A little about myself before I got saved. I come from a large family with seven siblings, three sons and four daughters, me being the third born, first daughter. Growing up was difficult in our family, with an alcoholic father, as well as an abusive one. We were also poor, but as children we didn’t realize it because we had one another. I won’t go into details about my father, but he was put in jail once because of his treatment towards his daughters. My mother divorced him because of this, and from the age of thirteen, I was without a father. My mother then tried to raise seven children on her own, without any help from our dad. She had a rough road to travel, being unschooled and unskilled made it very difficult for her. Yet she kept us all together and raised us as best as she could, considering all the circumstances.

At the age of sixteen I met my husband Tom, we got married about a month after I turned eighteen. I thought this was going to be great! You’ve heard it before, the house with the white picket fence, children and a dog. Things were going good for a while, we even won the Irish Sweepstakes. Yet in my heart I was a very lonely women. My husband was never home, I didn’t see my family as often as I wanted too, and raising two little ones wasn’t all I expected it to be. The winnings from the sweepstakes helped us buy a house in Walled Lake as well as furniture. We also gave some to my mother, but were very frivolous and misspent the rest.

While living in Walled Lake I ended up having another daughter, who is now our third and last child.  She was just 2½ months old when she came down with spinal meningitis. My husband was working in Circleville Ohio then, and just about flew home in his car the day he heard about it. She was in the hospital about two weeks, and then we moved to Circleville.

My husband and I were very distant from one another because of his job, which took him away from us often. He then got transferred permanently and we then moved to Pittsburgh. Our marriage was falling apart due to only seeing one another on weekends, as well as other things. I thought moving to Pittsburgh would help, at least we’d be together. But that wasn’t the case, things still didn’t change.

God knows what it takes to bring souls to Him, we were at that point and didn’t realize it, but God did. He knew the loneliness in my heart, the depression of being away from my mother and siblings. He knew alcohol, and party friends were not the answer to either of our longings. God had a plan and His timing was perfect.

One day while I was in the yard pulling weeds, a minister of the Gospel stopped by as he was going canvassing through the neighborhood in which we lived. He asked if I went to church, my answer was as original as they come…no there’s too many hypocrites. After talking a bit, I invited him to come over that evening. My husband was simply thrilled to hear who was coming, and said he was not giving up his beer for some preacher. Well, little did we know we were going to be introduced to the Savior of the world. As Tom and I read through the steps of salvation, it was then for the very first time I heard what Jesus did for me. I knew I wasn’t a good person, and that drinking, swearing, and smoking were just a few evidences of a deeper problem I had. I was lost and on my way to hell if not for the grace of God.  In September of 1972,  my husband and I both realized we were sinners in need of God’s forgiveness. We both got saved that night, and were baptized together in December.

Things didn’t change as I thought they would, even though we started going to church, as a matter of fact they got worse. The devil will do that to a new Christian, by discouraging them in various ways. I ended up leaving my husband and headed back to Michigan. God still had His hand on our lives and brought my husband and I back together. Tom made sure we got into a Bible believing church, and I thank God for that. We’ve had many trials to endure, but have found the Lord faithful in His promise, that He will never leave us nor forsake us. 

When we started back to church, we both still carried with us the burden of sins from the past. I still couldn’t rid my thoughts of all Tom did to our marriage and found myself in depression. One day as I was thinking about my life I began to write things down in poetry. I never wrote before, so this was a new experience for me. I would write about family and then about the Lord. It seemed the more I wrote the better I began to feel. I believe the Lord gave me this gift, not only to help heal my emotional needs, but to be able to share with others.

I now have a website with many poems and devotionals, as well as graphics and music. I want to be able to reach many lost souls for Christ and be an encouragement to Christians through this site.

There’s a lot more I could share with you about what the Lord has brought us through, but will leave that for another time.

~In His Arms, Kathy

©2010 Dawn K. Smith

Music: God's Final Call

Sung by our Ladies Trio at First Baptist Church of Livonia