A View from the Pew: Having my say

By Shirle Moore Smith

If you struggled as a Christian and sometimes wanted to give up, this testimony might help you. We are sheep, and we are meant to be led by the shepherd. Jesus said “Follow me” to the apostles. Before He left, He sent the Holy Spirit to be with them and in them. They were to be led and empowered by the Holy Spirit. This is for us today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646548217

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A View from the Pew

Having my say

Shirle Moore Smith

Copyright © 2020 Shirle Moore Smith

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books, Inc.

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2020

References for A View From The Pew Book are:

NIV Bible, King James Bible, Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

ISBN 978-1-64654-820-0 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64654-821-7 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Pets, to Me, Are a Gift from God

Confession Is Good for the Soul

Is There Life after Believing in Jesus and Baptism?

In the Minority

Waiting

The Awakening

Baby Steps

Called

If You Are Faithful in Little, He Will Make You Faithful in Much

Revealing a Spirit of Competition

Pulling Down Unrecognized Idols in Our Lives

In the Beginning Was the Word

You Don’t Receive because You Don’t Ask: Trip to Europe

Promise Fulfilled: 1977 Trip to China

Preview of Coming Attractions: Word Fulfilled

Newsletter 1 from Shekou, China

Newsletter 2 from Shekou, China

Newsletter 3 from Shekou, China

Newsletter 4 from Shekou, China

Newsletter 5 from Shekou, China

Newsletter 6 from Shekou, China

Newsletter 7 from Shekou, China

Newsletter 8 from Shekou, China

Newsletter 9 Beijing, China

~ - ~

Believe

Faith

Holy Spirit

Who’s in Control? You or the Holy Spirit?

Example of My Gift of Prophecy and Teaching with Lessons on the Fruit of the Holy Spirit

A Brief Family History

Hurricane Harvey

Last Word for Now

To all of us who have pursued God through religion and knew there had to be more.

Introduction

I cannot remember a time in my life when I did not love and want God. I thought everyone was like me. They are not. As a small child, my mom, dad, and I moved a lot with Dad’s job in the oil field. The only time I remember going to a church service was when we visited my grandparents in Oklahoma. I liked the singing, the preaching, and the people caring about one another. One thing my mother told me about was when I was in preschool age, I crawled up on something, had one of their Western novels in my hands, upside down, and sang my heart out with one of the hymns I remembered.

As I got older, still moving, I would make friends with children and ask to go to church with them. I got to experience many expressions of worship during that time. This was invaluable later.

My dad joined the Navy Seabees at the beginning of World War II. At one time, we lived in Oxnard, California. To my delight, my folks and another family rented the old parish house, and it was next door to the Baptist Church. I went to every service. In Sunday school, we could memorize one scripture and get a small New Testament. Most of us quoted Jesus wept. My hunger for the Word of God began with that small gift.

After the war, Dad got out of the Navy and we moved back to Texas. I visited several churches with my friends. My best friend was a Mennonite girl, and she took me to her church at a farm called the Brethren. Most of the teens went to the Baptist Church, so I was there at thirteen years old. I was ready to obey the Gospel. I went home and told my mother about my decision. She got up and found her Bible. She opened it to several scriptures (I didn’t know she knew those) and asked me to read those. I did. The following Sunday, she got up and took me to church. I accepted Christ as my Savior, believed He is the Son of God, and was baptized. We continued to go to church together until I went off to college.

I’ve been sitting in a pew for more than seven decades. Sermons are always monologues. I have gotten to share some thoughts in classes when they let you talk.

These are some of my thoughts on some of the subjects I’ve heard over and over. This is my view from my pew.

Part 1

Born to Change

Pets, to Me, Are a Gift from God

I have always loved horses and dogs, and I believe they love me back.

My earliest memories of my pet dog was a collie or a Lassie-looking dog. I was around five years old. We were on a trip and had stopped at a café, and I couldn’t find my dog when we got ready to go. I spent awhile being heartbroken.

