He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not… But God Does — Healing Heartbreak, Church Hurt & Identity

Welcome fearfully and wonderfully made human to another episode of the holistic counselor podcast. It's me Diana from Through the Valley Therapy and Transform Mind Consulting and Coaching. Okay, so today's episode is a unique one. I met this lovely woman at a Christian networking event about a month ago and we immediately hit it off.

She started telling me about her book on internet dating and I thought, "Okay, yeah, this is the kind of conversation my listeners need to hear." As a counselor whose niche includes working with amazing women, mostly Christian, mostly between 25 and 35 years old, I've sat with so many who are wrestling with the waiting.

The will I ever meet someone? The is there really a perfect husband out there? And sometimes the honest truth is that the idea of a perfect man becomes less of a dream and more of an idol. I've seen women jump into relationships because their biological clock is screaming or someone at church told them, "God said he's the one."

Only to find themselves in heartbreak, confusion, or worse, abusive dynamics that leave deep wounds. I could go on and on and on, but today I won't. Instead, I wanted to share someone else's story. someone whose words might offer you encouragement, clarity, or maybe just a reminder that you are not alone in this journey.

So, let me introduce you to Sharon Dawn Fineold. Sharon grew up in Howard Beach, Queens, and has a BA in sociology from Queens College. Raised in a traditional Jewish home, Sharon came into a me messianic relationship with Christ in 2013.

She's currently working as a monthly giving manager for a nonprofit ministry and is the author of He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, But God Does, a book that walks us through her adventures in online dating and how she found God right in the middle of it all.

She's also a storyteller at heart, having run a children's entertainment business for nearly two decades, and is now writing a second book about childhood abuse and its lifelong impact. Sharon lives right here in South Florida, has two adult sons, two beautiful grandkids, and continues to share both her storytelling gift and the love of God with them.

So, grab your tea, take a deep breath, and let's dive into this beautiful, raw, and faithfilled conversation with Sharon. Thank you, Sharon. Welcome to the show. Oh, welcome Diana. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm so happy to be here. All right, so let's start here.

You know, like you heard in the in the introduction, many of my clients are in their 30s and some of them have been waiting for a long time for Mr. Rightight. You know, they were taught to do the the if you do these right things through youth group and everything like that, you're going to find the perfect man.

And sometimes what's happened they've come to me with big broken hearts in their 30s. You know from your experience that and then they become obsessed with it. So I have to disentangle and help them. And it's easy for me to say I've been married for 30 years almost 30 years.

But let me tell you it was difficult and I was not a Christian when I first met my husband. So this has been a difficult road on my end. But for those that are coming and they're wanting and trying to do the right thing, how does this obsession impact mental health, self-worth, and decision making in relationships?

What was your experience? Well, I didn't put everything in my book, Diana, or I would have been this big. But since I was a little girl, I don't know why I'm I came from an abusive household. I didn't get a lot of love from my father or my mom.

My whole life I was just a romantic, you know. I I fantasized about meeting the prince. When I watched Cinderella, I really believe that's how life went, you know. I mean, we never hear what happens to Cinderella after they're married. Does she get in trouble from her husband for not keeping the castle clean?

I don't know. But I was just so like enthroned with just meeting the one. That one was going to change my life. And how that impacted me in a very negative way which turned positive for me because I married any in the beginning of my life I married anybody who came along and asked me even though I was not in love.

I was in love with marriage. So my first my first husband that's not in the book it was six months and then I left because he wound up um it was an abusive relationship. Um so I left. Then I met my second husband who I had two kids with and was married for 12 years.

I met him in a carpet store and he was so he really seemed to love me. He went and got me a ring and he married me and I married him just because I needed to be married. I don't understand what the obsession was with marriage, but I really believed that when you have somebody, they would take care of me.

They would they would they would fill in all the missing pieces to that puzzle that I couldn't do on my own.

So basically how it affects you is you're so busy looking for that person that's going to make your life perfect that you don't give yourself the hand up to try to be the one to make your life perfect because somebody else can't do that you know and then all through my life I was raised in a Jewish home so I wasn't raised with Christ I was raised in Jewish neighborhoods My grandparents were high holy orthodox.

Can you explain that? Can you explain that to my audience because some of us don't know what that means. Okay. So, um there's different levels of Judaism. There's traditional, you know, um like just regular people that are Jewish traditionally, you know, they might do the holidays.

They they look they look like you and I. you would never know anything about like creers like what we would call as Christian like those that just go out for Christmas and Easter but they don't really understand so it's a cultural thing more than a personal walk with God correct they'll celebrate the Hanukkah and the Passover okay that's it they're done they don't go to temple you know and so then you have um you have the

hidum the hidum are the very religious they would be probably like the Pharisees in the Bible, okay, who, you know, they're wearing they're wearing all the gear.

They're the little pis thing and they're just and you know, they don't do anything on Shabbat on Saturday. They don't use a key. They don't go in a car. They just pray all day on Saturday. And then you have um the the Orthodox.

