I love the concept of mentoring. Teach what you know. For me, its how I try to navigate life. I had my first real mentors when we lived in Spain. Besides good life modeling, they taught me how to teach myself, how to become a self-feeder.

So I was fortunate. I had very heady, cool people teaching me how to ratchet up my relationship with God. I still have contact with most of those people. In fact, last night we had a birthday dinner for my hubby with one of the couples most influential in our lives. They are some of our favorite people on the planet.

During conversation we pondered what had become of the man who invested in all our lives, one of the men who taught our mentors how to mentor. I jokingly said we should google him to see if we could track him down.

Unfortunately I remembered to do that when I got home. Along with some of his book reviews for Amazon products was the listing of him as a sexual predator. l felt sick. I don't really know how to process this information. I will tell my other friends what I found but part of me wants to pretend this is a dream.

People make mistakes. Sometimes the court makes mistakes. Upon further digging, I see he admitted to the crimes. He is serving two back-to-back 25-year sentences and a lifetime of parole should he ever get out.

I am profoundly sad for the inevitable pain this has caused for all those involved. I still love the man for the way he invested in my life. I find it curious that someone so steeped in an intense relationship with God should veer so off track.

But wait a minute, there was this guy ... a king actually, named David, who lived a long time ago. I think he did some pretty heinous things and yet he was referred to as a man after God's own heart. Even more curious.

Grace and mercy, curiouser still.

Grateful,
Caroline

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 08, 2009 at 5:28 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.