Angie Smith
About the Author

Angie is the proud wife of Todd Smith of Selah, and the blessed mommy to Abby, Ellie, Kate, Charlotte, and Audrey Caroline, who passed away the day she was born, April 7th, 2008. Angie was inspired to write Audrey's story, and began the blog www.audreycaroline.blogspot.com in honor of her. You...

(in)side DaySpring: things we love
& you will too!
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(in)side DaySpring:
things we love
& you will too!
Find more at
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  1. Oh yes, life’s sorrows cause me to long for eternal glory too. The hope of renewal and joy, and the knowledge that this is momentary are God’s mercy in the dark, but I also think slower, less engaged days can help us find joy in the here and now.
    That perspective can easily be lost in the kind of ministry you have with so many who have walked the way of loss. I’m praying that God will still your heart with His peace, that you will feel free to rest through some quiet summer days and leave the world’s screaming losses in His care awhile. Faced with hungry, needy crowds, even Jesus retreated to the mountain to find refreshment, guidance and strength from His Father.

    • well said, Judy! We need to remember that Jesus needed time to be still and quiet and pray and we do too!!

  2. “I don’t want to shrivel up and miss the beauty for the ashes.”

    beautiful. thank you. this spoke to my heart today.

  3. Thank you Angie, for your words of humility. It’s amazing how God has brought me here to this online community at such a time as this! I literally was in bed in the fetal position last night, with tear-filled eyes questioning God, and doubting that life will ever be happy or glorious for me again. And as I drug myself out of bed and forced myself to open my laptop, there your words sit waiting for me to read!

    Thank you Angie!!

    • Thank You Angie ! Thank You Caprice for sharing too, I pray that Jesus lifts you up right now ! He burdened my heart to tell you that YOU are seated in high places, and His angels have been deployed to carry you through to His awesome vision of glory for your life ! He makes all things new ! Love in Messiah, Lee

  4. Oh this gives me chills – in a good chills kinda way. Angie I was literally just thinking about you, or I’m sure it was God putting you in my mind, lots lately. And not because I know you well or even really at all, but your stories and honesty in past posts have touched me so deeply. Finding the gems of life that come out in others’ writing and slowly learning about them as a person, is such a gift to me.

    This post relates to what I just wrote about on my blog recently – with you and many others in mind. It’s unbelievable how God knows what needs written and talked about before it even happens. Master designer at work, no doubt. I love your real. And I’m so thankful for God’s intentional “irony” … I seriously almost wrote to you recently, now I wish I had!

    You just made my day and it’s only 9am!! This must be a great day in the making – I will cherish it.

  5. “Life is hard. Hope is elusive. But God wins!”
    Wow! Those nine words say so much!
    Thank you for all you wrote and shared here today.
    I can really relate to so much of what you said.

  6. Thank you so much for letting us see and hear from your heart! It is so refreshing to hear from people that are not superficial….they are real. Thank you so much for being real with us! You let us know that we are not alone in whatever we are going through and that there is hope!

    Words cannot express……

    Blessings to you and your family!

    -Gina

  7. Oh how beautiful this is. I see daily more and more how very beautiful truth and honesty are. Life is hard. God wins. I just want to rest there. And thank Him that He sits on His Throne, He is in control, and He has already won the Battles. But we feel weary, worn out and we do despair. Going back to lay it at the cross. Its a moment by moment by moment process for me. Bless you for writing the truth so eloquently this day. Grateful….

  8. There are triggers that remind me of heartaches.
    Girls laughing in car.
    Seems innocent enough.

    Dark pouring rain.
    Sometimes the fields need it.

    Sometimes if can be hard to not empathize too much when hearing someone tell a story. To not re-live.

    But, while these sad and tragic things DO happen. They are rare.
    And, it’s a good reminder that HE made every drop of rain that falls.
    He also made the rainbows.

  9. THE WAR HAS BEEN WON!! And we are Victorious. This resonates with my soul today. Thankss for being willing to share your heart…lots of “us” are there too. It helps to know I’m not alone. Praying for you friend.

  10. Thank you for your words and transparency. I am a social worker and a sensitive girl. I counsel sexually abused women and I come to moments where I feel as you described, that every man out there is an abuser and there is only bad. I have given myself permission to not read or watch movies abot this topic b.c it does impact me…and Im learning that that is OKAY.

