Day 18: Innocence Lost; Forgiveness Required

Ron Taylor

I met Jesus as my Savior on September 8, 1970 in the basement of my summer job where I worked as a cook.  My recent acquaintance and coworker, Betsey, had a direct impact on my Jesus encounter as she had been witnessing and sharing during our shared lunch hours.  The weekend after I met Jesus, we started dating, usually going to prayer meetings, church functions, or Jesus rallies in the park.  It was during the time the Jesus and Charismatic Movement was sweeping the country.  

Betsy and I had a close circle of Christian friends that had experienced salvation and the move of the Holy Spirit as we had.  We became like family.  One of those was David.  He was our age, unmarried, and being a twin with an unsaved brother just as I was made our friendship form a special brotherly bond.  We did many things together: Christian conferences, church, and eventually ended up working together in a newly expanded Oldsmobile dealership parts department run by David’s uncle, who was also our Sunday School teacher and spiritual mentor.  By this Time Betsey and I were newlyweds and David was still single, but the friendship continued, made even easier when I was hired at the car dealership after David.  The job was a perfect fit for my love of filing cars.  

In the parts department was an old cash register we used for sales.  Not long after I started discrepancies started being noticed between sales receipts and the register cash.  Unbeknownst to me when David was questioned about the discrepancies, he told his uncle that I was the one making mistakes with the sales transactions because I was the new employee.  His assertion was believed.  The truth was that David was stealing from the register and blaming it on me.  I was his alibi.  This continued for a while without my knowledge or any confrontation from my employer.  Nothing was said to me, at all and of course I was innocent and blissfully ignorant of what my friend had done.  The register was moved by the owners to a separate adjacent office where I had no access yet where David hung out with the woman teller and money still came up missing periodically.  It was only where I was told of being vindicated that I learned of the accusation.  David, though suspected, denied it and without proof was allowed to continue to work there just so no longer allowed in with the teller.  (It would take my years before the truth of the contents of a locked chest in his attic was revealed)

I was devastated, betrayed by my closest friend, and learned that I was almost fired all because of the unjust accusation.  Our friendship suffered and Betsey and I grieved the loss of closeness with him.  I changed jobs. David married, had two children, and in time left them for another man.  A decade later, he was diagnosed with a fatal disease that did end his life. Just before he died, David called me to apologize for the damage he had inflicted on me (us) and asked for forgiveness.  Of course, it was extended.  God had healed Betsy and me of harboring offense years before.  

King David stated in his time of distress in Psalm 41:9.  “Even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bead, has turned against me.“  And again he says in Psalm 55:12, “If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me, I could hide, but it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God.”

It is difficult to understand and even harder to let go of offenses when they come from friends or family, but we MUST forgive and move on.  We may not be able to forget, but we must not hold on to our hurt for it can and will grow like a cancer within us.  

I do not know if our David found a place of repentance before he died, but my hope is that just as he sought reconciliation with me, he also found it with Jesus.