Guess what???? I’m screaming in case you can’t hear me! To the world!  And I ain’t running no more!  We got a HUGE break in this case.  After Primo got the file, he went over it with that comb I was talking about.  We all knew there were three monks murdered.  But Primo uncovered there were FOUR monks there that day.  He found the discrepancy in the log-ins.  That morning Pacia Pierte had signed off on the candle lighting in the small sanctuary.  No Pacia Pierte had been murdered!  So where the heck was he, and more importantly now, where is he?  

Primo drove down to Big Sur and started poking around, talking to locals.  He said when he brought up the guy’s name it was like he was talking about a ghost.  Fear and trepidation from anyone that knew this guy met him at every corner.  But he knows how to make people talk, threatens a little field trip down to the station for that outstanding warrant, and they sing like a bird.  So after a few raw meetings in alleys and bars, he had an address for Mr. Pierte.  

 

Primo found out Mr. Pierte no longer went by that name, now he was known as PacMan.  (That name sounds awfully familiar to me but I can’t quite put my finger on it.)  So Primo shows up at PacMan’s dingy apartment and was able to grab him right before he made it out of the window.  (Which was a good thing since it was a second floor apartment.)  Now he really had Primo’s attention, what kind of secret did this guy have that was worth jumping out of a second-story window?  So after the usual po-po scuffle, Primo had him eatting out of his hand.  PacMan finally broke.  

He told the story of that terrible morning when he watched Dave sprinting to the car barefoot and tear out of there.  He watched as Sal and his henchmen showed up at the sanctuary where all four monks were preparing their morning rituals.  Only PacMan was unseen, putting away the supplies.  He confessed that he heard them all barge in.  He fell to the floor and stayed silent, secretly peering around the corner.  He heard the men yelling and then the gunshots.  

 

He hid until they were gone, and then stole away through the forest.  The police never knew he was there. Primo said PacMan was so shook up as he relived that murderous day, he started shaking from head to toe.  He changed his name out of pure fear knowing he would be next if they found out about him.  

Now this is where it gets very interesting.  Primo called me and asked for a list of the men that were on the church’s board at that time.  I had a hard time finding it, but I found it eventually.  Then he asked me to find out where they all lived.  The most amazing part of all is that only ONE is still alive.  And my teeth almost fell out when I narrowed it down.  Mr. Wilson.  He looks 110 years old, but I’m sure he’s only in his 80s. He’s not exactly how I pictured my killer.

 Primo needed his picture from back in the day.  I found it in the old church directory which was in Mama’s things.  I scanned and emailed it, and Primo got a  positive ID from PacMan on him!  Mr. Wilson was a stone-cold killer.  The realization was overwhelming.    

Primo put two and two together and basically told me to hunker down cuz Mr. Wilson was willing to silence my voice and my life to keep this secret a secret.  Mr. Wilson knew he would take the full brunt of these charges.  I guess if you’ve already murdered three, what’s one more?  I was shocked to say the least.  Old Mr. Wilson?  The widow?  The dude with the cane? The church-going old man?   He was the wanna-be-gansta trying to kill me?  I could not believe it!  

 

Primo told me to lie low until a unit could pick him up.  So I just waited under the bed…again.  Felt the safest there.  And now I just found out they picked up not only Mr. Wilson, but LARRY too!  Haha! In your face! Wow, thank you, Lord!  I beat a killer and a professional hitman!  I’m still under the bed, but I am doing the happy dance the best I can laying flat on my back! Onto the story:

When I was little, when I did something wrong, it seemed I could always make things right again if I just said I was sorry.  Sowy.  But I know now that different sin has different consequences.  Sexual sin is like an octupus, with arms of consequences stretching out, spilling over into other people’s lives.  God’s word says it is the one sin that is actually against your own body.  I’m sure Dave wanted to say Sowy and move on, but there seemed to be more in that seed that he planted, and he was about to reap the harvest.  Not only was his sin exposed, Babs was pregnant.

