Thoughts

WHEN GRACE ARRIVES UNANNOUNCED
Ever since I first heard about Ashley Smith's amazing hostage-situation-turned-spiritual-conversation with fugitive and rapist Brian Nichols, I can't seem to escape it. It's been mentioned on the radio, in the news, and even in Pastor Rich's sermon this past Sunday. And when I opened up this week's Time magazine, I read an essay about the encounter that mentioned the part that struck me first: God used a the life struggles of a flawed woman to reach out to this criminal. To me, that's mercy and grace right there.
I've tried to condense the essay below (sorry it's not that short).


She went out for cigarettes.
That's my favorite detail of the story told by Ashley Smith. It was not an noble calling; it wasn't even noble errand. but the craving for nicotine at 2 o'clock in the morning apparently led Smith into the loaded gun of one Brian Nicols, a man who was wanted for raping one woman and murdering another woman and three men. According to Smith, Nicols forced her into her apartment, tied her up, [and] put her in the bathtub.
What would you do under those circumstances? Scream? Panic? But at that point, something else intervened. Smith actually communicated with her captor. She saw him not as monster but as a human being. She talked with him. she told her story - how her husband had been stabbed in a dispute and had died in her arms, how she then had developed a drug habit, had been caught for speeding and drunken driving, had been arrested for assault, had ceded custody of her young daughter to her aunt. She showed him her wounds as a human being. And she saw in that man his own wounded soul.
It was, in the minds and souls of both human beings, an encounter with God. Smith's weapon was The Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren, an unabashedly Christian guide to making it through life's highs and lows by constantly asking what god has intended for you. the book insists on the notion that god knows all of us intimately, especially sinners. Smith says she read from Chapter 33, which centers on the role of Christian service, on the idea that in every moment there is a chance to serve others.
Smith, blessed by what can only be called grace, saw that terrifying early morning in suburban Atlanta as one of those opportunities. Warren writes in that chapter, "Great opportunities to serve never last long. They pass quickly, sometimes never to return again. You may only get one chance to serve that person, so take advantage of that moment." Smith did. And as she revealed her openness to grace, so, apparently, did he. "He said he thought I was an angel sent from God and that I was his sister and he was my brother in Christ and that he was lost, and God led him right to me, "Smith said. Maybe he was right.
he was an alleged rapist and murderer. She was tied up in a bathtub, clinging to the wreckage of a life that was barely afloat. One was a monster, the other a woman unable to care for her 5-year-old, looking for cigarettes in the dark. And out of that came something beautiful.
He saw his purpose: to serve God in prison, to turn his life around, even as it may have been saturated in the blood and pain of others. She saw hers: to make that happen. These people weren't saints. Grace arrives, unannounced, in lives that least expect or deserve it.
Happy Easter.