The characters in this story are fictional. The hurt is not.

Waking up to the smell of coffee brewing, I sit in the silence staring out my office window. This is my time, the sun rising, warming me from the inside out, reminding me God put the sun up there. It’s the time before the phone buzzes, before the emails pile up, before anyone needs anything from me. Just me and God. I’m ready, listening to whatever he wants to say.

Opening my journal, I wait. Nothing comes. And that’s okay. It’s fine. Sometimes the silence alone is enough.

Watching the sun come up, I quickly jot down a few notes for Sunday’s sermon. Something about shepherds, so I draw a terrible rendering of sheep. I’ll remember what it is. It’s all about making sure we’re tending the flock, showing up. I don’t have the closing illustration yet, but it’ll come. God always shows up.

Quiet time concluded, I review my work calendar. Three meetings, all right before lunch. An all-staff check-in at nine. The building committee meets at noon. And somewhere in between? An email I keep meaning to think about.

The email. It was Jennifer Peterson, one of our congregation. She lost her husband, Hollis, a while back. Was it two years now? Maybe it was longer. Jennifer asked me to be there to perform the funeral service. I don’t know if I did the message justice. I loved Hollis. He was a good man. And now? Now she wants to meet. There’s no context, just a very dry, “I’d like to talk about some concerns.” I scheduled her at eleven, giving me fifteen minutes between the staff meeting and lunch.

That should be enough time.

Staff meetings always run long. There is always one person who has an ‘issue’ that needs to be dealt with publicly. I stand by waiting and watching, letting our senior pastor handle these issues. He’s more experienced, knows our congregation better, and many of these concerns end up being items that only he is willing to handle. That makes my job as his right hand a lot more than difficult. By the time I get back to my office, Jen’s already waiting in the lobby. I see her sitting up straight, hands on the purse in her lap.

I don’t remember her until I see her.

Jennifer.

She sits up front, raises her hands in worship, takes copious notes, and has a smile for all who see her.

“Good morning,” I smile, waving her into my office, offering her a seat, and closing the door. I know the church policy. Men and women don’t meet one-on-one. This is different, I tell myself.

“Thanks for meeting with me,” she says. “I know your time is valuable. I don’t expect this to take long.”

“Of course,” I say. “What’s on your mind?”

She’s talking. And I’m doing my best to listen, but part of me is already thinking about the building committee lunch, about whether I remembered to send the budget numbers to Frank, about the sermon illustration for this weekend. That I still don’t have.

Then she says something that pulls me back into the room.

“No one called me. Not once in two years.”

I can feel the blood drain from my face. Surely not, I want to protest. That can’t be right. We have systems, teams. A care team. Stephen ministers. Emotionally Healthy Leadership. Small group leaders we’ve trained, specifically for times like this.

Names. I don’t have any names. No dates. I just have Jennifer’s face, hurting and pained, that everyone in our congregation forgot about her. Not just over a few weeks. But two years. And, you know what? She’s not lying.

I can’t think of anything to say, I’m so stunned. Shocked that I missed it. So I say what’s on my heart. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “That really sucks.”

She continues. A staff member met with her alone at his home before the Bible study, led by his wife. I know it’s a policy violation. One I’ll need to look into. Something about being pulled from leading a group. Something about her dating before she was done grieving. That apparently bothered people on staff, but no one would say it to her; they chose to gossip about it instead.

I’m nodding and watching the clock. The building committee meets in twelve minutes. I can’t be late. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Jennifer stops speaking, looking at me like, I don’t know. She’s waiting for something. And I don’t know what to give her.

Silence hangs heavy in the room. Then Jennifer speaks again, soft and slow.

“I hope this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” she says. “I hope you get it figured out.” Then another small pause. “Do better.”

Then she walks out. I thought she wanted me to reply, but she left before I could say anything.

I sit there for a minute, my coffee cold. I have eleven minutes before lunch.

I’ll follow up, I tell myself. I’ll be sure to speak with the staff member when he returns from the mission trip in two weeks. I’ll look into the care team and make sure the system didn’t fail. It did, but I want to make sure.

I grab my keys and head to the restaurant.

Of course, the lunch runs long, and a budget conversation turns into a vision conversation, turns into a two-hour thing. By the time I get back to the office, I’ve got 17 unread emails and a voicemail from a deacon about broken parking lot lights.

I think about Jennifer. I should write down what she said while it’s still fresh.

But I don’t. I’ll remember.

That Sunday, I preached about shepherds. About how important it is to tend the flock. I rehearsed it until I almost had it memorized. The notes are in my office. The video is on the website. They tell me what I said.

I don’t remember a word of it.

The staff member who met with Jennifer at his home is out of the country for another week. I’ll talk to him when he gets back.

The week fills up. Then another. He comes back from the mission trip, and there’s a lengthy debrief, then a planning meeting for the next mission trip. I keep meaning to bring it up, to schedule a meeting with him.

I don’t.

One month.

Then three.

Then nine.

A year later, someone forwarded Jennifer’s article to me on Facebook. The subject line: “Thought you needed to see this.”

I click the link. Jennifer. She wrote about it. All of it. The silence. The meeting. The “that sucks.”

She didn’t use my name. She didn’t have to.

I scroll to the end, to the very last line.

“I told him to do better. He said he would. He didn’t.”

I sit at my desk for a very long time. My coffee gets cold.

I never checked in.