Faith in Action: Unlikely Angel
by Sherri Jackson
CBS 42 News
2008-05-19 10:32:36.0
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Ashley Smith-Robinson ended up finding her purpose while pleading for her life, when her life collided with a cold-blooded killer.
The book Purpose Driven Life has sold more than 24 million copies since it was published in 2002. One of those copies went to a 26-year-old widow, who was addicted to crystal meth and had lost custody of her daughter.
This book came in handy when Ashley Smith-Robinson was kidnapped at gunpoint leading her captor to set her free. But that incident led her to another freedom that changed her life.
"I never would have thought I would be here in this particular place in my life," Ashley said.
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We met up with Ashley signing autographs to her own book Unlikely Angel. In it, Ashley details the story that thrust her into the national spotlight three years ago when a scared young woman stared down the barrel of a gun and found peace.
"Having a gun pointed in my face and realizing I may never have the opportunity to change the things I had messed up," said Ashley.
The gun was being held by Brian Nichols, a killer on the run who had shot five people in a DeKalb County, Georgia courthouse. Four of those people died. In 2005, Ashley had come to Atlanta to get her life together. She had just checked out of rehab and was trying to regain custody of her daughter Paige in Augusta.
"My aunt had drawn up some custody papers and said I could have Paige back if I completed rehab and held down a stable home,” Ashley said.
She told the crowd gathered at Hoover’s Valleydale Baptist Church for Mother's Day 2008 services about her struggles of being a young mother whose addiction to crystal meth caused her to be separated from her daughter for two and a half years.
Ashley shared with me how it all came to a head when Nichols forced her into her apartment at gunpoint.
"It was like God said to me I gave you two paths, I gave you this path and I gave you that path, and you always chose that one Ashley. Now I'm going to give you one more chance, are you going to choose another path, are you’re going to do it," Ashley said.
Ashley says she chose God that night. She details in her book how she read chapter 32 of Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life to Nichols and how seven hours later he released her.
But to her audience, she talks about the other freedom she found…a power to say no to an addiction that had cost her so much.
"I didn't know if it was for five seconds or for 50 years. I jumped so far to the other side"
Ashley has been married for almost a year. She and her husband share their story of overcoming addiction with God's help in their Georgia town.
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