Chapter 7
C ash did not want to talk about Zoe and everything that happened at his church back in Virginia. But since he knew he didn’t have a choice, he wanted to tell it in the best way possible. Maybe fast, so Ezra would not have a chance to form opinions that would be difficult to change.
But then, he figured the best way to tell it was just to state the facts.
“I grew up and lived all of my life in Virginia. A beautiful state, beautiful country, and like I said, God blessed me beyond words. I did well in school, I did well in Bible school, and I became a pastor at a young age.”
“Wow.”
Ezra didn’t say anything more. Cash nodded, because sometimes kids fresh out of Bible college couldn’t find a church to hire them.
“But then I started my own church. I did that at a young age as well, and I’ve been there for more than ten years. God built it from nothing, literally nothing, to a regular weekly attendance of two thousand people.” He paused. “I’d like to take the credit for it, but it was all God.”
Ezra nodded, as though he understood that God got the credit.
“I was very careful. I put a lot of guards up around myself so I would not fall into temptation and so that I would avoid any appearance of evil.”
“Those things are biblical.” Again, Ezra nodded in agreement.
“I got engaged at Christmastime last year.” It was so cliché. He had done all the cliché things. “I was supposed to get married a month and a half ago. But two weeks before the wedding, one of the girls that attended the Christian school our church sponsors came to my office, crying. She came running in, slamming the door behind her, and sobbed in my office for an hour.
“Of course, I always had either the door open or someone else in the office with me when I had a girl in there. I never met with girls alone. It was my policy. But this girl was so distraught, she was so upset, and she had been struggling, that I let my standard slip just one time.”
He paused, trying to figure out where to go from there.
“She was having issues, and she did not like my advice. I showed her from the Bible what she needed to do, and it made her angry. She quit crying, but I didn’t comfort her; I upset her more.”
That was the truth. Instead of giving her the compassion that she obviously wanted, he had laid a hard line down. He had done it deliberately, because the girl had been struggling with this for a while, and he had been trying to use compassion to help her, like at the basketball game where he had his arm around her and shouldn’t have.
“I guess I should say that there was a basketball game a few weeks prior, where she had been crying again, and I put my arm around her and led her outside. People saw it.”
Ezra nodded. If he knew where the story was going, he didn’t let on.
“Anyway, as you can imagine, the girl was upset with me, angered that I didn’t do what she wanted me to do, and she told the entire church that I was carrying on a relationship with her. A sexual one. Which was not the slightest bit true.”
“Wow,” Ezra said again, but he didn’t say anything more.
“I found out about it when my best friend and head deacon called me into his office and fired me.”
“They fired you?” Ezra asked, as though to confirm it.
“Yes. That was all the notice I got. I didn’t have a chance to tell my side of the story. They did not give me the benefit of the doubt. I wasn’t innocent until proven guilty. And I understand why they did it.”
He paused, trying to let go of the bitterness and anger in his voice.
“They knew that if the idea that the church was okay with a pastor who molested girls got out into the public, people would leave the church in droves. We had just completed building a four-million-dollar addition onto the church, and we needed those people to stay and give their tithes and offerings to pay for it.”
In hindsight, he understood even more clearly what the Bible meant when it said that the borrower is servant to the lender. If they hadn’t borrowed that money, if they hadn’t owed the bank, if they hadn’t wanted to make sure they could continue to make their payments, they could have afforded to have been methodical about the allegations. They could have looked into them, they could have weathered the storm as people left before the truth came out.
But because they owed the money, they were servant to their lender in the fact that they had to make certain choices, or else they would default on their loan.
“So you were not given a trial?”
“No. And she didn’t bring any charges against me. The police were called, but they said there wasn’t enough evidence to bring charges. I appreciate that, because if they had, it was my word against hers. It would have been whether I could convince a jury, or whether she could, and I guess...” He shrugged his shoulders.
He had no idea whether he would have won had the case gone to trial. All he could do was say it wasn’t true. He didn’t want to go and try to malign the character of Zoe. He didn’t even know if she had never lied before, or if that was something that she normally did. Although, he did know that his character was spotless. Up until that happened, he could have called a thousand or two thousand character witnesses. But he didn’t know if they would stand beside him and tell the truth about his past, if they suspected that Zoe’s story was true.
“Do you have the number of the head deacon?” Ezra asked as Cash had been slightly afraid that he would.
“I do. His name is John, and obviously you can tell him that I told you to call him.”
Cash got his phone out, pulled up John’s contact, and gave the number to Ezra, who surprised him by dialing the number immediately.
