Salvation Army
Appointed and Ordained as Pastor in 1981
Founded Radnor Road Christian Fellowship
Served the Bermuda Government for 32 years
Received from Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth 2nd the honor of M.B.E. for service to the Bermuda Government in 1997
Consecrated as Bishop in 1997
GUEST
Bishop Neville Smith: Heartbreak
by A Voice of Hope
HEARTBREAK
“From the day I saw her, I believe I loved her,” says Neville Smith. There was something about the way my wife, Loretta, carried herself that attracted my eyes. It was at that moment my heart responded to what I saw. I asked Lord to surround her with angels and let no one else take her.
Neville and Loretta would have been married 40 years in 2009 but cancer took her life. Neville states, “I remember thinking, ‘God, if you can cause the winds to cease, you can heal my wife.’” He prayed and believed God for her healing and received a report that her cancer was gone.
God had healed her. It was done so there was no need to be concerned anymore, says Neville. Then she woke up on a Tuesday morning with pain in her stomach.
“To see my wife go through all of that, to see her body almost become disfigured with fluids in her face. If you didn’t know her, you wouldn’t have recognized her,” says Neville. It cut my heart so deeply. I wept before the Lord and declared, “Only you can do this thing and only you can help her.”
Then I heard in his spirit, “She’s coming home to Me,” says Neville. Those words echoed in my spirit and in my heart and my soul and my emotions. The most difficult thing in life is to release your wife.
“One of the most difficult things for me was my first night at home in the same bed without her,” says Neville. She knew everything about me. There was nothing we couldn’t or didn’t discuss. Now, I didn’t have my best friend. How was I going to handle this?
I said, “Lord, how do I sustain myself?” He said, “No, I will sustain you.” God said, “If you will trust me and make trust the answer, then you will go through this fine.” Trust becomes the bridge to the answer. Because trust will be the bridge that will always carry to the name that is above every name, Jesus.
HOW DO YOU TRUST AGAIN?
It was an act of my will, my mind, and my emotions and my soul. I had to take all three of those and say, “I give them all to you right now,” says Neville. As soon as I did that, the peace of God settled in my spirit and in my mind and even in my body.
God knew I needed that grace. I had to get back into things, the church, the family and keep doing those things. It was absolutely amazing. I remember going to bed, night after night saying, “I thank you for keeping me today,” says Neville.
I do wake up mornings and wish she was there but I don’t have heartbreak. I have the hope now. He’s given me that hope. Prayer, meditating on the word, and personal worship helped me through. You have to return to normal activities, work, home, or whatever you are accustom to doing.
Emotions can keep you down but you have to decide to get up. You have to make a decision on what you want to do with the rest of your life. “I decided before God I was going to live because of Him I live and move and have my being.”
Find a place in God, in the church, in the world, where you can be satisfied that life for you now is good, even without marrying again. If you are a widow, if you want to get married again, find your emotional and spiritual place again. Find your place in your community. Find your place in your church again. Make sure that is in order.
Even in unanswered prayers, you still have to trust God. If I don’t hear the answer, says Neville, then I’m just going to go on and love Him and let Him be my Father anyhow.
ABOUT BISHOP NEVILLE SMITH:
After spending many exciting years in the Salvation Army serving in many areas of senior responsibility, Bishop Smith was appointed and ordained as a Pastor in 1981. He with his wife, Loretta served in that capacity until 1986.
In 1987, because he desired to follow the will of God, Bishop Smith with his wife, founded the Radnor Road Christian Fellowship while still employed as a Civil Servant in the Bermuda Government. He served Government in various capacities for 32 years, and after serving as
Bermuda’s Chief Immigration Officer, Bishop Smith retired in May 1996 for full-time ministry as Pastor of the Radnor Road Christian Fellowship.
Several years ago he was honored as one of Bermuda’s most outstanding young people. In
March 1997, Bishop Smith visited Buckingham Palace and received from Her Majesty, Queen
Elizabeth 2nd the honor of M.B.E. for service to the Bermuda Government. It was during that same year in Cleveland, Ohio that Bishop Smith was consecrated and recognized as Bishop.
He is a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute of London, England, formerly the British Institute of Management, a licensed Marriage Officer and a Justice of the Peace. Throughout the year he teaches the Word of God and conducts various workshops which include ‘Leadership’ and ‘How to Know and Walk in Your God-Given Assignment & Dreams’.
He is a Pastor to Bishops and other Pastors in Bermuda, the Philippines, Nigeria, Canterbury,
England and the U.S.A., and is the founding Presiding Bishop of the International Fellowship of
Christian Churches. He serves as the spiritual covering in Bermuda for the Global Day of Prayer, the Bermuda National Day of Prayer, Women of Vision Empowering Nations (WOVEN), and the National Pastors Wives’ Fellowship of Bermuda.
Bishop Smith’s wife, Pastor Loretta Smith, was the Director of Women’s Ministries at Radnor
Road Christian Fellowship and the Executive Leader of the National Pastors’ Wives’ Fellowship immediately before she left to be with the Lord in December 2008. Bishop has two sons and a daughter: Lauren, LaMohn and Tiffanie.
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