Mama heard it all through the office wall.  Oh, the things the sheetrock in that office had heard!  Babs had shown up unannounced with a tear-stained face and just walked in on Dave in his office and shut the door.  Mama heard arguing.  She heard the word pregnant.  Mama knew Bab’s husband was in the military and had been for at least a year.  Her pregnancy would be hard to hide.  

A few days later, Mama watched as Dave fretted and fumed.  At first Mama didn’t understand what he was up to.  He was on the phone and trying to get some favors pulled from some old croneys he knew.  

But time has a way of tattling on everyone.  Within two weeks, Bab’s husband was home on leave.  Mama got it.  She knew exactly what Dave was trying to pull.  Now everyone would think her husband was the father of this baby.  

But what Dave didn’t factor in was the fact that Babs didn’t want to see her husband.  They argued at the airport.  He was angry that she had summoned him home on emergency leave.  She swore she had never done such a thing.  He didn’t believe her, and he left her standing in the airport.  He bought a ticket to see his parents and headed back through security.  Not knowing that Dave was behind all this, Babs blabbed to anyone who would listen that her husband came all the out to see her and then dumped her in the airport.  

Dave’s secret plot failed.  Babs was pregnant with the pastor from the Shepherd’s Gate.   Now what?  Dave was oblivious that Mama was onto him.  But his body language alone would have given him away.  His calm soothing demeanor changed abruptly.  He was nervous, high-strung, and edgy.  Though he was never rude to Mama or anyone for that manner, he was acting like a cornered animal.  

 

Mama cried and cried.  I remember that dark time in our little cottage.  Mama said her hope in man was dead.  She told me through tears to never ever doubt God.  But man…. use wisdom and common sense.  Man was weak and fickle.  I held both of Mama’s hands that night as she lamented to me.  I cried too, but my tears were for her, for her broken heart.  This sin would reach out like an octopus with its many tentacles.  There would be consequences for life.  Mama’s heart went out to the unborn child that was conceived in lust.  Her heart broke for Abby and the kids.  Her heart shattered for the congregation.  And her own disappointment that her beloved Dave would do something so out of character and would reap the fruit of that bitter tree for the rest of his life, it was overwhelming.  

There seemed to be no possible resolution, just misery for all.  Mama talked about how this child would probably be raised in poverty when Bab’s husband found out she was pregnant with another man’s baby.  She wondered if Abby would ever even find out.  Maybe Dave’s plan would be to somehow send Babs away.  

Looking back, I see how naive we were.  Without even knowing we were doing it, we were assuming Dave was in control.  Dave was not in control of this one.  God will not be mocked.  You can’t stand in front of a flock of sheep with outstretched hands to God that are stained with dark secrets.  El Roi, the God that sees all, allowed Dave’s secret to be exposed.  Just like a little teaspoon of yeast will cause all the dough to rise, sin in the church will have the same effect.  If left unchecked, it too will go though the whole church.  

Babs did an unfathomed thing:  In her desperation and desertion, she went straight to Abby, without talking to Dave.  And it blew up like a nuclear bomb.  Abby took the kids and left Dave.  Dave was asked to step down.  He married Babs on default and guilt, and the church population was cut in half.  The church was decimated.

But God was not finished in allowing the fruit from the poisonous tree to keep producing.  It was as if you couldn’t stop the consequences from rolling in like bowling bowls, smashing everything in their way.  The baby was born at 3:00 a.m. after a long and turbulent nine months, and was dead by 6:00 a.m. that same morning.  The hospital staff said he just wasn’t strong enough to live.  

Devastation wiped Dave to the ground.  He was utterly undone and at the end of himself.  He knew he had sinned greatly in many many ways, but he knew then that his greatest sin was he had become complacent with God which opened the door to a multitude of sins. His anguish was real and steady and began to form him all over again.  Did Dave ever rebound?  Not completely.  Was Dave forgiven?  Completely.  Did Dave ever fully forgive himself?  Not completely.  He knew he destroyed his own house, his home, his family, his reputation, his congregation with his own hands.  There was no one to blame but himself.  And that was hard for him to ever reconcile.

