I grew up in Marion, Ohio. During the 1950s and 1960s, the churches were very small in the North, and our church was no different. When we moved from southern Ohio to Marion, located in the north central part of the state, our family of seven made up half of the attendance on Wednesday night. However, over the years we grew slowly, and in the 1960s we had more than 150 attending worship services on Sunday.
In 1961, I was a junior in high school and part of our youth group at church, although, at that time, we did not use the phrase “youth group” — we were just teenagers. By then there were at least eight to ten of us. After church, we would usually gather together and talk about normal things kids talked about back then —muscle cars, favorite songs and stuff.
However, during that time, there was an old woman who placed membership at our church, and she started hanging around us. I knew she was old because she had gray hair and was probably in her 40s. At first it was annoying, because she wanted to talk about some Christian college in Nashville, Tennessee, and she kept asking us what our plans were after high school. We really didn’t want to talk about that because none of us had thought that far ahead.
Then, one Sunday evening she wandered over to our group and asked us if any would be interested in going to Nashville, over a three-day weekend, and visiting David Lipscomb College. It would be free and we would go in her car. Well, to a group of teenagers, a free trip out-of-town was hard to turn down, and so five of us took her up on her offer.
A few days later, on a very early morning, five of us climbed into her 1956 Ford to begin our 15-hour trip to Nashville. She was a very short lady, and in those days the steering wheels were very big. So, she spent most of the time looking through the steering wheel, as sometimes she would reach speeds up to 50 miles per hour. The interstates were not completed back then, so most of our time was spent on two-lane roads.
Nonetheless, we finally reached Nashville. She had places to stay for all of us, and I was blessed to stay in the home of Cliett and Sarah Goodpasture. What a blessing! The next day we were given a tour of David Lipscomb College and were introduced to many of the faculty, as well as the students. On Sunday we attended a church service with several hundred people worshipping together. I had never seen anything like this in my life. The bottom line is that I fell in love with Nashville, the college and the people. From that moment on there was no doubt where I would go to school.
Since that time, more than 50 kids from our congregation have attended Lipscomb. The group includes doctors, lawyers, teachers, missionaries, elders, elders’ wives and the list goes on.
There is no question that this woman, whose passion for young people to seek a Christian education, influenced more people in her lifetime than we could ever imagine. You see, she did not have those qualities that we normally associate with greatness. Her name, Gussie Smith, was not particularly impressive. She chose to remain single and accordingly, did not have a husband or children. And she worked as a home extension agent, certainly not a profession where you would accumulate a lot of wealth. But she was rich — rich in what truly matters.
I am reminded of the story recorded in Luke 21: 1-4, where Jesus is observing the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. But then he notices the meager gift of a poor widow, and He noted that she had given all she had.
Gussie gave all she had. I will always be indebted to her. Because of her influence, I was able to receive a Christian education. During those four years, I also met the love of my life and, if God wills, we will be celebrating our 50 years of marriage in August. I also met an FBI agent who became my mentor and encouraged my career in Federal law enforcement. The bottom line is that my entire life was forever changed because of Gussie Smith.