His personality changed, it seemed as though his judgement became poor. He made decisions that he would later regret and attempt to reverse. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. Trust had been broken, confidence lost. It started to wear and tear on our children, on me.......on him.
On a Monday morning after a particularly stressful Sunday, we sat on the couch, considering our options. Where do we go from here? How do we fix this? I felt I had a solution. I proposed that we resign the church, move back to California and just regroup, refresh ourselves. He was not opposed to the idea. We began to discuss the possibilities. Who would take the church? What would we do for income? Needless to say this was something we talked about for days.
We both felt strongly that the man to take the church in the event we resigned should be my cousin, Reverend Delmon Sansom. He was above reproach in character and had proved himself to be faithful. In recent days we had been in close contact with my Pastor Reverend Randy G. Keyes from Modesto California as well as Reverend Mike Williams and several other renowned men of God who had reached out to Tim. Bro. Keyes had also contacted Dr. Hughes, (a Dr. and Minister in our movement) to fly out to Arizona to evaluate and treat Tim. Pastor Keyes agreed that resignation was wise and he offered us a place at Modesto Revival Center. I was excited about the prospects of moving back home and having family support, and to be quite frank, I was anxious to no longer Pastor, I was done.
We made the decision, introduced our plan to the church and moved forward. It was one of the most difficult things we had ever done in our lives. The church did not understand, there was a lot of chaos and confusion. How could they understand? They had no idea what we had been battling for years, how it had affected our family. As time went on, we were more and more convinced that our time at PRC was over, but Tim became increasingly agitated, worried about our future.
During the week of the election Tim did not sleep well. He would lay for hours on our couch staring at the ceiling, or out in the backyard swinging a golf club. He made unreasonable demands of the incoming Pastor, demands that he and I would argue about clear up until the election on that Wednesday night. I could not make him see reason.
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
The night of the election came. We were to meet with our church board, Bro. Sansom and the District Superintendent. Tim asked me to accompany him to the meeting, I did so hesitantly. It did not go well. As I had suspected, and forewarned, his demands were unfair and unacceptable.
I was shocked when he violently pushed up out of his chair, grabbed me by the arm and headed down the stairs that led from our board room and towards the sanctuary where many of our saints had already gathered for the election. Scared and confused I broke away from him and looked to our Board members for direction. They were equally as shocked and as confused as I. And then, I ran after him in an attempt to stop him. By the time I entered the Sanctuary he was already behind the podium addressing the congregation. I was stunned to hear him inform them that there would be no election, that he would not allow it. I made my way down the aisle towards him, totally focused on just getting him out of there. From the corner of my eye I could see our Assistant Pastor making his way to the podium in an attempt to circumvent the situation, to reassure our saints, to inform them that in fact, there would be an election.
I grabbed him by the arm and said "Let's go." He resisted at first, trying to free his arm from my grasp. I hung on. Finally, I was able to literally force him down the aisle, thru the lobby, out the door and into our car. "Drive!" I told him, "just drive home." The shock, fear and confusion on the faces of our saints remains with me to this day.
I was sobbing hysterically. It's a blur, but I believe I called my mother. We arrived home and I collapsed onto our couch, he into his chair in our den, and we just sat there, shell shocked. In one evening we had lost it all. Everything we had worked so hard for, for so many years lay as rubble, ashes at our feet. ( Before I proceed, let me reiterate that I hold absolutely NO ONE accountable for the demise of my husband's ministry or his untimely death. I am not bitter at any individuals or God for the sad turn of events. Tim's decisions and actions were his and his alone.) I was hysterical but Tim was oddly calm. At some point, I picked up the phone and made a call to my Pastor's wife, Sis. Keyes. She tried to calm me down, instructed us to get some rest and that Bro. Keyes would contact us in the morning.
Tim headed to our bedroom, sat down at his desk. I don't know what he did there for I was on my kitchen floor in a fetal position. I rolled around, howled and screamed out to God for at least forty five minutes before I worked up the strength to stand up and stumble to our bedroom and our bed. To this day, I have never experienced such raw, horrific emotional pain. Everything I loved was gone!!
I crawled into bed that night, a zombie, wasted and spent. The last thing I saw before I lay my head on my pillow was Tim, slumped over his desk, his medications sitting before him. My last thought was, "God, don't let him take all of those pills." And then, blessed sleep came.
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