  11. Beautiful! Your words lifted me up and shifted my perspective – just what I needed to hear today!!

  12. Hi Angie – yes, we have fear but we are growing and He is here with us and He is coming!! I can so relate to these feelings and I appreciate the reminder!! BTW, you are in my prayers for the possible ADD issue – do not fear!! My son was in that same situation, and I was a wreck – we changed his diet and it has worked miracles – thank you, Lord! Read the book by Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride or google on youtube! It’s called It sooooo helped us!

  13. My friend,

    I am in a place very similar to you right now. I will pray for you, please pray for me. You said it best, GOD WINS. May it permiate my heart.

    Your sister in Christ,
    Tina

  14. YES! Been there after living with a pessimist for 20-years. But glory to God, He has set me free and placed other persons in my life with a more positive attitude. He is chaning me everyday.

  15. Wow, I have a degree in psy as well, and even tho that is not my day job, my whole life I have loved hearing everyone’s story…I could so relate to your post and my life is affected by my fear (of everything) and it all seems like bad news after turning 50….recently a scare with my mammogram and I could barely breathe…..praying for you and waiting for your next post as I’m sure it will help me.

  16. Thank you….you have made me feel not so alone in my struggles to hope and trust in the “giver of all good things” who I know in my heart of hearts does all things well.

  17. Thank you for being so open and honest Angie. One thing really stuck out to me – “But God wins.” Yes, He does. God always wins. Thank you for that reminder today.

  18. Hey, I know how that feels, but through a very difficult number of years, me and my daughters chose in the dark to cling to our heavenly Daddy, and look for a glimmer of joy in each day. God showed me through that really tough time that He was walking with me and gave me little gifts along the way to remind me He was there and in charge. He gave me one sea turtle on the beach one morning, lovely sunrises over our field and deer grazing under the God lit sky. He gave me a firefly show one night that was amazing. I am closer to God now than ever before, because I had to trust Him completely and He never let me down.

  19. I felt so compelled to reply to this. I saw this title yesterday in my email and new it had to be read when I could really concentrate on the words. I am so glad I did. You sent me the hope I was looking for. I am going thru some really terrible times right now – been unemployed since Dec and just got the call yesterday that my car will be repo’d probably tonight or this wknd. Spent the night in the ER due to the stress….. But I am getting off track. With all thats been going on I have been feeling like God isn’t here with me. I even went to my church late yesterday evening just bawling and asked the pastor to help me find Him. When I read this, it was words I needed to see. THANK YOU! I feel God a little more than I did and I know I will have Him completely back when I stop stressing over everything and let His will be! Bless ya’ll for what you do at (in)courage!

    • Dear Mary T…..I pray that God wraps you in His peace and that everything gets better–what a horrible few days! Jesus, please wrap my sister Mary T up in Your arms and help her to feel Your love and healing presence…please grant her Your peace and encouragement during this very strenuous time….show her that You are here with her, walking right beside her, and will never abandon her…help her to keep feeling Your presence ever more strongly! In Your Name I pray, Amen. Hugs!

  20. Oh, Angie, what a beautiful, life-giving post–thank you so much! God wins–that’s the bottom line, the reminder that we all need! Thank you for such essential Truth! Blessings!

  21. thank you for sharing your thoughts & feelings so openly. i have struggling with a few things as well, but keep reminding myself of the TRUTH—-He is who he says he is & He will do what he says he will do.

  22. I nearly lost my life over a battle for hope (nearly 10 years of a barren womb and 2 lost babies had dragged me into a very dark place) until God showed me that I was trying to gasp air through a straw of worldly hope…”maybe yes, maybe no, maybe He’s not that good after all, etc.” I could never understand what people meant when they said, “My hope is in the Lord” if that’s what it meant. Better to go it alone, than be crushed by that depth of spiritual despair. A precious friend showed me the Biblical meaning of hope one day…”a confident expectation of good things to come.” Once I realized that it was truth to expect good outcomes from my Father’s love, darkness shattered and I came back to life. So much of our world tells us to hedge our bets, prepare for the worst, be ready to accept defeat. I lived that lie boldly, practiced it and polished it daily, and it nearly took me away. Today I hope boldly and every day He takes my breath away with His amazing grace and good plans. Just one example, my barren womb turned fruitful (a few months after learning about Biblical hope) and we just celebrated our triplets’ 7th birthday. Truly, He has plans for our days greater than anything we could ever hope for!