And I would say the Orthodox are between um if you want to say the Pharisees and just the traditionalists, the ones who just celebrate the two holidays. The um Orthodox, they wear the kippers on their head or the yarmakas if you're familiar, but they're in regular clothes most of the time.

Okay? But you know, the women um for the Orthodox will might have their arms covered, you know, at least up to, you know, mid level. Um they'll wear maybe the women will wear a skirt, you know, they'll they'll be pretty covered, but they'll be in regular clothes but very covered.

Okay? And a lot of times they they send their kids generally to orthodox schools. They light the candles Friday night. They go to temple every Saturday. They love father God. They are um you know immersed in his word and those were my grandparents. you know, they Shabbat was very sacred to them when um you know, we couldn't come over and visit them on a Saturday unless we walked.

And of course, we couldn't walk because we were in two different counties. So, we'd come visit them on Sunday, you know, and um you know, I was my my mother was raised in that environment. So when I grew up, you know, we we she did things again, she did some things and not other things, you know, she lit the candles Friday night.

She said the prayers, you know, but um you know, so I come from basically a a Jewish neighborhood. A lot of people that I grew up in Howard Beach. We were in Lynenwood. Lynenwood was completely um Jewish and Rockwood Park, the other part of Howard Beach, was pretty much a lot of Italian.

The church in the Jewish center were right there. It's a very close-knit community made up of Italians and Jews. Okay, we got along amazing. It was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful place to grow up. But um you know, I didn't go to the church and I didn't know Jesus.

All I knew about Jesus is sometimes people mentioned him when they were angry. That's all I ever heard in my home, you know. So I didn't know. I just knew it was always this figure on a cross. Knew nothing about it, you know.

But God knew more than me. Doesn't he always? Yeah. From the time I was a little girl. I don't know why me, but he was pursuing me. Now, I did not know that then, but I knew that as I got older and became an adult, I saw his handprints, his fingerprints in my life.

And when I started this internet dating and I was on a roll, nothing. How long ago was this internet dating? Let's just go like how can I ask how old you were when you started internet dating? Yeah, I would I I would I would say that I started internet dating probably in my 40s.

My it started in my probably um I would say 44 45. Okay. And what made you do internet dating? Because that's pretty brave. Like I mean nowadays that's what mostly people do. Like they don't even I mean I shouldn't say that but I know those that come into my office and they're single and they're trying to date.

It's just something about it makes it easier I guess. or it's just because people are so busy. I mean there or there's especially after co there's no places that to come and meet together and it's like very very different. I have no idea and I'm thinking like whoa.

But I do have well I had I believe my son at the time was about 18 or 19 something of that effect and you know that age group back then was getting into the technology. Yeah. And there was something online called Jate back then dating.

Yes. I had a professor who was on J we somebody found we were at NOVA and this was in 200 I want to say two 2002 I and I'm sorry for interrupting but I think that for for my audience to understand like yeah this was when when did you do this like early 2000 or mid 2000 I would say J day um about 2004.

Yeah because his this is before Facebook even was like out there in the public. So Wow. There was Yeah. There was no face. There was no better. I didn't even have an email address. I didn't use I didn't even use email. And and I I had I had an old laptop because the the guy that I was engaged to that really broke my heart and left me, which is in my book.

I think it's I think it's the first chapter. Okay. Um you know, he had laptops, computers, and actually it was a computer. It wasn't even a laptop back then. They were all over the house. So my son Adam and I did change the name of all these dating sites in my book.

So J date Date would be something else, you know. Okay. Okay. So plus, you know, I don't even know if all these sites are even there anymore. This is back with AOL and and all this. This is stuff like I love this. This is history, people.

So my son, he created a username for me, you know, he creates a username for me and he sets me up on an email and then he creates my whole profile. He takes a picture. I mean, he does the whole kitten kaboodleoodle and wait, he had to take a picture to take a picture.

You ready, guys? To take a I don't think the phones had cameras like they do today. He took a picture with I did have a digital camera. He took a picture of me with a digital camera and you were able to upload it with the with with the cord to the laptop.

We've come a long way, baby. Like and um and he got me on and and together him and I wrote a profile and it was a very pretty profile because my 18-year-old son wrote it and he wanted to keep me safe. Okay. It was be beautiful picture and I I wrote what I was looking for and I wrote from my heart that I was looking for a man to spend the rest of my life with that would love the things that I love.

Somebody I can talk to. To me, communication was always the most important thing to me. I want a best friend. Yeah, you can find a lover anywhere. I want a best friend. Now, at this time, I did not know Christ. I knew father God because I was Jewish, but um you know, I was just out doing my thing, you know, and um I just had a feeling I was going to find the one.

That's when that first phrase came to me. So, I had to go out somewhere. So, he he put up my profile. I came back um maybe two three hours later and opened it up and whoa, it was like winning a jackpot. See, this is where the obsession came in.

It was like winning a jackpot because there must have been 30 just people contacted me and they were goodlooking. Like it was like a um instead of a Toys R Us, it was like a dating or us. It sounds like it's you're like playing a slot machine.

