"I feel like I met him for a reason"

[freeandfun1]

This appeared on the Atlanta Constitution Journal's site which requires a subscription (free, but still a hassle) so I have just cut and pasted the article.

Ashley Smith's family worried that her niceness made her a doormat.

The 26-year-old widowed mother often believed the best about other people, to a fault. That trait had led to some bad decisions about men, and she had only recently resolved to go to school, get a job and make enough money so her 5-year-old daughter could come live with her again.

A 2 a.m. run for cigarettes — a break from a day of unpacking — led Ashley Smith, 26, into the path of Georgia's most wanted man. When the hostage ordeal was over, her aunt told her, 'This affirms that God is not finished with you, but he has a tremendous purpose for you.'

But when Brian G. Nichols came to the door of Smith's apartment in Duluth early Saturday morning, on the run from a shooting rampage that had killed four people, Smith's gentleness and inner strength became her salvation. They contributed to Nichols' peaceful surrender seven hours later.

Smith talked about her ordeal while eating pizza and drinking Perrier water with her family Sunday evening at her lawyer's office at the Balch & Bingham law firm in Buckhead. She has hired the firm to help manage her newfound fame and to weigh prospects for books or movies.

"I feel like I met him for a reason," Smith said of Nichols. "If that was for myself not to get killed, or any other police officers not to, or for him to save hundreds of other people in prison, my purpose was fulfilled."

Life's purpose

Smith and her family say she saw in Nichols a hurting human being who was looking for hope.

She had wrestled with the question of life's purpose since the stabbing death of her husband in August 2001, and had concluded, through valleys of depression and uncertainty, that to move on she had to believe that God had a plan for her life.

That plan, she and family members said Sunday night, brought Nichols to the door of a woman who could always see a flicker of promise in someone else. "An angel," Smith said Nichols called her.

Her levelheadedness allowed her to control her fear as he stuck a gun into her side. It kept her from panicking when he bound her and put a towel over her face as he showered.

Her desire to live so her daughter would have at least one parent gave her presence of mind. She talked to Nichols about faith, read an inspirational book aloud and told him that he could have hope and a future despite his crimes. She also cooked him breakfast before her midmorning release.

Her eye for seeing a shred of goodness made her great at things like turning attic trash into creative table toppers. She puts sticky notes up daily with different inspirational thoughts. Her sensitivity and down-to-earth nature, though, let people take advantage of her.

"She gives everyone the benefit of the doubt," her aunt Kim Rogers, 51, of Martinez said. "Ashley can be too gullible. Her big heart leaves her vulnerable. . . . She can be too trusting."

"I have seen her before in situations where it's come out like she's a wimp," her mother, Mary Davis, 49, of Norcross said. "But I have to give her credit when it comes down to situations where she's dealing with normal people one to one, everyday people. . . . She never holds a grudge, but she has a tendency to get walked over by men."

'You're a hero now'

Bill Davis, her mother's husband, was proud of how she handled what for most people would have been a nightmare.

"When she got done with the FBI, we went on the porch for a smoke, and I said, 'You've made a lot of bad mistakes and you've goofed off a lot, but you're a hero now,' " Davis said. "The most amazing thing is that you didn't make a bad move. You made it through the night with a cold-blooded killer, and you probably saved the life of more innocent people. And she burst into tears she was so happy."

Smith had struggled emotionally after her husband's death, not making enough to afford her rent and "not wanting to live but not wanting to die, either," said her mother.

Smith moved in with her mother; daughter Paige stayed behind with aunt Kim.

In Atlanta, Smith took a series of jobs that included working for a construction company and waiting tables. She could be a slacker, and one restaurant fired her because she didn't show up.

Earlier this year, relatives said, Smith decided to move on. She took a two-bedroom apartment in Duluth with a roommate. She applied for a federal Pell Grant to help pay for classes at the Georgia Medical Institute, leading to a medical assistant's job, hopefully in sports medicine.

She was a waitress at Barnacles, a Gwinnett County sports bar.

Last week, she had a second interview for a part-time job at a hair transplant clinic that she hoped would be an entrée into the medical field.

Last week, she was moving into a one-bedroom place in the back of the apartment complex, a location that her relatives thought might not be very secure. An avid smoker, Smith took a break from unpacking about 2 a.m. Saturday to get cigarettes at a nearby convenience store when Nichols accosted her.

Family life as usual

The family is large and close. Smith's grandfather Dick Machovec, an ex-Marine and former headmaster at Augusta Christian School, is the patriarch. His wife, Ann, is his quiet partner, and has never has raised her voice, the family said.

They have three children and 12 grandchildren, and several family members attend school and compete in sports in Gwinnett County and at Georgia Tech. Several family members watched Smith's cousin Eve Machovec win two track titles at Dacula High School the morning that Nichols released Smith.

Paige Smith was born 11 weeks early, and her survival, Smith said, was another crisis that taught her about life's purpose.