Cash was not expecting that. But Ezra didn’t let grass grow under his feet. He was taking care of matters immediately. And Cash appreciated that. In a small way. After all, they only had three days. If Ezra took two days to confirm the story and decide to give Cash his blessing, he would only have a day to talk to Ada and ask her to make a decision.
Ezra set his phone on speaker and placed it on the desk between them.
“Hello?”
Cash sucked in a breath at the familiar voice. His best friend, John. He hadn’t talked to him in two months, which was the longest he had gone in his life without talking to him. They had grown up in the church nursery together.
“Hello. May I speak to John, please?” Ezra asked.
“This is he,” John said, suspicion and questions in his voice.
Maybe he had gotten calls about Cash, and he was tired of them. That’s almost what it sounded like.
“John, this is Ezra Clybourn, from North Dakota. I spoke with your friend Cash, and he told me that I could call you for a character reference. He told me that he had been accused of having a sexual relationship with a minor as the pastor of the church where you’re head deacon. What can you tell me about your friend Cash?”
To his credit, John did not pause. “I believe Cash is innocent. I wish I could have somehow talked the board into keeping him, but we have bills to pay, and we knew that if we did not take immediate action, the public would rally against us, and we would lose members and money. And we just got a four-million-dollar addition to our church. We can’t afford to lose any members. I explained it to Cash, but he already knew. He’s a good man. The very best.”
“Do you think he did what the girl’s accusing him of?”
“No way. No way in hell. Cash is the most upright man I know. I’ve missed him over the last two months, his steady influence, his godly counsel, his wise leadership. This church will never be the same. There’s no way he did what she said he did.”
“Thank you.” Ezra paused, and Cash held his breath. “Do you have time for me to ask you a couple more questions?”
“Sure. Ask away,” John said, and Cash appreciated his friend’s generosity and his honesty.
“If you had a sister or daughter, would you think it was a good idea for them to marry Cash?”
“Absolutely. I would have no qualms about it at all. In fact, I would feel like they were getting one of the best men in the world.”
“What would you say his worst flaws are?”
John was silent for a moment before he said, “I think everything has always come easily for him. I... I don’t know if he has the ability to dig in and stand his ground, to fight for what is right. He... He left really easily. No one believed what Zoe said was true, but we had to let things play out.” There was another pause. “I don’t know for sure that he’s not bitter or angry about it too. I know I would be. But that’s not really a flaw that I know of. It’s just something I know could be a potential issue.”
“Is there anything else you think I should know about Cash’s character if I’m going to be around him a lot or have my children and my wife around him?”
Cash appreciated the fact that Ezra wasn’t saying exactly what was going on. If Ada decided not to marry him, he would prefer not to have the entire world know that she turned him down. He’d already been through enough. He didn’t need that additional issue.
“Nope. I meant it when I said he is one of the best men I know. He was a great pastor, but more than that, he was a great friend. I hated to see what happened to him. But that type of thing could happen to anyone if it could happen to Cash. Because Cash was one of the most careful people I know. He knew what God wanted from him, and he kept guardrails up around his life to keep him from straying off the path and to keep others from being able to corner him the way that girl did. And he didn’t do it because of legalism or trying to make himself look good. He did it because he loves the Lord. His love for God is one of the most genuine things I’ve ever seen.”
Cash could have hugged his friend right then, although he hadn’t realized until he had been sitting there listening to him that he did hold bitterness in his heart toward John. John could have squashed this completely. He could have stood behind him, defending him against the allegations. He could have said, “We’re not going to listen to this girl. She’s a known liar, and we know that our pastor is doing right.” Or at least that it was her word against his word and a man was innocent until proven guilty.
But John hadn’t done any of that. It was like he had dropped him the second something came into his life, and it made Cash feel like perhaps John was just looking for an excuse to knock him down.
But to hear John talk about him now, it didn’t feel that way. But he could still feel bitterness and anger in his heart because his friend had not supported him from the beginning.
Still, he couldn’t have asked for a better recommendation.
Ezra and John talked a bit more before he hung up the phone.
“Do you have anyone else I should call?”
“I can give you a few numbers,” he said, pulling out his phone and giving the number of his parents and the number of a distant friend who didn’t know him that well but who would give a different perspective. And then, he took a chance and named three upstanding men in the church. One was a deacon, one had been a Sunday school teacher for years, and one worked on the bus ministry.
“I have no idea what these men will say about me. But that should give you a good idea of how people feel.”
He didn’t want to try to deceive Ezra. That was not what he was here for. If Ezra wanted to know what people said about him, he could find out, and Cash wasn’t going to try to manipulate the outcome. This wasn’t like getting a job. This was something he was going to hopefully be for the rest of his life. He didn’t want to enter into the union under false pretenses, and he definitely didn’t want Ezra to give his blessing without knowing everything there was to know.