It could be like a an addiction all of a sudden. Well, all of a sudden it started like that because I was like, "Wow, not only now am I in my head am I going to find the one I'm going to find somebody gorgeous.

I'm going to find maybe I'll go after a lawyer or a doctor." It was like it was like futuristic. You can pick the details that you want from from that person's personality, from their looks. It was like playing a game. This could really happen.

You press the little slot thing and Yeah. comes out. Yeah. So, you know, and it just started I I I I started responding to all these guys and I responded to everybody. I just kept responding and responding. Um, wasn't that exhausting though after a while?

After a while, in the beginning, it was exciting and fun. What became exhausting through my internet dating was I would get dressed up, I would buy clothes, I would have my hair and makeup done. And and back then, all those years ago, I I was kind of cute, you know.

I, you know, I was always very tiny, you know, with the cute little figure and, you know, I I had my pedicures done, I had my manicures done, my hair, my this, my that. It was a lot of work setting up, you know, and um sometimes they didn't show up.

Oh my god. Well, sometimes they showed up and said to me, "Oh, I thought you would look different. I thought you would be younger. I thought you would be older. I thought you would be thinner. I thought you would be more endowed. I thought I mean this was like and you should see the men telling me this.

Oh man, I had one little incident that wasn't in my I didn't I don't think I put this in my book. I don't remember if it's there or not, but I was meeting somebody at a Starbucks. Starbucks was the big thing back then.

That's when Starbucks was packed to capacity and everybody was hanging in. They were just getting their little, you know, um laptops and coming there, you know, it was all coffee. So I'm supposed to meet this guy who was absolutely gorgeous. I think he was a lawyer.

I don't know, just beautiful in his profile. I go into Starbucks, don't see him. I sit in a chair. All along there's a guy sitting in front of me and I'm like, you know, I'm looking, trying to nervous, trying to waste my time.

There must have been a guy, I would say 450, 500 lb. He's like sitting like Jabba the hut in the chair and I don't think anything of it. And all of a sudden, I'm sitting there and I guess people could see I'm kind of looking.

I'm hesitant. You know, I got a little anxiety going on. And this guy to me, "Are you sharing?" I said, "Yes." He goes, "Um, I don't remember the name, but let's just call him Jim for the heck of it." He says, "Oh, I'm Jim.

I'm I'm your your date for tonight." I said, "You're Jim. You look nothing like your profile." I said, "You were slim in your profile." He goes, "Oh, no, no. I got bit by a bee." I said, "Wow, big bee. Have a good night."

And I walked out. Wow. That Sharon, that must be like I'm I'm just picturing these things happening. And I hear stories too because what I do for a living, people come in and like I went on, you know, I went on another date and so and so and it was kind of sketchy and it was nothing like the profile and you know that the the mental um gymnastics, right, that this can cause.

But I don't want to put it down because I do know couples that have met, you know, on dating pro provice. So I don't want to put fear into anybody either. If you're searching, some people get lucky. Some people there were some people that I met.

I just want to I just want to I want to do correction here. I did meet a lot of men that were very nice. Oh, cool. Very nice with good jobs. They were exactly who they were, but there was no spark. And you got to have a spark.

Yeah. You know, I didn't want to make the mistakes I made in my first two marriages. I wanted I wanted to be in love because here's the thing, in the beginning, it's great, but if you don't have the love starting in the beginning, right, eventually it won't you won't make it, you know?

Yeah. So, can I I want to read the introduction. Okay. All right. Of the book. All right. Here, if you're looking on YouTube, this is the book. He loves me. He loves me not, but God does. I never set out to write a book on dating, let alone internet dating.

I never thought I would have had to date. I really believed in my heart someone would have come along and loved me for everything I am and everything I would be for them. I never in a million years dreamed that dating would become a part of my life.

A series of ups and downs, very few successes, and multiple failures would summarize dating for me so far. Women like me are snatched up in a heartbeat. I'm athletic, playful, pretty, petite, and independent. Yet sometimes I can be like a whimsical character in a romantic tale.

Everyone thinks I am adorable. And yet, everything about my dating past, present, and future to come has gone wrong, or maybe we should say unexplainably cloudy. There are so many common myths about dating, especially internet dating. It can be a great place to meet someone and then again it could break down your self-esteem and make you see yourself in a way you never had.

It can be addicting like a slot machine in a casino. And when you lose in one club, you feel another club or internet site will bring you a win. This book is not a howto or a how not to on dating. It is my life, my story, my heart.

It will not ease anyone's pain or show anyone how to make it work. It will let you know that if you are failing at it, that you are not alone and that maybe we are all looking for love in all the wrong places.

Maybe love needs to find you instead of you looking for it. When I started thinking about my failed dating experiences, I thought maybe this is all goes back to my childhood, my infancy. And maybe love would not find me until I worked out all the other things that were not working in my life.

I needed answers to questions I just couldn't solve. And maybe for once I needed to come face to face with the question, what was I doing that was scaring everyone away from me? Could it really be me? Could my whole life have surfaced and come to a head in these internet dating years that I was alone?

