes I got myself in. And probably the worst one was the choice of husband that I made after being engaged four times, I married the fifth one. I had a hard time making choices, but I didn't even ask God about the fifth one for 21 years. It was really very, very difficult because he was very controlling and demanding. Claimed to be a Christian, but he went to a conference where he learned that the man's supposed to be the head of the household. And so I became a Stepford wife. If you remember, I did what he said and my kids did what he said.

[12:07] Jan: Sounds narcissistic.

[12:09] Sharon: That's the way we live. But God was always there in writing. My third book or fourth book, as now, I had a journal that I kept all during that 21 years. And it was amazing to go back through it and read how God was still there. I pour out my heart in my journal and that God was still there no matter what. And so often in my journal, I put hang on to be Jesus.

[12:45] Jan: Hey, what were some of your favorite scriptures?

[12:50] Sharon: I think the scripture that always comes back to me is in second Timothy. Is it one seven, I believe, where he says that God does not give us a spirit of fear, but of.

[13:07] Jan: Love, peace, sound mind.

[13:10] Sharon: A sound mind. I clung on to that sound mind.

[13:18] Jan: You probably had times where you were wondering whether what your husband called you was who you really were, who defined you.

[13:28] Sharon: Oh, yeah.

[13:29] Jan: Yeah.

[13:30] Sharon: Often in my trial, I would write, I don't even know who I am, what I am, who I'm supposed to be. It was so confusing during that period of time. Yeah.

[13:43] Jan: And was it difficult to try and protect your children?

[13:46] Sharon: It was because he tended to take out on my son, essentially anger. When he was angry with me, he never hit me but twice. I can remember? But if he was angry with me, he would beat my son.

[14:07] Jan: Yeah.

[14:08] Sharon: And so it was sort of blackmail, wasn't it? What? I think back about it, yeah.

[14:15] Jan: Oh, that would be so, so hard. So hard. And then how did that affect your relationship with your son and you?

[14:25] Sharon: My son and I are very close. He has forgiven. His dad died in the Philippines, married to his fourth wife, and before he died, he was able to talk to him and forgive him. And it was such a release for him.

[14:48] Jan: Yeah. Because that's what forgiveness does. It's not even totally for the other person. It's for you to release you.

[14:56] Sharon: I'm really close to both of my kids. They were just here last month, and it was so exciting to have both of them here.

[15:05] Jan: I know. Isn't that the best? I rarely, rarely have all my kids together, but then I have ten kids, so trying to get them all together is not. But I love it whenever they're together. Just the laughing and joking around. Just, I don't know, telling stories that some I wish I didn't know about, maybe. Right. So you taught kindergarten for a lot of years. Tell me about some of the stories you, you shared. Some interesting things that maybe God did with you during that time.

[15:43] Sharon: Oh. Home based job was for me to go to the homes for the Clarkston school district and teach the parents how to have their children ready for kindergarten. So these kids were three and four years old, and I would test them and they would have a low point. If they had a low point, then I would write lesson plans for them and take it to the mom and dad to do with their child so the child would be ready for kindergarten. And going to homes, even in that day, was an eye opener. And I think God put me in that job to understand families and to understand how not all families. And one day I went to a home that had a slanted driveway that went up. You couldn't see the top of the car, the top of the hill where the garage was. But as I drove up in front of the garage, there was deer, and it was spring, and from behind the deer stepped a man with a rifle pointed at me. And he just kept pointing it. And I just. I thought, what am I going to do? I just kept driving up, and I turned to go over toward the house and stopped. And I expected it to blast any moment. I didn't fear, though. I don't know why. Yeah.

[17:22] Jan: Oh, there's a gun. That's kind of interesting. Let's move on and see what the rest of their life is like.

[17:27] Sharon: And got out. By the time I got out, he's right there with the gun still pointed at me. And he said, you didn't see anything, did you? I said, no, I didn't see anything. And he said, well, just make sure you don't. He said, what are you here for? And I told him I was here to do the lessons with the moms and his little boy. And he said, get in the house. So I went on in the house and the mom said to me, I'm so sorry about him. He's so afraid of going back to jail for poaching.

[18:09] Jan: Did that make your husband look pretty good.

[18:18] Sharon: A glass of iced tea at all? Wearing have whiskey in it too to myself. Yeah. And I won't taste anything either. I didn't see anything and I didn't taste anything.

[18:33] Jan: And I'm not writing much of a report here. So.

[18:40] Sharon: Another instance that I find really funny now is I went to this home five times and on the 6th time I knocked on the door. They always called when they had to cancel and knocked and knocked and knocked. And finally I heard steps. The door swings open and there stands a guy, absolutely thus naked. And I'm sure I was a little shocked and kept my eyes on his face. And I said, I'm here to have left with so and so and his mom. And he said, he's not here. And then he grinned and said, and we're a little busy. And I said, I just handed him the materials and said, well, would you give this to his mom so she can do what's the best way? And as I turned around, he said something to me that I will never repeat. And her bip just beat red.

[19:51] Jan: Oh my gosh.

[19:56] Sharon: There were a lot of those instances that just are hilarious now. And I was this, that's a new book, young woman. When I was married and we had an apartment that we managed and I, I taught a lot of lessons in that apartment house also. And then the home based job just kept adding to my education of life.

[20:26] Jan: Tell us about the visit that you did with the girl who had a baby when she was 14.

