Deacon W. Harold Smith was a member of Faith Alive Tabernacle Ministries, while also a life member of his hometown, Hogansville, Georgia Church. He embraced his being called, being sent as a worshipper each Sabbath and would have Amen this morning's focuse on The Ascension of Lord Jesus Christ. .

 When he went into the Nursing Home he continued his participation, hooked up on the hallway phone for the 'Hour of Ministry' and even being a weekly reader of one of the weekly Scriptures.  Son Theophus would print out the reading and take to him in Crestview Nursing home or Fax to the office if task was completed before the office shut down
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Son G. Winston, presiding over this morning 11 a.m. worship  called attention to today's date, May 20 as the second anniversary of their father's death (May 20 2015) speaking for his two brothers, Theophus Harold and Disraeli W, and for his mother, Dr. Josephine, Lead Pastor for Faith Alive Tabernacle Ministries. 

I dedicate these words of  "Jesus Calls Us" mentioned in Dr Jo's messsage this morning to the  family in W. Harold's memory.  "Jesus calls us; o'er the tumult of our life's wild, restless sea, Day by day his clear voice soundeth, Saying, 'Christian, follow me;' . . . Amen."          W. S. Chester, (1898))

In this video I recorded my father, Atty. W. Harold Smith, ‘getting his stride’ at Crestview Healthcare & Rehabilitation Center in Atlanta (near East Point) on August 10, 2011, where he has been a resident for two years.  To be honest the event moved me more than I had anticipated.

The last time I saw him do this in the years after his stroke occurred when we would take longer physical therapy walks for entire blocks in Atlanta's Little 5 Points neighborhood. 

That was before we entrusted his rehabilitation to a reprehensible healthcare system that allowed him to lie in bed day after day for weeks and months until his joints and legs locked up.

Anathema! Now he's trying again to get back on his feet and lift them up, God bless him! 'And God bless the U.S. of America' healthcare system!—Prof. Thee Smith, Atlanta, GA 8/10/2011

-----Original Message-----
From: Theophus "Thee" Smith
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 11:45 AM
Subject: Update--Why we're missing in action these past weeks

Dear friends & family,

Three weeks or more ago on Fri.Nov.21 my father, Atty. W.Harold Smith
(80+), suffered a partially disabling stoke--the week before Thanksgiving.
He should've been discharged to a rehabilitation facility but due to
health insurance issues he was released to my home instead from Atlanta
Medical Center last Fri.Dec.12.

Dad is managing to learn how to use a walker in the tiny space of our
basement apartment here in Little 5 Points.  As his health care agent
I'm managing multiple home care issues while also dealing with
end-semester coursework at Emory including grades due in 2 days this
Thurs.

Meanwhile my mother, Rev.Dr. Josephine, became ill last week and has been
convalescing from stress due to resolving issues related to the estate
of her sister recently deceased in October.  No further comment, except to
appreciate and thank God for her stamina and commitment to family
matters as well as to the ministry and outreach of our house church still
meeting regularly in our home every Sat.morning (www.faithaliveAOCC.org)

So pray for us and please understand that we will be more available on the
other side of the holidays and into the new year of 2009, God willing.

In Christ,
+Thee

August 13, 2014

Scene in My Father’s Nursing Home

This afternoon I was graced to witness a lovely thing.  My gray-haired and handsomely aged mother ministered to my father--married to him still despite years of ill-health and separation.  We sat there by his beside in a nursing home room that he shares with three other residents.  The environment remains grim and disheartening despite heroic and even endearing efforts by staff, residents and family members to enliven and ennoble it.  And my father himself is enfeebled while also alert after ninety years of life and nearly a decade of stroke recovery.  Sitting in his wheelchair when he is not prone in bed, he is aware enough to know how diminished is his quality of life, and at the same time to know how fortunate he is to benefit from even these reduced circumstances.

In these reduced circumstances he had asked us last week to bring anointing oil and say healing prayers.  Today Mom and I complied with his request.  While coaxing and coaching, alternately chiding and challenging him, Mom prayed that Dad would receive the anointing of oil with faith in God’s marvelous power to raise him out of that wheelchair and walk again.  And again the miracle did not happen.   Nonetheless that’s when I saw occur what the Psalmist calls “the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 29.2). 

There she was, doing what no other person on earth could do for him: be the companion of his youth who remains so committed to him that cajoling with prayers and insisting that he try to move his stricken joints and limbs is experienced not as badgering but as caring by a beloved.  It was a blessed moment, a promissory commitment that he will not go further into enfeeblement unheralded by an intimate friend.  And it has encouraged me to experience Dad’s debility as God’s gracious opportunity to shower him with love—shower him with love in ways that, in years gone by, he had emotionally resisted and for which, back then, he was temperamentally unavailable. 

Thanks to God for renewal of life, and may blessings return to you, dear Mom!

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

      --Dame Julian of Norwich, "Revelations of Divine Love" (1342-1416 CE)