Michael’s Personal Testimony
Feb. 18, 2008
My birth date was September 25, 1953. That’s when the miracles started happening in my life, although, of course, I was too young to realize them. As the years passed, my parents spoke to me often about what happened on that day. It was not a day of great joy that would usually accompany the birth of a new child. I began to understand the seriousness, as well as the over shadowing of God’s miraculous power. But it would be many years later, approximately 33 years, before the greatest impact of God’s presence in my life would be recognized, and that I would then begin a life of serving my Lord.
Something had gone seriously wrong in my mother’s womb, even though she carried me to full term. When she went to the hospital to give birth to me, the doctor’s had found that somehow, as my body turned toward the birth canal, my umbilical cord was wrapped around my throat, choking me, while my own waste secretions had begun to fill the placenta, and started to fill my lungs. I was given a 5% chance of survival after I was born and my parents were told the first 12 hours were extremely critical. After I survived the 12 hours, they told my parents that the next 48 hours would indicate if I would live or not. The hand of God was upon me. He had a plan for my life.
My childhood was normal and I had two siblings. My brother was eight years older than me, and my sister was 12 years older than me. My family did not attend church regularly, always on Easter, and sometimes at Christmas, but my mother loved the Lord, and I am sure it was her prayers that sustained our family many times. I am also sure that it was her prayers that got me through my teenage and early adult years. She went to be with the Lord on Easter Sunday, 1980, when I was 27 years of age. I led my father to the Lord when he was sick and dying, many years later.
My mother would share her faith in God with us, and I remember distinctly, when my sister was 18, I would have been 6, that my sister needed open heart surgery, and was taken to the Cleveland Clinic, about 60 miles away. I prayed all night and asked God to save my sister so that she might live. He answered my prayers.
I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord when I was a teenager, but I knew nothing about the renewing of the mind, or how to mature in my faith. Consequently, I stayed in things of the world for many years. I knew God loved me, and could do miracles for me, but I stayed an infant in spiritual matters. As an older teenager, and then early into my twenties, I got into some trouble, but it did not compare to the struggle going on inside of me. I was an unhappy individual, and for a period of time, I sensed a spiritual darkness over me, and I thought soon my life would end. I drank a lot, did some drugs, and spent a short time in jail. I contemplated suicide on more than one occasion because things seemed so rough for me. To hide my pain, I just got into the party scene, more and more.
After graduating from high school in Ohio, where we lived, my father made an announcement that he would soon be retiring, and then the whole family would be moving to Colorado. For years, that is the place we talked about moving to, so I had applied to and was accepted at a college in Ft. Collins, Colo. A month or so before I was to leave for college, my mother was advised from my father that he was going to divorce her. We soon found out it was for another woman. While I was at college, the drinking and drugs escalated. When I came home to Ohio without even completing one year of college, I was hurt, broken, and helpless. I contemplated suicide a few times, and one time it really frightened me, because at one point, maybe one of my lowest points, I nearly threw myself in front of a semi-tractor trailer. It seemed almost that an evil force was there that was literally pushing me forward.
I continued to drink heavily, and should have died in two different accidents with a friend of mine. Both times he was driving. Once in his car, we both should have died, but we came away with only a few scratches. If I told you the details, you would think that I was making up the whole story. A second time I was on the back of his motorcycle, and we lost control. He went through a sign and spent several days in the hospital, and I hit a large utility pole, and spent several months in the hospital. The policeman who checked my vitals at the time said I was dead. A short time later I got up and walked to the ambulance where my friend was. I didn’t know it, but at the time I had a broken pelvis, and was in shock.
There was no out of body experience to tell you about, and no one said it was a miracle that I was living, but for the first time in my life, lying in the hospital for so many weeks, I began to think that maybe God was watching over, because He had a plan for my life. And indeed He DID!!!
A short time later I met and married my wife, Renee, in October of 1977. While I was taking more responsibility for my life, and gave up a lot of things, I still was not a Godly man. Neither one of us were going to church, or growing in the things of God. In the fall of 1981, we vacationed in Florida at Renee’s aunt and uncle’s home. They had a relationship and a walk with the Lord that we wished we had. More importantly, they had the peace of God in every situation. In the spring of 1982, I gave notice to the business world (worldly type job), and Renee and I moved to Ft. Myers, Florida, where her aunt and uncle started us in a business of our own of mowing lawns. It didn’t take long before we could hear God speaking to us, and knowing this was His plan, but also a step to something else in our lives. We found ourselves at a spirit-filled church, pastored by a man by the name of Geof Jackson. He had come from Michigan to start a church, but was soon called to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he worked for another friend of his who was a pastor, by the name of Bob Yandian. Geof soon started a School of Ministries there in Tulsa, at the church, Grace Fellowship.
Renee and I got more involved in the church in Ft. Myers, Florida, and as a result of our obedience and growth, we realized that God had a specific call on our lives in ministry, but more specifically for me to become a pastor. We both received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, and soon found ourselves traveling to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to go to bible school, in preparation for ministry. We attended bible school in 1987 and graduated in 1988, and then both Renee and I were ordained into the ministry, back in our church in Ft. Myers. We found ourselves called to a church a little farther south in Naples, Florida, pastored by a man named Grant Thigpen. We started attending the church, and moved from Ft. Myers to Naples in 1989. In 1992, I became employed at New Hope Ministries, the church pastored by Grant Thigpen. I became an associate pastor there in 1992, and my wife and I have worked diligently in many different areas of that church since we first walked in the doors in 1989.
The most tremendous blessings in my life have been my family. What a wonderful woman God gave to me in my wife, Renee. We tried for many years, unsuccessfully, to have children, and doctor’s told us we would have no children. We had a foster child, and considered adoption, but we were under the influence that God would work a miracle in our lives, and bless us with children. The Lord gave us the scripture of Deuteronomy 7:14, which states, “You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female barren among you or among your livestock”. After thirteen years of trusting God, our first miracle came. His name is Joel Michael Smith, and he was born December 11, 1990. Our second miracle was born to us, three years later. Her name is Emily Taylor Smith, and she was born January 10, 1994. They are both great kids, both born again, with a great call on their lives from God.
There have been many miracles in our lives, Renee and mine. But our greatest miracle, next to our kids, is God’s faithfulness; His faithfulness to bring us salvation, and a life with Him, as well as His faithfulness to bless us through our obedience to Him. There is nothing more important to God than you. He wants you. He wants your heart. He wants to bless you, far beyond what you can think or imagine.
There are volumes of things and events that have taken place in my life through these years. There are many, many more testimonies of God’s faithfulness and love, as well as much more detail to the events that I have described. There are many other things I would love to share, but do not have the time nor the space to do it here. I am sure they will show up as I am prompted of the Holy Spirit to share them.
In 1998, Renee and I started this ministry, Abide Ministries, Inc. to be a blessing to others, believers and non-believers. God has gifted us to share with you, what He has shared with us, in the areas of Marriage, Parenting, Leadership, and Stewardship.
Now it’s time to open your hearts to Jesus Christ, the one who died for you, so that you could live for Him. He will never leave you. He will never forsake you. He has a plan to reveal something to you. It is His plan for your life (Jeremiah 29:11).
Michael R. Smith