My mom was not an animal person, but my dad was raised with animals. He was a natural horseman, and I believe I got that gene. At various times, we had a horse. Dad started me out with a Shetland pony. My next horse was a gentle midsize kids’ horse. I could do anything and everything on him, including riding him without bridle or saddle. One day, I decided I’d see if he would go into the house. We’d gotten beyond the back porch and had just crossed the backdoor threshold. My mom had just walked into the kitchen, saw us coming through the door, and said a few unrepeatable words, Get the—out of here. I think my dad thought it was funny. Having an animal was company, being raised as an only child.

I didn’t have a pet during the World War II years (1941−1944) because my dad had enlisted in the Navy Seabees and we moved a lot.

After Dad got out of the service, we were in Austin. My mom surprised me with a black-and-white female terrier puppy. I guess she knew I needed some TLC. Dad went back to his job in South Texas with an oil company. I had to ride the bus to school. Tinka would walk me up to the bus stop, and she’d be waiting for me there when I came home. My heart hurt when we lost her.

My next pet was a horse. He was so good that I could ride him without a bridle or saddle. Mom said I looked like an Indian. One smart aleck guy came to our house one day, made fun of my horse, and begged to ride him. I finally agreed, and he didn’t get on him good before it became a rodeo-bucking contest. He came flying off, and I hoped he learned his lesson. There are times when animals are smarter than us.

Dad and a friend decided to lease (a lot) of land in South Texas. It was a trip for us every weekend to take care of things. Dad came home with a buckskin horse (like Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke) for me. The only thing that could be a problem about him was that he was hard to stop. I called him Hotrod. The leased land was full of cactus. I thought we’d go around it, but Hotrod flew over it instead. He unseated nearly everyone but me that tried to ride him. My Dad could wear out his horse working, then take Hotrod, who had been working, and finish the day. Strong and so much endurance.

We kept two horses after getting out of the cattle business. Various ranchers around town would call Dad and me to help with rounding up and branding. I did have to be initiated with mountain oysters fresh from the fire to be one of the boys.

I did have one more occasion to try out a jumping horse at an army base in the fifties.

I’m a horsewoman at heart, and I miss them.

In my experience, pets love you wholeheartedly just like God.

Confession Is Good for the Soul

I was six years old in the first grade. We lived in a small South Texas town. My folks rented a space for our house trailer behind an old man’s large two-story house. There was a café next door with a fence separating the properties. When I got home from school, I’d sit and visit with the old man on chairs in his front yard. I began noticing young boys carrying shoeshine boxes. They’d shine someone’s shoes and get paid for it. Since I was a money-minded kid, that appealed to me.

When my daddy got home from work, I asked him to make me or buy me a shoeshine box. He thought about it and said he would with one condition—that I’d never go next door to the café with it. He said if I went, I’d get a spanking. Our old-man neighbor would let me shine his shoes a couple of times a week, and he’d pay me. I kept thinking about how much more I could make at the café. One afternoon, when my dad came home from work, I went into our trailer house, bent over his lap, and said, I’ve been over there. Dad had to go ahead and administer my punishment. Years later, Mom told me he held my head down so I could not see him smiling. I always confessed to my parents. They had taught me that lying was wrong. If I lied about something, I got spanked for what I did and for lying. Made a believer out of me. Confession is not hard for me as an adult, and I’m grateful to my parents.

Later on in my life, when the Lord enabled me to counsel with some of my sisters in Christ, I had a heavy heart from some of the things they had gone through. When I asked the Lord how I’d escaped some of those wrong decisions, He told me, I’d hidden the Word of God in my heart that I might not sin. I’ve read my Bible and hungered after the Word since I could read. Before that, my maternal grandmother would read it to me when we visited with her. All of it had to do with God’s calling on my life as a teacher of his truth.

Is There Life after Believing in Jesus and Baptism?

