About Angie Smith

Angie Smith is the bestselling author of five books: I Will Carry You, What Women Fear, Mended, & Audrey Bunny, and Chasing God. She is a popular speaker and travels with Women of Faith, Lifeway, and other organizations committed to sharing the good news of the Gospel in a relatable, down to earth way.
Initially her blog “Bring The Rain” gathered the attention of readers as they followed her journey through pregnancy and loss, and now she is blessed to continue sharing what the Lord is doing through her words in many different ways.

Angie received her Master’s degree in Developmental Psychology from Vanderbilt University and is honored to be the wife of Todd Smith (lead singer of the Christian group “Selah”) and the mother of five daughters: Ellie, Abby, Kate, Charlotte, and her sweet Audrey who waits for her in glory. She and her family reside in Nashville, Tennessee.

How Angie Smith Wrote Her First Blog Post

“Well, we were expecting, what was going to be our 4th daughter at the time and went in for just a normal ultrasound and didn’t expect anything extraordinary. Other than that we might finally find out that we were having a boy, because this was the gender ultrasound. And we didn’t, it was a girl. During the ultrasound, right as it started I just could tell from the technicians faces, that something was really wrong. It was so serious, that just the expression on her face, I didn’t even ask, “What’s wrong?” or “can you tell me what’s happening?” The first thing I said was, “ is the baby going to live?” And she said, “I don’t think so. I’m going to go get the doctor.”

What Did Angie Smith do When She Lost Her Baby?

“At first, I always want to say this when I tell my story, because I think when you’re objectively listening to someone and you have your own life experience, things tend to sound very black and white from other people. Obviously, I’m pro life. That’s where I stand on the issue, but I need to tell you that in that moment when they were saying, “Your daughter will be in pain if you carry her.” You know there are moments in your mind where you’re thinking, “Lord, what is the most humane thing for me to do? How am I best parenting my child? Is it selfish of me?

I think this is what your Word tells me to do. I think this is what you tell me to do.” But when you’re in that moment, and you have the wisdom of a medical team advising you, and the heart of a mother, and you’re crying out, there are moments where you just want to make sure you’re doing the right thing. So we struggled, we wrestled with that. Next morning we had a second opinion and that doctor confirmed that the baby would not be in pain and that there was nothing detrimental that would happen by carrying her. I wanted to hear someone say that.”

The Hard Decision For Angie and Todd Smith

“So that next morning we did and we said, “We’re going to carry her. We don’t know how long we’ll have her, but she’s ours until the Lord takes her.” We found this bunny that had a mark on it’s heart at a store, and her heart was one of the other issues that they found and so we went back to the store and we bought the bunny.

The woman at the store was trying to rub off the mark and I’m bawling my eyes out saying, “It’s not going to come off,” and she’s like, “Well let me give you a discount.” I said, “No, we want to pay full price; this is ours.”

So we put the little bandaids on the bunnies heart and we just said, “This is what the doctors have told us. We trust the Lord more than anyone here, but this is what we think we need to be prepared for. So we are just going to enjoy her while we have her. You can’t see her, but she’s in my tummy. She’s your sister. What do you want to do with her, while we have her?” And my daughter Ellie said, “I want to show her Cinderella’s castle.”

So we actually planned a trip and went to Disney World and we have pictures of her talking to my stomach and pointing to the castle. I gave them little cameras with disposable film and so we have pictures of my stomach and it says,  “Audrey at the park, “Audrey at the ballet.” So she was a part of our lives. I wanted them to feel like she was their sister.”

Delivering The Baby

“She was born on April 7, 2008. She was beautiful, looked alot like her sisters, and had bright red hair. I think probably my favorite moment of the day, other than the fact that she was even born alive, that was such a gift, that my doctor had allowed me to have a C-Section. I’d never had one before, but he was a believer. This was a different doctor. So he let me have a C-Section because we thought that was her best chance of survival. When she was born, I said, “Is she breathing?” and my husband said, “Yeah, she’s breathing. She’s beautiful.” They had told us beforehand, there’s no way with her condition, that she could weigh over 2 lbs.

She’s just this teeny tiny, little thing. So we had taken her back into the room and Todd was there and his parents, and some of our family, and they set her on the scale and it said, 3 lbs, 2 oz. The whole room started clapping and it was like, she’s got weight. It was another moment like you had just described. They had given us what they thought was their expert opinion. I felt like in that moment, the Lord said, “You don’t know how much this child weighs. I know because I’m knitting her.” In that moment, it was sort of redemptive, powerful moment and we got to keep her for about 2 and 1/2 hrs.”

