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Two Prodigals - How Bad Choices Turn Good For Ashley Smith and Brian Nichols
by John Fischer
"Does my life matter?" Rick Warren said recently at a celebration of the surprising success of The Purpose Driven Life. "I don't know anybody who doesn't want to know the meaning of life." That statement certainly has new implications now. Even a killer on a rampage wants to know the meaning of life, enough to stop what he was doing and think about it, and eventually turn himself in.
By now you've undoubtedly heard the story, how Brian Nichols, a rape suspect, overpowered a courtroom guard at his hearing in Atlanta, took her gun and shot and killed the judge and three other people in an escape that eventually landed him at the home of a 26-year-old single mom, Ashley Smith. It was 2 a.m. and Ashley was up late moving things into her new apartment. The fugitive followed her to her door, forced her inside at gunpoint, and tied her up with tape.
Actually things were just starting to improve in the life of Ashley Smith. It was not at all an easy life. She was raised by her grandparents after her mother ran into some problems. Her grandfather described her as having had "a sad life." Though she was raised in the church, she had made a number of bad choices growing up. As a teen, she was arrested for shoplifting and was on probation for a year. Later came arrests for drunken driving, speeding and battery. Her grandfather thought she ran with the wrong crowd, which may have something to do with the stabbing death of her husband in 2001 who died in her arms.
There is a daughter from that relationship, but Ashley has not been stable enough to raise her consistently so she has bounced between aunt and grandparents. However, things for Ashley were on the upswing. She had just finished six months of a medical assistant course, was working two jobs and had moved into a new apartment. She sees her daughter Paige about once a week and that morning, she was scheduled to pick her up from a girl's program at their Baptist church.
There they sat, two lives dealing with bad choices. One was one her way back, the other was on his way down. The one who was tied up asked if she could go get something to read - something that had recently been a great help to her encouraging turnaround. For some reason, the one with the gun untied her and let her go get the book, and like a kid sharing something newly discovered, Ashley ran and got The Purpose Driven Life and started reading right where she had left off: Chapter 33, "How Real Servants Act." What she read pierced the man's heart. Over a breakfast of pancakes and eggs, they talked into the morning.
You see, Brian too had been exposed to better things. The accused killer's older brother, Mark, speaking on CNN's "Larry King Live" talked about how his younger brother was the successful kid in the family. He lived in an upscale neighborhood, worked for eight years as an engineer at Hewlett-Packard, and played keyboards in a church he attended regularly. "It doesn't seem like it's real," Mark said of what his younger brother had done, and indeed, it does not.
Across from the courthouse, at a memorial service the following day, Chaplain Warren L. Henry said, "On March 11, we arrived at the Fulton County courthouse to have our world totally rearranged. We witnessed a battle of good versus evil, right versus wrong, heaven versus hell." And at an apartment the night before, that battle was fought in the lives of two ordinary people, both locked in a struggle, but a great victory was won by God. For as the conversation of that most unlikely of meetings came to a close, Ashley Smith went free to pick up her daughter who was waiting for her, and Brian Nichols, who knew she would call the police, hung a white handkerchief out the apartment window and waited alone for the inevitable.
It is a deep tragedy that it took the death of four people and it's going to be impossible to unravel the untold loss that is yet to be experienced by many who know and love them, but in a strange and mysterious way, this bizarre event put two improbable people together for a life-shaping moment, and it is going to be even harder to quantify the good that will come out of this story, and what can happen with the rest of their lives as these two discover their purpose for living.
Ashley recounts the following: "After we began to talk, he said he thought that 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 to tell him that he had hurt a lot people." And when Ashley asked Brian what gifts and talents he had, as spelled out in what they were reading from the book about being a servant, he said, "I think it [is] to talk to people and tell them about you."
Take a look at your life. How would you describe it? Contented? Rushed? Exciting? Stressful? Moving forward? Holding back? For many of us it’s all of the above at times. There are things we dream of doing one day, there are things we wish we could forget. In the Bible, it says that Jesus came to make all things new. What would your life look like if you could start over with a clean slate?
Living with hope
If you are looking for peace, there is a way to balance your life. No one can be perfect, or have a perfect life. But every one of us has the opportunity to experience perfect grace through a personal relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ.
You can receive Christ right now by faith through prayer. Praying is simply talking to God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. Here's a suggested prayer:
Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to you and ask you to come in as my Savior and Lord. Take control of my life. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person you want me to be.
Does this prayer express the desire of your heart? You can pray it right now, and Jesus Christ will come into your life, just as He promised.
Is this the life for you?
If you invited Christ into your life, thank God often that He is in your life, that He will never leave you and that you have eternal life. As you learn more about your relationship with God, and how much He loves you, you'll experience life to the fullest.
For more information on The Purpose Driven Life, please visit purposedrivenlife.com