I needed to know. I needed to analyze and I needed to fix it. I had become a desperate woman, scared and lonely and afraid that I would end up the rest of my life alone. I would go always from one dating site to the next.

Dating had become a job, a career, and a calling. If it killed me, I would find my soulmate. I couldn't stop. I couldn't slow down. I was driven by fear, rejection, loneliness, and by most myself. I had reduced myself to feeling that I was not and would never be complete without a man in my life to love me.

At this time in my life, these feelings and thoughts had taken over my entire body and soul. I couldn't breathe without feeling pain in my heart that there was no one special in my life. This is my story and my dating journey that I need to share.

This is the journey, the road that has led me to some of my own answers and my own self-discovery of who I am. God said, "To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heavens." I think this journey through hell was meant to bring me closer to heaven.

It taught me that I will never find my true happiness in man and that the men I kept meeting would continue to disappoint me, hurt me, and break down my self-esteem over and over again. The only way I would ever learn to love myself and accept myself for everything I am would be to draw closer to God, my creator, my father, my Lord, who loved me just the way I was.

I learned that without this hard, pathetic path that I was tumbling on, I might have never found the arms of my savior, Jesus. God opened my eyes after many dark years of internet dating, and he taught me that my worth would be found in him.

In this entire universe, God would be the one who would never leave or forsake me, for he loves me. Oh, girlfriend Sharon that introduction like to me I'm gonna read the rest of the book I promise because I just got it and I have other books but tell me how did that change for you?

How did you go from this person that we were just talking about before I read this introduction of not knowing Lord and then to me that's a freedom and surrender that you finally said you know what it is what it is like how did that shift for you is just so amazing what God did.

It's all God because we can't fix ourselves. We can't stop drinking. We can't stop doing drugs. We can't stop being who we are unless we have somebody greater than us helping. He pursued me. I make you laugh, but I used to think he pursued me so much.

I kept saying, "Why can't the men pursue me the way he's pursuing me?" I mean, he and I'm going to give you a little a little tip of that. Christian, again, I'm Jewish. Christian Bibles were coming at me like like like water. They were just floating my way.

I'd meet people, they give me Bibles, Christian Bibles. So, here's a little tibbit for you. I was working at a job I didn't like with these terrible hours I didn't like. But, I was alone and had a I had to make ends meet.

And I didn't really have a career going then, you know, because I had been a stay-at-home mom for a good part of my life. And you know, so I used to come into work very depressed because I didn't like what I was doing.

I was in a call center and just uh just you know, some in a place in Fort Lauderdale. And um one day there was a new guy that started working there, an older man. And when I came into my cubicle and my hours that day were 12:00, I was always depressed on a 12:00.

I'd work 12 to 9. Very depressing. And plus, I couldn't go out dating at night because it was too late. Maybe that was why. But he left a Bible. Well, somebody left a Bible on my de um desk. It was a used Bible with eeny weeny weeny weeny small print.

And I looked around and I I don't know. I said to the new guy, "Did you leave this on my desk?" He goes, "I did." He goes, "I really feel you could use it. You need it." He goes, "My name is Peter. I think if you start reading this Bible, you'll feel better."

I said, 'Well, Peter, I would love to read the Bible, but I can't read this small print. I said, 'So, thank you very much.' And I gave it back to him. One week later, I come back in, there's a beautiful, brand new large, and I mean large print Christian Bible on my desk, and I remember looking up.

I remember the saying, "Okay, God, you're pushing. I see it." You know, because why would somebody do that for you, you know? And um I went over to Peter and said thank you. Then he had me come to his temple which was a messianic temple.

M messianic for those who don't know mean um um so the messiah it means basically messianic Jews for Jesus basically Jews that are finding who Jesus is and the temples are those type of temples not traditional you know Jewish temples where they don't mention Jesus or believe in him and I went and there was music and they anointed me with oils and they brought me up to the stage as per Peter and I felt really good, you know, and I left and for a day or two and I was fine.

And then I went back to my my games, my internet if you want to call it. So God kept pulling me in this direction. I would come to him for a moment and then pull back. Now I still didn't know who Jesus was really and then it just kept coming.

People coming in and out of my life, not men to date, but just people, women, people talking about Jesus. And just the even the way he even used a dog on how I found Jesus. He used a dog. Um I was at a Starbucks one night and um he uh I went to take the last sip of my latte.

We were outside. It was beautiful out and I'm sitting there by the garbage and this white dog the eyes became alive like three-dimensional. And it drew me to this couple that are sitting there and I'm just standing in front of their table and they're like, "Hello."

I said, "I am so sorry. I am not a psycho, but your dog brought me here." With the eyes, but now the eyes are normal, so I don't know. So, and that's my friend Dave. He said, "Sit down." Wow. And then I was out with my friend Jim that night and he was looking for me because I wound up sitting there talking and he came over and we sat down.

