A Testimony of Obedience, Grace, and Invitation
Gayna Smith has been part of our church for many years, and was part of the small group of people that started our Hispanic Ministry. She is part of our choir and a faithful servant of the Lord.
Being raised in a church going/church serving family, I knew of God from a very young age. I knew He loved me, but I also knew there was some scary stuff that happened to people in the Old Testament who failed to obey God from Sunday school lessons. From that came my conscience.
When busses came for us at middle school and dropped us off at a James Robison crusade at the football stadium in Midland, my 7th grade year, I readily answered the altar call, thus ensuring my salvation. It would be much later in life that I fully understood what God had done for me through His son Jesus.
I served as pianist at Driftwood Church back in the 90’s, for 5 years, and it was then that I began to realize the power that hymns held as far as teaching me about Jesus.
A prime example is “Tell Me the Stories of Jesus”. It details in verses the things that He did that made Him so approachable. How the children stood around His knee, how He rested His blessings on me and taught me about salvation.
While planning the hymns each week, I learned so much about the Bible. But did I really KNOW Jesus?
I have always been one to thank God for the blessings in my life, but I never really felt that He had a calling for me until two life changing events – one involving a speeding train, and the other involving a canoe wreck – both of which should have taken my life.
I came to realize that I had to know Him more and talk about what He had done for me throughout my life. I cannot lay claim to any of the goodness with which I’ve been blessed. It is all from our Heavenly Father, not the God I was a little wary of as a young child.
Only once have I questioned Him, when the only daughter of a former friend died tragically prior to her senior year in high school. I was so angry at God...but the week following the accident, while I worked behind the scenes early morning and late at night helping the family, I realized how much deeper sadness I had for this family, yes, because their daughter had died tragically with two other seniors, but more so because they had no relationship with Jesus, nowhere to turn, and I couldn’t fix that.
My relationship with God, to this day, is this... if He asks, I go. Where He leads, I follow. He has never steered me wrong and while my family has thought l’ve been a little off my rocker at times, the witness that results from following Jesus speaks more than I could ever teach. There are always blessings to be had, sometimes it just takes a while to see them.
The most pivotal moment in my life came with a walk to Emmaus... I had delayed going for 10 years because the exuberant Emmaus fellows who knew I had not yet attended, with totally good intention, told me I HAD to go to Emmaus. At that point I was pretty sure it was a cult! Then a friend and I took our girls to a picnic, and she asked me point blank if I would attend an Emmaus walk, and at which time I told her, also point blank, THIS IS NOT A PICNIC, IT IS AN INTERVENTION!! But I did go, and oh how I wish I’d stayed out of the Lord’s way and gone much sooner. Learning about the grace that came with Jesus was a game changer for me. It took me out of His way and opened my eyes and ears. It helped me better parent my adult children (anybody find that one easy?) and helped me to see them as the people God has plans for them to become.
I got involved in the DSMC choir because a fellow choir member had lost a daughter, as well as other close relatives, in a matter of short time, yet each week she was able to stand up in front of church and sing her heart out. My family was going through a rough patch back then and I thought I had it bad, until I saw her, and how music was the source of her joy. She knows she is the reason I joined choir many years ago. I thank God for her, and for giving me the gift of invitation, as I find it very easy to invite people to choir.
I’d like to share one more thing... God has me, and God has each one of us. It is not up to me to ‘Make” God happen in people’s lives. My job is to show them so much joy, that one would ask, what makes you so happy?
Then there’s this... Obedience honors God in marriage, in tithing. I’ve always looked up to the older women at church for their calm peacefulness and wisdom in trusting God, no matter what they had been through, and now, at 66, I’m honored to help pave the way for younger women.
My advice? Get your kids in the door and to church young, even if they don’t quite “get it”. It makes it so much easier to go back as adults in the event they had been away from a congregation. I find inviting people to choir very easy; it is the same with inviting people to church, you just have to be willing to ask. Make it look so good, that the environment and the essence of Jesus you radiate IS the invitation.
God will take care of the rest, in His time.
I see God working in the Dripping Springs Methodist Church in how He is in the hearts of SO MANY SERVANTS… I see Him in the faces of the children at children’s time , I see Him in the youth undergoing confirmation class and doing their service requirements (ushering , communion, etc), with a smile and looking into the eyes of strangers even though it might not come easily for some. I see it in our combined congregations cooking and serving Wednesday night supper, and in the staff from Adam to housekeepers lovingly nurturing our church body as well as our facilities. Mostly it can be summed up as we exit our doors, I hear Gods voice saying we are now entering the mission field.
Gayna Smith