Why Angie Smith Chose to Deliver Her Baby

“I’ve been asked that question before and I’m sure had plenty of people disagree with me, but where I always land is: if you had been sitting with me that day, if you had just been eye to eye and you would have seen what we saw in the life that we got to celebrate for those few hours and the joy that she brought us, the way that she has fundamentally changed every single person, that got to meet her and so many more.

I don’t know any other way but to fight for the time that God gave us. That’s where my heart lands, and let me say though, It wasn’t easy. There were plenty of times where I knew I had made the hard choice, but it was the right, hard choice for me. I’m so grateful that we did.”

Moments of Imperceptible Influence For Angie Smith

“I think you know, even the way that the Lord came to us. There’s just something so unintimidating about a baby. You know, there were moments where I would be in a grocery store, big and pregnant, and people would say things like they do in conversation like, “What are you having, when are you due, you’re having another one?”  because I had all my little ones running around with me. It would always be something where I would just say, “Lord speak, “Is this an opportunity that you’ve given me?” and sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn’t.

But I would just sort of sense if there was a nudging from the Holy Spirit to have a deeper conversation. Alot of times, it was just mom to mom. It wasn’t standing on a pedestal and bashing her over the head with the Bible. It was me saying, “This is what matters in my life and this is why I’m doing that.” and I think they could see this joy that didn’t make sense.”

Moments of Deep Trust and Change in The Lord

“I think too, when you get to a season like this in your life, where you have to face some things about God, that maybe you haven’t before, and whether that’s infertility, or miscarriages, or loss of a child, there comes a time in that longing for women who haven’t’ been able to have it happen the way that they want it to, and what an opportunity there to, I don’t know, just to really have a sense of longing for God more than anything else that we have here.

I wouldn’t say that I’m unrecognizable from who I was, but so much of me has changed. Probably the most primary way that I’ve seen a difference, is in my relationship with the Lord. Because I became a believer as an adult and so I wasn’t’ raised in the church and this was really the first major crisis that I had walked through as a Christian.

So you know, you’re testing new ground with the Lord, “How do we get through this, are you enough for me in the moment, where I’m in a hospital bed and I’ve just handed my deceased daughter to a nurse and now the room is empty. Are you enough for me right now?” So what has shifted in me is, I know that He is. God forbid, that I should ever walk through a season like that again. I know that He’ll be there. And there’s a sweetness to that, as bitter as everything was. There’s a sweetness to having that relationship with Him.”

The Aftermath of Loss

“So even after I lost her, I felt like there came a time when I had to walk down the mountain without my child. So you think about Abraham. Of course, you get to the bottom, and he named a place. This is where God provided and I thought, “What do I name the place?” I don’t feel like He provided, not the way that I was hoping He would. I went back and studied it and probably the most profound moment I’ve ever had with the Lord in Scripture was, reading them coming down and seeing a ram and loosening the ram and that’s what they used as the offering.

I thought, “He didn’t provide the ram for me, and there was the human sense like He didn’t keep His promise.” The more I read it, and read it, and read it, I noticed that on the way up, what God promised was a lamb, and He did provide that, nearby, many years later. I spent a lot of my life with my eyes on the thicket instead of the cross, waiting for a ram instead of a lamb. So for me, the most fundamental shift has just been, it isn’t about my circumstances, or my situation, it’s about the Lord and what He’s doing. That sounds really great on paper, but I feel like I can actually live it out now.”

Angie Smith’s Encouragement to Those Facing Child Loss

“Well first I would say, “I’m sorry, and my heart breaks for what you’re going through and for the decisions you’re facing. You’re not alone in it.” I’m not a courageous person. I’m not a brave person. I struggled with fear for my entire life and if someone would have said something like this, or if I had heard something like this on the radio years ago, I would have said, I wouldn’t be the girl that would make that choice.  So I guess

I would just say, “spend genuine time with the Lord, asking Him to be present to you and to speak to you and to give you the courage that only He can.” It would surprise the listeners to know what kind of person I am in real life and how unlikely this time was for me just because, it looks very courageous. I guess my words to anyone listening who’s walking through that is: this isn’t something that you were ever meant to walk through alone.”

Fellowship in Loss

“There have been times, I’ve done Women of Faith events, where there are 12,000 women and you see 10,000 stand up. Then you just hear weeping because there’s the sense of I’m not alone in this. I have women come up to me and say, “I lost a child 40 years ago. I’ve never spoken about it until this day,” because generations ago, that’s just not the way that it was done.

So even with abortion, the enemy would like nothing more than for you to stay seated in your shame and not realize that you can stand up and suffer that. You can grieve. I would love to look back over my life and say there were things, I wouldn’t do differently now. There certainly are. I just see the way the enemy has worked on that group, so much, and just want them to stay clothed in the shame and feel alone. I think the realization, that they aren’t, is probably the most powerful thing that they can do.”

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