And again, this has to be the Holy Spirit because why would I do this? I start talking about Father God and how much I love him and and I believe he brought me to this table, but I don't know why. I was talking gibberish that I have no idea why I was talking.

And they just start talking about Christ to me. Wow. And if you think I'm obsessive about the internet dating, you should have seen me go head over heels for Christ. Um, I just I be at one point I was in three Bible studies.

I had to learn the word. Yeah. The word. Man, you're on fire. It happens when you first start. Like it's like, whoa. Like, well, I had a very severe um had a very severe fear of death. And um even at 5 years old, I remember watching this woman die and being petrified.

I kept thinking what happens if you lay in the ground and you you seem to be not moving but you could hear and see everything even though nobody know I had just severe this these are the thoughts that that infiltrated my life at times.

Well, no, that's many people though, Sharon. Like I have a lot of client the fear of death, the fear of I mean there's so many fears out that's like new ones being created all the time, right? So when I was told when I was told you don't die, you know, you go to heaven, stick with heaven, you know, and he told me all about heaven and I read all about heaven.

I was hooked. Wow. Thank you, God. you know, I get to be with God. And I loved I really loved Father God. I remember being a little girl and playing in the snow and pretending God was with me when I was alone. I had a very lonely childhood.

And that could be why I was obsessed with a husband. Well, and and Walt Disney like, "Thank you, Disney. Honestly, I get it, Sharon. I was lonely too when as a child as well." And you're right. You would you had you honestly to me though, God was always there and I felt him.

He was always he always let me feel him. And so, you know, so as the story is told, I came to Christ within the next couple of weeks. And um that those friends, Kim and Dave, Kim is now one of my best friends.

You know, the couple you met at Starbucks because of their dog. Yes. I love it. What was the dog's name? Do you remember? TJ. TJ. Oh, how sweet. He's no longer here, but maybe I'll see him in heaven, you know. A So, and he could then talk to me about it, you know.

Yeah. Listen, like, how did you break free from that pressure? So, then you you started to go to Bible studies and then you were you were pursuing Christ, like really getting to know that peace that only he could bring and that, you know, him being the wonderful counselor.

But that longing must still be there to want to have that best friend. I still have that longing. Okay, I still have that longing, but it's different. I will never say I don't. The difference is from learning who Okay, it's so hard to explain this to a non-believer.

And it t and listen, relationships, the relationship with Christ was was the same as meeting a man in the sense of if you meet somebody and the first day you're head over heels, that's not true love. M l that could be infactuation. Yeah.

True love comes from a growing relationship, getting to know somebody. And it took me years as a Jewish person. I had a hard time saying the word Christ because I was always affiliated with religion, churches, you know. So, it took me a long time to get into a relationship with Jesus.

But as I got into one and I fell in love with him, I guess because I love Jesus and he loves me, it makes listen, I want to meet somebody, but it makes the longing for that other person like the scales change. So I still want to meet somebody, but Christ comes first.

And I also realized, remember, I had a lot of Bible studies. I had a lot of mentors. Had a lot of people as I got more into the church and more into Bible studies and meeting believers. I had this one woman, she's now in heaven.

I I met her through she was a donor at a at a uh fundraising job I had. And we met and I feel God brought us together because she knew my every feeling. I never saw her in person. Wow. in a nursing home in in um Arkansas and we became best buds over the phone.

She's even in my book. She is in the dedication in my book. Her name is Donna. That's the impact she had on me. And she said she was she was a devout Christian of over 30 years. And she said to me, Sharon, I don't know why you were not able to meet anyone, but there is sometimes a reason that God doesn't want you to meet somebody.

He maybe he just wants to keep you where you're at because you're so into him. He doesn't want, you know, we don't know. We can't try to guess why God's doing what he's doing. Or maybe there isn't the right person for me at this point in my life.

Okay. So, that made it easier for me. Listen, if God came right here now in in the middle of our radio show and said, "Sharon, you're not going to meet anyone. I I don't want you to. There's nobody." Listen, I wouldn't be having a party over it.

But if if if God doesn't bring me the right person, I don't want to meet a person, right? I mean, I can go back on the internet, I'm sure, meet somebody. Yeah. What God also did for me is he brought other people for the first time in my life.

My children grew up and my son Adam who lives here locally became my friend and gave me Andrew. Andrew is a 5-year-old little boy that I'm trying to teach about Jesus. I signed I'm signing him up for VBS for the first time. Andrew and I have a relationship that people on the outside see I I don't notice anything that people say is so unusual.

We're like best buds. And you know, he brought in a picture of um him and I together for a show and tell picture of me. I mean, he loves me. He said to me last week, he calls me Gagu. He said he said because he couldn't say grandma and then when he could say it, I loved gagu.

So he says, "Okay, we'll stick with it. We'll stick." I love that. That's a unique grandma name. I'm I'm I'm Lita. Aita. Oh, that's pretty. That's so pretty. But Andrew, I'm gonna call you Gagu this. My goodness, people do. So la last um last Saturday we're playing in the garage with his monster trucks and we're sitting there and we're talking about the days of the week and he says, "Gagu, I love Saturday the best."