He wanted Ezra to be able to make an informed decision, and he felt the same about Ada. She didn’t have much time, so he needed to help in every way he could.
An hour later, Ezra finally hung up from the last call. One man hadn’t been home, one had given short, uninspired answers, and all of them that Ezra had talked to had mentioned the allegations against him and the fact that they had been shocked and taken off guard because his reputation had been spotless up until that point.
Ezra clicked off his phone and looked across the table at Cash.
“Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions?” Ezra asked, his posture relaxed, his voice or face not showing anything that he was thinking or feeling.
“Sure. Ask me anything.”
“Are you angry?”
Cash swore to himself that he would answer all questions honestly, but with the very first question, he was tempted to lie. He didn’t want to admit that yes, he was very, very angry. He had everything that he had been working for stripped from him, forever. He lost his fiancée, and he lost the dreams that he had. His life had no meaning. And a man without meaning was a man who was most likely angry, bitter, and depressed.
“Yes. I don’t think I would be human if I wasn’t angry about what happened.”
“I don’t think you would be either. If you would have said no, I would have thought you were a liar.”
He felt like he’d answered the question correctly, even though it wasn’t the answer he wished to give.
“Do you think you’re going to be able to forgive those people?”
He didn’t get specific about the people who needed to be forgiven, and that was probably on purpose. Cash knew that there were a lot of people he would need to forgive. All the people who allowed him to be run out of his own church on the allegations of a teenager, with absolutely no proof to back them up. No proof, because there was no way she could back up her allegations since they were false.
Could he forgive?
“Yes. The Bible says that if I don’t forgive others, God will not forgive me. Matthew 6:15. ‘But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.’” He tried to take a quick look into his heart. “I want to forgive. I want to say that it doesn’t matter what they did. I’m not sure I’m there yet, but I know I will be.”
It was the first time he had said that out loud. He wanted it to be true.
Ezra nodded. “I am just an observer, obviously, and I haven’t lived through this. But my perspective is a little bit different than yours, and I don’t know if this will be helpful to you, so take it however you want.”
Ezra stilled for a moment as though gathering his thoughts. “When I look at you, I see a man with untapped potential. Perhaps a man that God wanted to move, and so He allowed the things that happened back in Virginia to move you here. I would be willing to bet that God has a lot of things He wants you to do here, and if Ada agrees to marry you, you are a very blessed man indeed. I don’t know what your previous fiancée was like, but she would have to be a saint in order to compete with Ada. So, God took something from you, and He’s giving you something better. Remember that when you’re thinking about forgiveness.”
Cash was quiet. Ezra’s words had been spoken softly, not with any kind of strife or urgency, just as though he were stating the facts, calmly and rationally. And he had been. He was right. God had taken away from him everything he worked for, but supposedly, he had been saying all his life that he was working for the Lord. If God didn’t want him doing that anymore, He certainly was well within His rights to take it away, wasn’t He?
And if He wanted to give him something better, then it really wasn’t the men around him who were being so unkind, it was God who was allowing the situation so that it would move him from where he had been comfortable into a place where he would never have gone on his own. Was that so that God could use him here? Or was it so that God could bless him beyond his wildest dreams?
Maybe it was a combination of both. And Ezra was right, that did make it a lot easier to think about forgiveness.
He nodded. “You have good points.”
He didn’t say anything else, because he didn’t have anything else to say. He needed to think about it for a while.
“So, I’m going to go out, and I’m going to tell Ada that you are here to offer her marriage, and you only have three days. If it’s okay with you, I might mention the letter, just because she’ll want to know what the rush is. I’m going to tell her that I spoke with you, I’ve called various people who knew you, and that I feel like marrying you would be a good decision on her part.”
Cash didn’t exactly want to jump over the desk and wrap his arms around Ezra, but he was grateful, very grateful, to the man. He had casually, very casually, told Cash that he approved of him and would give Ada a good recommendation.
“I take it I have your permission to ask your sister to marry me?”
“You do. Let me talk to her first.”
Cash couldn’t argue with that, and he nodded, standing, as Ezra stood.
“If you give me a half an hour or so, I’ll talk to her, tell her everything I’ve heard, and then if you’d like to take care of this tonight, I’m sure she’d be willing to talk to you. I am going to guess that she’s going to want to pray about it for a while, so you won’t get an answer tonight, but I will definitely emphasize to her that it’s important that we not take too much time.”
“It’s okay if I wait here?”
“Yeah. You could hang around the house, wait outside on the porch, walk around the ranch. If you give me your number, I’ll text you when we’re done.”
Cash couldn’t have asked for a better outcome, and now, he just needed to wait and see what Ada said.