  23. Thanks so much for posting this, Angie. I too have a Masters in Psychology, love Jesus, and have struggled deeply with fear – fear of cancer. Not really fear of pain or dying, but fear of leaving, fear of abandoning my 8 year old daughter and 4 year old son. Fear that ugly devastating cancer will take mommy away, as it did my mother (ovarian) and my mother’s mother (lung). It has been heavy and exhausting. Gas pains would send me into panic attacks because I would believe that a tumor was growing and causing a possible whispering symptom. I too had to stop the emails about Ovarian Cancer awareness and stop reading emails with prayers requests for people with cancer. I just couldn’t take it. Until recently. Just very recently God has helped me come to new places of peace, through various means – scripture verses, encouraging words from friends, routine medical testing, and even a dream, so very powerful, which concluded with an angelic nurse who told me (as I shook violently on an exam table with fear) while chuckling and tears flowing down her face, “Lisa sweetie, you are not going to die. You are not going to die” Anyway, thank you for writing and for your recent book about coping with fear. It has really helped me to be able to identify the lies the enemy wants me to believe so I can counteract it with the truth of what Jesus says and wants me to believe. God bless you and keep you…

  24. I am so filled each time I open one of your email. You write to my heart during this time of sadness. It has been a long struggle and I want to give it to God, but it takes so long, it takes so long, and it is so painful, the losses.
    I can now look back and see some small steps forward from a year ago, though it doesn’t seem so today, the remnants of my life still trying to take form. Why does it have to take so long? I know He is working in me and will lead me to the place where He needs me most, but I still feel very lost and want to see the end result NOW! Oh, how impatient we have grown, how this helps to build only hopelessness.
    I pray now, each day, for peace, for hope, for joy. It is there you know… joy, if you take a look around, there is joy everywhere!
    From time to time I find myself in despair or near it and I take out my Joy Journal once again, to remind me that there are so many blessings right in front of me. I should rest in them for awhile and let the Lord knit my path.
    May God bless and keep each of you this day. 🙂

  25. Oh Angie, I don’t know you, but I may as well. Fear is my biggest sin. I don’t trust that God is good the way I am called to. My fear hinders me from living the life God blessed me with. I spend my days constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. I know God loves everyone, and I believe I am his child, but a part of me is so fearful of his plan for me. Or how I may have messed it up already.
    I keep recalling stupid decisions from my youth, and I cannot accept that God has wonderful plans for someone that surely doesn’t deserve wonderful plans.
    God bless you for being so honest about your fear, it helps so many to know we are not in this alone. I love your books and your blog, what a help they have been, especially as I have been healing from another miscarriage. You are a wonderful woman.

  26. If I didn’t believe God wins, I would curl up in that fetal position and never move . . . sometimes I am so afraid I do that anyway. Thank you for your words.

  27. Tired eyes watch
    as early morning light
    streaks across the sky.
    But as the first rays
    of the sun appear
    there is Hope –
    memories of blessings
    stored up by God
    waiting to greet the new day.

    Ears strained from listening,
    welcome the silence of the dawn,
    and a lone bird
    tweets sweetly and
    there is Hope –
    memories of blessings
    stored up by God
    waiting to greet the new day.

    Anxious thoughts are stilled
    to contemplate the power
    of a day being created
    just for me
    and there is Hope –
    memories of blessings
    stored up by God
    waiting to greet the new day.

    an aching heart reaches out
    in the gentleness of daybreak
    and finds LOVE waiting, and
    there is Hope –
    memories of blessings
    stored up by God
    waiting to greet the new day.

    My spirit is restored
    wrapped in the promise of love
    love freely given
    wrapped in God’s new day blessings.
    THERE IS HOPE!

  28. I work for a ministry – we get prayer requests via internet, phone, email…and sometimes, yes, it all gets too much. When so many people are suffering loss, cancer, broken marriages, car accidents, poverty-related concerns…yes, it sometimes becomes too much! Sometimes I just thank God that He in his wisdom included that verse in the Bible “Greater is HE that is in you than he that is in the world” – we so need to read those words, don’t we? By reaching out to hurting moms especially, you’ve heard so many sad stories. This weekend I attended a wedding of a coworker – 4 years ago, her twin nephews were born much too soon (6 months) and for over a year I read every carenet posting – all the struggles, would they live, would they see, would they walk… And now…tears filled my eyes as those two little boys, glasses on their noses, walked down the aisle with their big sister the flower girl – two little ring-bearing miracles!!