[20:33] Sharon: Yes, there was a girl who had a baby at the age of 14. And her friends took it upon themselves to have the school district check in because she had this baby was now three years old and they were very concerned about it. And so I was sent to this home. I did not know the background when I went into the house. It was a small trailer, about twelve foot trailer. And when I went in, this child was in a playpen hit the back of the trailer, and just laying there, I introduced myself and told what I was there for. They had told her I was coming. When I went back and fetched the baby, the baby just with frightened eyes just stared at me and just laid there and shivered like it had never been touched before. I tried testing. I tried setting up.

[21:39] Jan: This baby wasn't even a baby as.

[21:44] Sharon: A three year old, just so, so incapable of doing anything. There was no language. She had never talked to the baby. She had fed the baby, never held the baby. When she fed it, it was just very, very sad. This baby was completely an infant at the age of three.

[22:10] Jan: Wow. And was she in diapers still?

[22:13] Sharon: Yes, she was in diapers. And she had had nothing but formula, was able to get formula from the local welfare place, and I don't know why no one from the welfare place ever checked on her. It seemed very, very strange situation. So he was really resentful of the baby and just wanted out. She was just tired of being a mother and tired of having to lean over and feed her in the playpen, and she just wanted out. And I know these friends were hoping to save, so I told her I would possibly have some solutions for her. And she was just all of a sudden, she changed from this very depressed looking woman to a woman because she was 17 years old to she had a sparkle in her eye, and she said, oh, that would be wonderful. I want to be a normal teenager, and I'm stuck with this. And so I wrote up the report, took it to my principal, and he read it and said, take this to the superintendent. And I did. And the superintendent gave me permission to take it to the social welfare. And they took the child from the home and put it in a foster home. And I didn't hear anything about the mother after that.

[23:51] Jan: She must not have had any parent support either.

[23:54] Sharon: She was kicked out of the home at the age of 14 when her mom found out that she was pregnant. Parents supported all. The only support she had were these two friends. Then I later went back into the classroom and was teaching kindergarten at a school and happened to be in the that area. And one day on the first week of school, I always had parents, moms or dads come with their child for 1 hour each day just to get used to the classroom so they wouldn't have a lot of tears on their first day of school. So there was this group of kids. Usually I had about eight kids come at a time. I got acquainted with their moms that way. Usually it was their moms. And while the kids were having a little snack, this mom came to me and said, I just want to introduce myself. And she said her name and her last name, and I thought, I've never had contact with a child, but that was. Or anybody that had this first name. She said, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for what? And she said, thank you for rescuing me from my situation, that you were the girl in the trailer. And he said, yes, I was. And they took me and put me in a foster home. My foster parents gave me all the therapy I needed. They talked to me, they read books to me. I've grown up normally. I had no speech at that time, and now I can talk normally. And I have a little girl. She's sitting right over there, and I want you to be her teacher because my foster parents told me the story about how you rescued me.

[26:08] Jan: Wow. Wow. Isn't that something? Hugs.

[26:12] Sharon: Lots of hugs and lots of tears. They were tears of joy because I had carried around the baggage of that family for forever.

[26:21] Jan: Just goosebumps to even see how God would take.

[26:26] Jan: Use you that way.

[26:27] Jan: I mean, you know, when you ask to be used and he puts you in situations that you just can't imagine and what the long term effects are going to be.

[26:36] Sharon: And not only did he use me, but he gave me a glimpse of what aim about because I allowed him to use me. Yeah, that's sort of my philosophy of life is open doors. You know, I. God opens doors. I walk through them, but he closes up.

[26:57] Jan: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. That is just. That's an incredible story. That is so we are coming closer. At end of our time, where could people find your books?

[27:10] Sharon: The books are on Amazon and locally in Lewis and Clarkston Valley. And books, too, carries them. They're also, I believe, on Barnes Noble, and. And anyone can contact me, and I would be happy to send vocals.

[27:31] Jan: Okay, well, I'll put a link in there for that, so. All right, thank you, Sharon. This has really been.

[27:39] Sharon: Thank you. I'm sorry we had so much problem.

[27:41] Jan: Any last words?

[27:43] Sharon: I just. I just want people to know that no matter what age you are, that if you just commit everything over to God. And I was divorced at 44. That's been 40 years ago. And no matter what age you are, what state you are in life, that he can just take your life and change it completely and just. He has a plan, and you just follow that plan, walk through those open doors, and he just blesses your socks off. I just love it.

[28:24] Jan: I love that is awesome. Yeah, Sharon, that's great. Yeah.

[28:34] Jan: Well, friends, I hope this episode blessed you. Here's the description from her book, Jesus, Lord of my seasons, who hasn't found themselves in a hard place in life? It's the place where God allows us to grow dependent on him. Voicing hurts is the first step to God dependency as we admit our weaknesses. Heart cries echo in the silence of pain as we confess, seek and respond to our master. In one or more of these scenarios, you'll find yourself or at least shave of your heart. Places there's only one true Jesus. Her books are available on Amazon and links for her books and blog are in the show notes. If you're enjoying just talking about Jesus, you may also enjoy one of my favorite podcasts. It's called compelled, and each week there's an amazing testimony, many of which have brought me to tears just because of how God works in people's lives. Checking it out, I put a link in the show notes. I hope this week blesses the socks off of you. Until next time, thanks so much for listening. I look forward to sharing another transforming story with you next week.