I have been thinking about writing this for a really long time but have struggled to know where to begin and what to leave out.

Tim Smith.  Could there be a more common sounding name? No. But there is nothing common at all about how God used Tim Smith in my life. I met him in 1993, when I was a senior at Georgia College in Milledgeville, Georgia. There are conflicting stories on how we actually met. I really don’t remember.  Was it the fight that I got into in the driveway of a campus ministry building during a game of basketball? Was it while I was playing music in a coffee house in downtown Milledgeville? Was it something else? It doesn’t matter. 

Tim and his wife Lynnette had just moved to Milledgeville to serve as the intern for a ministry on campus. At the time I was not involved in that ministry but my roommates, the Carter boys as I call them, were. During that season, I was not in a good place spiritually or emotionally because how I responded to  a few hard things going on in life. I was not close to God. 

I kept hearing the Carter boys talking about the new intern, Tim.  Honestly, I really didn’t care. I was not interested.  But he kept coming up and I remember one of the Carter boys saying, “Tim wants to meet you,” I am pretty sure my response was, “why would he want to do that”? And so, the not so clearly remembered meeting took place. 

Something happened because of that meeting that I know changed the rest of my life.  It is hard to explain. We had an instant connection. It was profound for me. Tim is only two years older than me but in my mind he quickly became like a spiritual father. God was orchestrating something that I could have never seen coming.  He was bringing a discipler into my life who would be used to alter the entire trajectory of my future.

I think part of what drew me to him was that he was “normal”.  There was no pretense with me. He was ok with being highly imperfect while at the same time modeling what it could look like to follow Jesus. Maybe you are asking what did “highly imperfect” mean…..well there was the time he and I got in trouble at Uncle Remus Golf Course (Yes that is a real place. You could pay $5 and play all day!) for doing donuts in the golf cart while shirtless…

Tim took me and all my junk under his wing, and brought me into his life so that I could know God more deeply. We would talk about life over cheap frozen pizza. We would laugh. He would listen to me process the hard things going on in my life. He would call me out when he saw me making poor choices. That happened plenty of times! He pushed me to Jesus. He believed in me. 

One of the most profound and life altering moments was early in our friendship. We were sitting in his tiny office in the campus ministry building and he had me open my Bible to 2 Timothy 2:2. He had me read it out loud and then challenged me to memorize it. About a week later we were sitting in that same office when he asked me to quote it for him. I was ready and nailed it! Then he caught me off guard with this statement, “Good job. Now, go live it the rest of your life.” I can picture that moment like it was yesterday. I have no idea what that meant and probably thought he was crazy. Me, live that? Sure. The rest of that year, he did everything he could to help me be in a place to make that happen. 

There are so many moments that I think about with Tim.

I know I made him mad a few times. He made me mad a few times.

I once completely dismantled his office and set it back up in the men’s bathroom.

Lots of ping pong.  A ton of bad golf.

He gave me my first job in ministry. He invited me to live with him and his wife when I moved to Arkansas in 1996.

The middle of the night ride on a mission trip to take a sick student to a family member.

The times he looked me in the eye and called me out for the sin in my life. 

He taught me how to read the Bible.

He performed my wedding ceremony.

The memories are pretty endless but the constant thread that holds them all together was that he pursued me with the love of Jesus and always saw more in me than I saw in myself. No one had ever done that before and it made me want be that kind of person for others.

It is impossible to really write about how important Tim was and always will be in my life. Even though we rarely talk any more, I think about him often and how grateful I am for him. 

Tim discipled me.