While her mother was held hostage, Paige was where she usually is — in the care of Smith's aunt in Martinez. Saturday morning, she took Paige to a children's program at Hebron Baptist Church in Gwinnett County. Smith persuaded Nichols to release her so she could meet her daughter at the church as scheduled.

The family helped raise Ashley after her parents split when she was 1. She graduated from high school in Augusta, at 5-foot-8 and 130 pounds, a basketball player who, her mother said, was honored as athlete of the year. Smith turned down a college scholarship to attend Augusta College. She left after one quarter, her mother said, when she met Mack Smith, a trim carpenter.

In a quarrel with three old friends at an apartment complex, Mack Smith was stabbed to death as Ashley Smith watched from afar. She could not identify the killer, and the family said it remains unsolved. Her husband died in her arms.

Though her faith since then has sometimes wavered, it helped her through her ordeal as a hostage, her family said.

"This whole family thinks this is a God thing," her aunt said. When she first talked to Smith after the ordeal, her aunt recalled saying, "This affirms that God is not finished with you, but he has a tremendous purpose for you. . . . You're a cat with nine lives.

 

[Adam's Apple]

I read another story about Ashley Smith yesterday in the Atlanta Journal Constitution entitled "I Believe God Brought Him to My Door", and this young woman was absolutely amazing in how she handled this entire situation. I don't think anyone in her situation--at the mercy of a cold-blooded killer--would have handled it the way she did. Especially when she was in her car following him in the vehicle he had stolen and had an opportunity to escape from him but didn't take it (although she did consider it momentarily). He had left his guns in her apartment so he was unarmed at that time. After he ditched the vehicle he had stolen and was depending on her to pick him up, why she didn't put her foot to the metal and get the hell out of there is just mind boggling. In this case, religion kept things from getting a whole lot worse.

 

[freeandfun1]

I read another story about Ashley Smith yesterday in the Atlanta Journal Constitution entitled "I Believe God Brought Him to My Door", and this young woman was absolutely amazing in how she handled this entire situation. I don't think anyone in her situation--at the mercy of a cold-blooded killer--would have handled it the way she did. Especially when she was in her car following him in the vehicle he had stolen and had an opportunity to escape from him but didn't take it (although she did consider it momentarily). He had left his guns in her apartment so he was unarmed at that time. After he ditched the vehicle he had stolen and was depending on her to pick him up, why she didn't put her foot to the metal and get the hell out of there is just mind boggling. In this case, religion kept things from getting a whole lot worse.

I just love the story and I truly believe that this is all a message from G-d!

 

[menewa]

What impressed me about her was her capacity for forgiveness. Too bad the christian conservatives can't adhere to her principles.

 

[dmp]

Too bad the christian conservatives can't adhere to her principles.

That is a horrible, close-minded, ignorant statement.

 

[5stringJeff]

What impressed me about her was her capacity for forgiveness. Too bad the christian conservatives can't adhere to her principles.

You obviously think that all Christian conservatives are Jerry Falwell clones. How progressive of you.

 

[no1tovote4]

What impressed me about her was her capacity for forgiveness. Too bad the christian conservatives can't adhere to her principles.

Too bad some Liberals use the actions of a few to judge the actions of many without regard to evidence to the contrary of their preconceived notion, this shows a serious problem of predjudice based in the ideology.

 

[musicman]

What impressed me about her was her capacity for forgiveness. Too bad the christian conservatives can't adhere to her principles.

Could you amplify that statement a bit? To whom, specifically, should Christian Conservatives be extending the hand of forgiveness? Answer this carefully, menewa. Remember that, in order to ask forgiveness, one must first acknowledge WRONGDOING.

 

[musicman]

In this case, religion kept things from getting a whole lot worse.

Thank God the ACLU wasn't there to stamp it out before it could have its insidious societal effect!

 

[manu1959]

What impressed me about her was her capacity for forgiveness. Too bad the christian conservatives can't adhere to her principles.

 

[musicman]

LOL! Just baiting the trap, manu.

 

[Bullypulpit]

This appeared on the Atlanta Constitution Journal's site which requires a subscription (free, but still a hassle) so I have just cut and pasted the article.

My hats off to this young woman. She walked as she talked it, and her strength and courage and faith brought her through it. She is a real Christian.

 

[William Joyce]

It's beyond me how a crazy, murderous black man's encounter with a white woman turns into a Jesus Loves Me-fest. I commend her calm, but I don't see any religious message here. The message I get is that this guy should be in a cage. Period.

 

[5stringJeff]

It's beyond me how a crazy, murderous black man's encounter with a white woman turns into a Jesus Loves Me-fest. I commend her calm, but I don't see any religious message here. The message I get is that this guy should be in a cage. Period.

:soul: :soul: :soul:

Maybe these smileys will work like garlic on a vampire...