"It'll eat up years of your life when you should be working to repair your company," he said. A lawyer, willingly turning down business! Maybe it was a sign from God.
Except I didn't want to hear from God. I was over the initial shock and now I was just angry. Bitterly angry. Tim and the COO even had the nerve to set up their new company right across the parking lot from my office! What had I done to deserve this?
I thought back over all our years together, our good times in the office, our celebrations when we landed a particularly big client. I knew they chafed at my authority, especially when I started handing them more responsibility. They didn't like me weighing in on all their decisions. But it was my company! I'd built it and I had a right to say where it should go. No, I simply needed to admit that this was the reality of human relationships, especially in business. People were cutthroat, kindness was an illusion and trust was for fools.
I went on like this for months. One day I found myself driving along I-40, returning to Nashville after dropping off my daughter at college in Knoxville. The rolling green hills unspooled out the window and it seemed like I was heading from nowhere to nowhere. I felt weighted down and alone. Alone with my anger.
I often stayed up late at night poring over financial documents. Sometimes I screamed at the wall. My relationship with Linda was strained. I was terse and grim at the office too. It was no way to live, but what was I supposed to do when every day I pulled into work and saw my former friends' cars parked right across the lot? Surely no one expected me to forgive them?
The moment that thought entered my mind I felt a kind of stilling of my heart. Forgiveness. I'd heard plenty of sermons about forgiveness. Heck, I'd scheduled plenty of speakers on the topic. But senseless betrayal by close friends? Who could forgive something like that?
The hills rolled by, silent and serene. I heard no voice, felt no presence—indeed, I'd never felt emptier. Yet all of a sudden a prayer came unbidden to my lips: "Lord, fill my emptiness with your presence." I spoke those words and it was as if a film was immediately lifted from my eyes. Not only was forgiveness possible, it was required. It was the only way to fill the emptiness and stop the anger. Forgiveness was the presence of God. I would have laughed except I was so dismayed. I knew what I had to do. I just didn't know how to do it.
In fact, it took me three years, a Christian men's retreat and a final face-to-face meeting with Tim to reach that place of forgiveness. Along the way I let go of my self-righteousness and admitted that I'd been unfair, expecting two subordinates to take the reins as I neared retirement and yet still follow my direction. That didn't excuse their betrayal, but it felt right to acknowl­edge my own role in our failed relationship.
I read those powerful words in Matthew, "Love your enemies," and I realized that in the end I had to forgive both men whether or not they ever apologized. I opened my heart to reconciliation.
Sometime later Tim got in touch with me (I still haven't heard from the COO). By that point their new business had foundered and Tim was at loose ends. I didn't offer him a job, though my company's back on sound financial footing. What I offered was friendship. We're still in touch and I can honestly say I hold no bitterness toward either man.