And I said, "Why, Andrew?" He says, "Because you come to play with me every Saturday and I love you so much." Right? I I I am this love that he gives me is so fulfilling. You got to understand I didn't have the love from my my sibling or my family or my aunts or my grand.

I didn't have that in my life. So I spent my life searching and the internet was a great tool. Somebody would be there to love me, right? Yeah. Wow. So what advice? So so you know I want to know how the listener if they're listening they're like okay like I feel like I'm never going to find anyone.

I do love the Lord. Like what advice would you give or what words of encouragement would you give a a woman at this point as a because you're at that place in your life where you are a mentor and your book, this memoir is something to help others even though it helped you process and get this story out.

Um, what would you tell them? Well, first of all, anybody you have to you need to know God. You need to be in a relationship with God. Not just go to church like you said on, you know, on Easter or Christmas, but you need to know Jesus to be in a relationship and you need to trust.

So the most important thing is your faith here. What my faith and trust in Jesus did is it so I was on this path. What it did is it veered me off to the right. on the right was I still wanted to meet somebody, but I was going about it now in a more godly way.

Can you explain that a little more? Like what do you mean in a more godly way? I don't think God wants us. Not that you can't not that two Christian people can't meet on a on on a internet. I just felt in my spirit that that wasn't the best way to meet somebody.

Okay. It wasn't for me. I did not have any luck with it. So, if you're not having luck with that and you are meeting some very unusual different type of characters on there, it might be time to just do something else. Go to church.

Go to church functions. Serve at a church. I did all that through the years. I served and you know um and and now I work for a phenomenal ministry where I'm serving there and I'm out in the field in this particular ministry. So look and see what your needs are.

I wrote down what my needs were. What were my needs? I had a fear of not being able to support myself and take care of myself through my life. Okay. Well, God has been with me. He's given me the right jobs, the right people.

He He has strategically put me in places that I'm okay. And you know what? If you're searching for the one and you can't find the one and you're really sad about it, talk to yourself. I talk to myself all the time now. I tell myself, "Wow, Sharon, you're making a living.

You're putting money away. You're giving. I give to where I can give. I love to help. I love to give people things. I'm evangelizing. I'm going out in the field instead of staying home and crying because I did a lot of crying. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. I I I don't go anywhere near the internet. I'm going to get I'm going to share this with you. It is not in my book. So, here here's what they call a freebie. after I was in a relationship with um the Lord and everything and um and you will find when you read my book that I had met someone and got engaged but I'm not going to give you any I'm not giving that away.

You have to read the book. But after that was over when I was with nobody and I had nobody in my life and I was a devout Christian still not meeting anybody but I was you know I was okay. I decided to look at some Christian internet sites, which I had not done back when I was younger because I wasn't a Christian.

And either it was God saying, "Here's your confirmation. This is not working." Or what? I didn't put a p I didn't put a picture. I didn't I put a profile, but not a picture on. Without a picture, you cannot believe the characters. I had 18-year-old boys con contacting me.

I I just these were not Christian people. So you cannot trust. The way I look at it is um real I didn't even want a Christian man. I wanted a godly man. I wanted a man who would put God first and honor his wife.

Okay, the way God expects us to do that. I wanted somebody that would wait for all, you know, all physical when we're married. Okay? You could only find that in somebody who truly loves the Lord the way I do. We needed to be yolked.

So, my my my thing was I did try that one and I only did it for a day or two. I got a couple of they were all horrible.

Nobody normal or decent. everybody just wearing a mask like you know why does an 18-year-old person want to be with somebody my age right so you know oh I love older women they're the greatest you know oh I will start analyzing that and be here for another two hours so we're not doing that but that's my freebie I did try I needed that confirmation but actually that was a great confirmation for me because then I knew

I was in the right place in my heart in my mind you know you know it he talks about in his book to you know that you have to you know renew your mind and your heart in Christ Jesus daily too daily Paul tells us that do not conform to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that's what I do I have a favorite little um I take all my

favorite scriptures and I have them in the cutest little journal I bought and I write everything down I write sayings I write prayers I put stickers about God in that's my little.

It's this little tiny thing with a bazillion pages. I love this thing. I have a love letter from God in there that I found in a therapy book that I was reading. Wow. Do you remember the name of the therapy book? Um, Healing What Hurts.

Healing What Hurts. Cool. Because I'll put that in the show notes. I like any kind of resources for my listeners to put it on the show notes. Okay. Yep. and he wrote a letter, you know, it's a typical God letter using pieces of scripture and puts together a whole letter when I'm feeling lonely, when I'm feeling like, you know, wow, all my friends are they're all going with their husbands to Home Depot to get something for a new project for the house.

When I'm feeling that that that, you know, little bit of pain because I'm I'm human. I'm human. That's right. And I'm going to feel it. I turn to the I turn to my my favorite things that will heal me. My my my my my godly things, my journal, my scriptures, my, you know, special books I have.

