Posted on 03/24/2005 12:36:32 PM PST by SmithL
ATLANTA - The woman who led authorities to suspected courthouse gunman Brian Nichols was presented with $70,000 in reward money Thursday.
Ashley Smith, a 26-year-old widowed mother of one, was held hostage for seven hours by Nichols at her suburban Atlanta home March 12 before he let her go. She then made the 911 call that led to his arrest.
"My life is testimony that God can use us even in the midst of tragedy and miracles do happen," she said.
She was lauded at a ceremony during which she received a fistful of reward checks from Gov. Sonny Perdue and law enforcement agencies.
Thomas Smith, head of the state sheriffs association, saluted her for "your courage, your strength and your perseverance."
The woman has said she spoke with Nichols for hours about her daughter, her husband's stabbing deaths years ago and her faith in God. She said she told Nichols that he might be destined to be caught so he could spread the word of God to fellow prisoners.
In all, she received $25,000 from the U.S. Marshals Office, $20,000 from the FBI, $10,000 from Perdue's office, $5,000 from the Georgia Sheriffs' Association, $5,000 from the Georgia Fraternal Order of Police and $5,000 from the city of Atlanta. She previously received $2,500 from the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police.
Nichols is accused of overpowering a courthouse deputy March 11, taking her gun from a lockbox and fatally shooting Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes and his court reporter, Julie Brandau, on the day Barnes was to resume Nichols' rape trial.
Nichols also is accused of killing a sheriff's deputy outside the courthouse and a federal agent while he was on the run. He surrendered after a 26-hour manhunt.
Smith's grandfather, Dick Machovec, said the family planned to hire a financial adviser to help Smith manage the money.
"Hopefully, it's going to be used for education, it's going to be used to pay off some loans, it's going to be used to give a portion of it to the Lord," he said.
I've seen all of those spiritual/self-help books; a lot of them sell like hotcakes. (Does anyone actually BUY hotcakes, anymore? LOL!)
It's just a part of our culture. People are always looking for an answer, and it's easiest if someone just flat-out tells them what to do with their lives. (Hint to those floundering around in life: you'll find a good majority of answers in your Bible; read it!)
You might like "What Should I Do With My Life?" by Bo Bronson. It's a dozen or so examples of people actually making a difference in this world and living meaningful lives. (He also wrote "Bobos in Paradise" and has a good finger on the pulse of our culture today.)
I don't know about hotcakes, but I could go for a hot potato knish right now.
And those books are a waste of money. Folks should read the Bible instead. It's the best handbook on how to live a "purpose filled" life.
Big money spells big problems for some just making their way back.
Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul had a few choice words for misleading religious leaders too. Some from the Lord:
serpents
brood of vipers
wolves
whitewashed sepulchers full of dead men's bones
hypocrites
No, I tend to avoid TV preachers. I'm not familiar with Gene Scott, although I noticed that Peter Popoff (a huckster a la Benny Hinn) is making a comeback.
yep like George W is quoted as saying
we are all sinners, buddy.......
and as Jesus said, let he who is without sin cast the first stone
and as Jesus also said, love the sinner more
wait a minute, what is so "evil" about promoting a purpose driven life, I haven't read the book but wow tough crowd
telling people their purpose on earth is to serve others because that is how they serve their Lord, ooh radical and evil eh?
if you can read the Bible and get all the advice you need in life, good for you, if some people need some of the messages to be distilled or repackaged in a way they can understand it, what's the harm......
and the book might have just as much meaning to agnostics and atheists, just because you don't believe in the afterlife or a higher power as prescribed by the Christian Bible doesn't mean you couldn't benefit from some help as to the direction of your life....
if we all focused less on ourselves, ooh, how bad would that be for the global kharmic energy there eh........
No, what it's meant to do is to get people to read the Scriptures from Rick Warren's point of view.
An person uneducated in the Word will often think they have found in Rick Warren's book a nice, simplistic guide to the Scriptures and will have been taught by his book to disregard the times when the Scriptures diverge from his easy, compromising-with-the-world interpretation.
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