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Brian Nichols was standing trial for an alleged rape in Atlanta on March 11, 2005. He was being guarded by a small female
deputy that he overpowered just before the jury entered the court room. With her gun, he killed the judge, the court reporter
and another deputy. He also shot the female deputy he overpowered. While on the run, Nichols killed a federal agent.
Nichols
'randomly' picked Ashley at about 2:30 PM on March 12, 2005. He tied her up. She was concerned her five-year-old daughter
would become an orphan. Ashley had lost her own husband, four years earlier, when he was stabbed to death and died in her
arms. She talked with Nichols and asked his permission to read to him from "The Purpose Driven Life" She
read Day 33 of the book, where author Rick Warren, a Southern Baptist pastor in California, writes, "We serve God by serving
others. The world defines greatness in terms of power, possessions, prestige, and position. If you can demand service from
others, you've arrived. In our self-serving culture with its me-first mentality, acting like a servant is not a popular concept."
He asked to hear it again. They talked and she read to him from the Bible.
"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 of people," Smith told reporters. "And the families -- the people -- to
let him know how they felt because I had gone through it myself." "But after I started to read to him, he saw -- I guess he
saw my faith and what I really believed in. And I told him I was a child of God and that I wanted to do God's will. I guess
he began to want to. That's what I think," she said. Quotes from Christian International News.
Ashley and Nichols watched TV together. The search for him was the largest manhunt in Georgia history. Nichols
said he could not believe he had done those things. She told him he couldn't hurt anyone else. In the morning,
before he released her, she made him breakfast.
Nichols let Smith go to pick up her daughter after breakfast. She believed
he knew she was going to turn him in, because he knew the kind of person she was, but he let her go anyway. She called 911
and reported where he was. He gave himself up, without further violence to the authorities.
Nichols actions almost
certainly saved further people from being injured. She is a humble hero whose actions proclaim her faith. Was this all 'random'
as I suggested earlier? I don't think so.
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good
of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them
to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn, with many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he
called them to come to him. And he gave them right standing with himself, and he promised them his glory. Paul, Romans 8:28-30
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