I love to read books about heaven. I love to read books about near-death experiences with heaven because I can't wait for heaven and nobody will be married in heaven. We'll all be married to Jesus. Whack. That's my kind of world. Yeah. So, you know, so I have things that I love to do.

I'm I'm creative. Find what you like to do and do it. I love to write. I really love to write. I've written 11 children's books. I love to write. I love to still make those felt board stories that you talked about. Oh my goodness.

Old in my bio. Yeah, the felt Oh, can I ask you? Can people find your children's books somewhere? They haven't published them. Mh. What you waiting for? I have so much to publish and the pub publishing world's a little rough. But you know what?

You know what I recommend to everybody? You don't have to be a writer. So this book, this was my first actual book. I'm working on my second one now, but my first book, it wasn't it didn't start out as a book. It started out as just almost like a journal.

I would go on I would go on a date and come home and write about it. And I wrote in three notebooks because we we were back and I still have these notebooks. I don't want to ever throw them out. Okay. I would buy pretty notebooks.

I was very excited. I would go I would go to Barnes & Noble. They had pretty journals. I'd buy this was before Amazon. And I would find these journals. I'd spend sometimes $10 on a journal and I would start writing. Then I go out on another date and come back.

And I put the name down. You know, I I dated Vinnie tonight. We went we went out. He said we were going out for ice cream and he took me to McDonald's and only let me get one scoop in my cup of ice cream.

You know, all kinds of crazy stuff like that. These are the crazy things that came about. You know, the book is funny. I did lock and key parties. I did speed dating. You know what any of this stuff is? It's all in my book.

I did I did a singles cruise. Now, that was interesting. Okay, that and I I I even I even write in there. So, I was I was when I went on this single cruise, I was at the end. I think I was 49 years old when I went on it.

Still looking good. I had my little stiletto heels. I met this group of women that I signed up to share a bus with them to the ship. When I walked into the house, they were all in their little mumus with their little stockings and socks.

I walked in and all I remember one woman elbowing her friend and saying, "She's gonna take our men, you know." So, little did she know, trust me, I'm not going to take anybody's men out of my way. But, so I just ignored it.

And they, everybody on this particular cruise, it was a singles cruise and the ages were 45 to 65. Mhm. Boy, people tend to not tell the truth in every capacity. Okay. And that night was going to be a Halloween party the first night of our cruise.

And I bought myself a little witch outfit, little short mini Oh, I looked I I was adorable. Still little heels. I and a mask. So, I hadn't met anybody except for those women from the cruise. So, I went into the room where we were supposed to meet for dinner in that room for a party and I write it all in my book and I walk in and I really felt like Cinderella.

Everything stopped including the music when I walked in. I was one of the last people to come because I was having trouble with my fish hose, you know, and it just was silent just like Cinderella at the top of the steps. I was right at the edge of the door and everybody was staring out.

The only difference in my Cinderella story was if any of these men would have bent down to get my slipper that fell off, they would have never got up. Okay? They were all, I would say, 70 to about 100 with walkers and can go all kinds of stuff.

And it just it it's just funny because I I just I just couldn't, you know, Yeah. get anything to work, you know? I mean, it was like I had the women hating me, the men and these old men. Now, I could have had my pick of the litter on that ship of these older dudes, you know?

They were all over me. I mean, and I write about it and I just kept it just was and and it's funny. It's funny because, you know, it was it was funny and that's and that's what I hear.

So like to me and this is something I ask clients to do is journal because to me it is very cathartic and healing and you process things out because what happens in the brain you know you just keep ruminating ruminating ruminating even if you're not a writer to just put things out there right and so with your book I mean it is it's called he loves me he loves me not but God does a true story about internet dating and finding God in In the midst of it all, where can the audience find your book?

You can get my book in three places. The book was published by a publishing company called Molding Messengers. Okay. Okay. You can find it through their website. You can find it on Barnes and Noble and of course Amazon. Wonderful. Oh, that is so wonderful.

And and the book also I just want to it's really important. Those of you that truly do know God or you're searching for God, my epilogue, the epilogue in that book is is basically the gospel and how it fit and molded me, you know, but I also want to tell you when I decided to come on your show, I went back and read my book, you know, because I, you know, I hadn't read it in a while.

I went back to read it and every time I read my book, I feel healed again. Wow. The healing because it's my story. It's my heart and it's healing me. So, journal, journal, journal. It doesn't matter. If you saw my original notebooks, you would say, "I'm not a writer.

What a mess." Yeah, it was a mess. I had to go put all this on a laptop. I don't like to type. And this is the situation is that we heal from other people's stories. This is how we are made to be in community.

Even if we're not in the perfect community of the white picket fence, married to the perfect man and etc, etc. Honestly though, I'm telling you right now, there is no perfect man. There isn't. I'm I'm married. So, it's like there is But when you're looking when you're when you want only perfection, you see your mind plays tricks on you.

Yes. Yes, I want to tell you something. I I wish there would have been a book like this that I could read. I really felt alone in my journey. I felt like I was the only one failing. I felt like what is wrong with me?