He confessed everything to Mama, though she knew it already.  He confessed to the congregation, Abby, his kids, strangers on the street.  But he would not completely accept the healing balm from Gilead.  His heart wanted punishment, so he lived in his regret and pain and wore it on his face everyday.  Defeat.  The man of God was defeated.  That is what the outsiders saw.  Some mocked him, drudging up old sermons when he was just a young man about the giants in the land that had to be slayed…and laughed at how those same giants had turned and slayed him.  

No, Dave never fully recovered, his own choice.  But the sun keeps coming up every day, whether you like it or not.  Time keeps marching forward, whether you like it or not.  There is an old saying, “Time heals all.”  Not true in this case.  

What I learned as a wounded bystander in all this mess is fight for your forgiveness!  Even if man never completely pardons you, God will.  Your sin was bought at the market for a large sum.  No matter how disgraced you are, no matter how much shame your sin flaunts, if you have truly repented, rejoice, even in your shackles!  And by shackles I mean the possible earthly consequences your sin may have brought.  Forgiveness doesn’t necessarily mean the consequences are gone, but the heavy weight of your sin is!  That is something to rejoice in.  Take your sweetest gift of all, forgiveness, and wear it proudly.  But remember, repent means you stop what you’re doing and go the opposite way.  Putting “false grace” on yourself and sinning over and over and declaring freedom is just that, false grace.  

Within a few years, Dave and Babs had another child, a little boy named Solomon.  Solomon proved that God’s good will will be carried out whether you believe it or not.  Didn’t you always think stories were supposed to end well?  Don’t you kind of want your life to end well?  Who wants Defeated written on their tombstone?  Not me.  This little boy, Solomon, proves that God’s will will be carried on, with or without you.  That little boy grew into a fine young man who pastored a church at a young age.  He had God’s wisdom and loved God greatly.  

Sometimes when you get into a lot of yuck, it actually becomes all about you.  It becomes your identity. The monster Self Pity rises up out of the muck and agrees with the Accuser.  Watch out.  Do not let Self Pity have the reigns!  If he overtakes your soul, your return trip to normalacy just took a major detour.  What is even stranger, Self Pity feels like a mink fur around your neck, a true comfort.  I’ve never been sure why people want everyone to feel sorry for them, but that becomes the goal.  Oh, and at first you will succeed!  For everyone likes a good sad story, especially when it’s not about them.  But if you keep it up, people will bore of it and wish escape.  Is that really what you want your legacy to be?  People trying to get away from you?  Your negativity unfortunately has the same properties as honey, and when poured upon unknowing souls, it sticks to them like sappy goo.  They leave you feeling worse than before you crossed their path.  Am I talking about people in crisis?  No.

Dave never rebounded, and he allowed Self Pity to be his closest ally.  So what’s the point of this sad-ending story?  We all wanted a hero of the faith, right?  Someone that stuck it out and lived it; yeah?  The point of this man’s legacy was he was the hero and the good guy, remember during Sal’s days?  But he fell.  Do you see the point?  Look harder, yeah, there it is, rising with the morning sun.  Don’t put your faith in man, ever.  Don’t put your faith in a denomination.  Only in Jesus.  

We all know people that say they don’t go to church because everyone there is a hypocrit.   That’s when you smile back at them (and try to conjure up a twinkle in your eye) and say, “Exactly! That’s why you could be saved!  Isn’t it beautiful?  He still loves us.”  

Are there wolves in the flock?  A small pack, I do believe, but yes, they are there.  God will deal with them.  Man will fail because he’s just that, man, and he gives into the flesh.  But don’t confuse those failings with God.  Never, never, never.  Phew.  Glad we settled that.  

Mama retired from the church right after the Bab’s scandal.  She had a good pension and couldn’t take it any more.  Plus, she had worked at that little church for more than 40 years!  But my mama had a deep relationship with Jesus.  She never ever questioned his character, and she never accused Him of anything.  She knew He was good all the time.  She knew that people got into situations that God had never led them to, but when things went bad they angrily turned and pointed a crooked wicked finger at God.  God is good all the time.  We must passionately and daily ask him to show us His good will for our lives.  We must never accuse him, that’s the  devil’s job.  

 

And that’s how Mama lived and died.  Thank you for listening to her story.  And her story mirrored the story of Saul and King David.