I believed Jesus is the Son of God (fact) and was baptized (immersed) at thirteen years of age. At seventeen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, and forty years of age, I was still mostly hearing the need for believing and baptism from the pulpit. Most of the classes promoted the New Testament (we did not study the Old Testament much) as a history lesson. We were told so many things passed away and were not needed since we had the written Word of God. I was reading my Bible all those years and saw there was more to the beginning with God, the history of the Jews, God’s chosen people, Christ coming in the flesh, His life, choosing twelve to disciple and teach and other books that spoke of the Spirit of God being given and living a called life.

When I wanted to give up, what went wrong? I knew about God/Jesus, but I did not know Him. Jesus makes relationships with Him, the Father, and the Holy Spirit possible. My life in Christ started when I wanted Him to know, to love, and to serve, filling my life to overflowing through the Holy Spirit. Years later, the Lord inspired me with a word to some women I was with. It was, what if you were engaged to be married and set up the date? On the day of your wedding, you were in your dress at the church and came down the aisle, and instead of a real live groom at your side, his family had sent a book about him. How would you feel? We are the bride of Christ.

We may know about church business without being born again of the water and the Spirit, but without being born again and having the Holy Spirit, we are not in and we don’t know about the kingdom or kingdom business (John 3:3, 5−7), Jesus’s words, not mine. I must be about my Father’s business, Jesus said (Luke 2:49). Are you seeing that good works we have in mind to do for God may not be God works? When you know you are awake in the Lord, you see the difference.

Circumstances have a way of continuing to spiral down unless a concentrated effort is made to change them. God was knocking at my door. Wake up oh sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you (Ephesians 5:14). It was time for the Helper (HS) to be a part of my life. No more trying to direct my own steps. It is not in man to direct his/her own steps (Jeremiah 10:23). God made provisions for us to be directed. Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (Romans 8:14).

In the Minority

(If We’re Willing, We Can Learn from One Another)

All people have dreams.

All people have feelings.

All people hurt.

All people make mistakes.

All people need to be loved.

All people want to love someone.

Some people make their dreams come true.

Sometimes education helps.

God is always needed!

Country Life

The four of us (husband, two sons, and I) moved back to Texas from Louisiana. It always seemed like coming back from overseas. We never lived anywhere very long, but this time, we thought country life would be good for us, especially our two sons. We rented an apartment, and it took about six months to find our place in the country. It had a small house and five acres of land. We thought we’d expand the house, but it never happened. The town was very small. It was 75 percent black, 14 percent Mexican, 8 percent white, and 3 percent Asian.

The school system was run by a white female principal who had a unique way of dividing up classes—kindergarten through eighth grade. There were four sections (A, B, C, and D) in each grade divided by ability. When our youngest son was tested for first grade, he was put into grade one-B, which meant there were more black children in his room. Right away, he made friends with a black boy. We had our first assembly for the elementary school, and when we entered the auditorium, it was like a huge black sea with a few white bodies. It was then that I first understood the feelings of a black mother taking her child into an auditorium that looked like a huge white sea with a few black bodies. You wonder at the time, as a parent, if you’re doing the right thing for your child. A neighbor and I traded days driving our kids to school. One day, she told me that our youngest son was crying every time she let him out. He wasn’t crying when I let him out. When I talked to him, he couldn’t explain it, so I asked the teacher to retest him and she did. She said he could be moved to grade one-A. When we told him, he and his friend couldn’t bear to be separated. They cried. Soon the teacher moved them both up.

When the NAACP heard about the four sections in the lower grades, they came out thinking it was prejudice against the black children. When our principal told them, it enabled each section to have high A and B rankings, with several children being able to do good instead of having one section with a few in the grade at the top. Brilliant. More winners. We would get an occasional checkup from the NAACP with their same satisfied departure.

One day, our youngest son’s teacher gave them an assignment to make a snowman. She put out pieces of construction paper and told the children to take one and make a snowman. He picked out a piece of black construction paper and made a snowman. The teacher chastised him for picking