What is what more? I was thinking of having some plastic surgery. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I never had the surgery. I found God instead. But I I want to tell you something. And I did things that were dangerous. When you become obsessed, again, it's just like being a drug addict.

You do things dangerous. A a a drug addict might go into the night and meet somebody in the middle of a field by themselves. Yeah. And and and lose their life to get that. The drug is more important than your safety. Yeah, I flew all the way I think it was uh was it in Montana, one of those cold states for for Thanksgiving weekend.

I I I wasn't with my family. I to meet somebody that I met online and spent the weekend um I didn't share um a hotel room with them, but they put me up in a hotel. I write it in my book. It was It looked like the Bates Motel in the movie Psycho, if anybody saw that.

Oh my goodness, that's scary. I mean, you it was missing everything in that hotel room but the chalk outline on the floor. Wow. Okay. And when he left me there by myself until the next day, I was crying saying, "What did I do?

Am I Am I that do I have to be that desperate?" And this man was he was a nice man. He was a nice man. He was good to me. He was Thank goodness. He had no money. I believe he was homeless cuz he he didn't stay in the hotel.

He left me in the hotel and came back for me the next morning. And where did he go? Where why couldn't I stay at his place? You know, because he might have had a um a wife already. He could you could have been the you could have been the sidekick, the side girl, side piece, right?

And then the night before that we had to go, he was taking me for my flight back to Florida. We drove to the airport the night before, got into the parking lot about 11:00 at night, and I said, "Oh, where's the hotel?" He says, "Oh, no.

I don't have any more money for a hotel. We're going to stay in the going to sleep in the car." And I'm like, and I kept having visions that we would get arrested in the parking lot of the airport and I would never make it home.

And I couldn't even He fell asleep. And I was just up all night really saying to myself, "Who am I? Who am I that I would put myself into such unheard of circumstances when I didn't need to do that?" Yeah. I you know I mean is that and is this the go and if he would have asked me to marry him I probably would have said yes.

Wow. Someone off the street back then. Yeah. And this is the situation. It's like if you're listening to this I suggest you start with the word of God and really understand it in context. Number one. Number two find community, a healthy community. because you could find other people thinking the same way as you and then you're sitting there bashing men or bashing everything or and then you start with the inner critic and then beating yourself up and not understanding who you actually are in Christ.

So that is what I'm hearing that's in your book and journal.

That's what I'm also hearing to journal it out and you know what find a therapist who will sit with you because this is what I do with a lot of my clients is to sit and and disentangle what is it's okay to feel these feelings it's when it becomes the idol when it becomes before God when you're so desperate that you would end up in a place like Sharon did in Montana risking her life for a

stranger so desperate to find love and I'm so glad Sharon that you found Jesus because he is the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the father except through him.

And he is the way maker, right? The wonderful counselor, the great physician, uh the prince of peace. And I know if you're listening to this and you're going, "What what does that mean?" Well, look into I'm see a Bible believing place like and be careful because there's many people that try to go to a church and then they get caught up in cults or they get caught up looking at man again and that man that's at the pulpit becomes their leader and it's not.

You have to understand your personal relationship with the Lord. So listen, I really appreciate you coming on here, Sharon, and telling your story, your testimony, because this is what this memoir is. And I and I have one more thing that I do want to share with your audience because this is the most important thing.

I couldn't see it then, but I see it now. Things I see through different eyes, different lens. The things that I was doing to meet people, and those people were doing the same thing, you know, meeting me in his hometown. He didn't know who I was getting off the plane, right?

Those the men you really want to spend your life with. Those men that that will just take anybody. Also, remember what God will teach you is you want to be fully yolked with the person. You want to have a belief system that lines up with God's word because when it does, God will bless you.

I might have not found him, but he could still be out there. Yeah. Listen, I'm not going to name the person that was in the group that just got married and I'm thinking she's in her early 60s maybe. I'm not sure.

I'm not going to name her, but I was shocked because I haven't seen her in a long long long time because I worked with her on a on a different project like I don't know 10 years ago and I and then I lost touch and then I saw her and then she just got married.

So the Lord knows what he's doing. You just have to trust in the Lord and and and I live in a 55 community. This is so funny. You're going to I got in the mail. It was last remember last year they did the Golden Bachelor on TV.

Yes. Yes. And those Okay. Those people are all you know you have to be I think 55 plus or older. I got an email cuz I live here to enter with an application to enter the Golden Bachelor. And did you apply? I did not apply.

I I didn't definitely did not think that was godly. But what I was so and I give myself the pats on the back when needed. I was so proud of myself because you know 15 years ago I would have been on that show.

I am telling you but now I didn't need it. I have God. I I I'm waiting for him you know and he has brought so many other blessings in my life and other people to love me and it's a beautiful thing you know.

Yes it is. All right. Thank you Sharon for coming on the show. Welcome. And remember listener to trust in the Lord, guard your heart and renew your mind. Bye. And now for the disclaimer to make sure you understand that you are responsible for you.

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