Richelle Hofer

On March 21, 2019 I received a voicemail. “Your dad has had a heart attack”. Only about 30 minutes after receiving that voicemail my sister called me crying. She didn’t have to say the words, I already knew. My dad was dead. He was 60 years old.

My dad’s early death was incredibly hard. But the hardest news I have ever received came about 13 years earlier. It was the news that my dad, a pastor for over 20 years and the founder of my faith was having an affair.

I have thought a long time about whether I should write about this, but every time I hear the news of a “fallen pastor” I think, I have to share. The enemy of our souls loves to destroy people and leave a path of destruction miles wide. Families broken, Christians standing in judgment. We have to thwart his plans.

The day that split time in two…

When I was just 4 years old my dad left his life on the family farm to attend Bible college. I admired his faith. I went to him for advice. I believed in him. My dad was a remarkable man… the founder of my faith.

Dad had a heart for children. When I was little he would spend hours helping me learn verses and explaining complex concepts to me.

He helped to start an orphanage in Acapulco Mexico and led children’s camps in places like India and Uganda. For years he organized a community outreach program in our hometown that offered the love of Jesus and a hot meal to around 50 under-served children.

Our lives were filled with sacrifice, but we never thought much about it. Our entire family locked arms and worked shoulder to shoulder in ministry.

When my mom started to suspect that dad was having an affair, I didn’t even consider it possible. I honestly thought my mom had gone crazy.

When the horrible ridiculous thought was confirmed, it turned my life completely upside down.

August 7, 2006. It was the day that forever split time in two. From then on out there was life before the affair and life after the affair.

Our family crumbled. I questioned my faith, I questioned everything I thought was true. It rocked my world. I felt like I’d been knocked out cold and I was laying facedown in the arena of life.

Though it was one of the hardest things I have ever been through, I learned so much about my God and so much about my faith through this trial.

Lesson One: People Suck

Let’s be honest, the first thing I learned is that people suck – or to put it a more “Christian” way, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). It might sound funny but even though we KNOW this, we like to think that OUR people – the one’s in our close circle – are the exception.

No one wants to believe that people that we trust are capable of betrayal and susceptible to sin, so we are quick to judge and say that things like “this would never happen to us”.

Peter thought something similar before the rooster crowed.

We think we are of higher moral character. When we hear of someone’s moral failing we click our tongues and put them in a category separate from ourselves … what a shame that they turned out to be a sinner.

The reality is that we are all sinners and as Christians, our propensity for categorizing sin (and consequently people) makes us look like pompous hypocrites to everyone on the outside looking in.

Keep Your Expectation in God

Probably my favorite verse in the Bible is Psalm 62:5. It says “My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him.”

Before I learned of my dad’s affair, Psalm 62:5 spoke to my soul. I realized that every time I’d found myself disappointed, hurt, or upset, it was because of misplaced expectations.

If my expectation is truly in God, I won’t be disappointed or hurt… because I trust that it’s not over yet. It’s only when my expectations become misplaced … my expectations are in a person, in a process, in something worldly… that I find myself in turmoil. And then I have to say “My Soul, be quiet… be silent… wait for God… my expectation is only from God.” (check out my blog Shifting Expectations)

After my dad’s affair this verse kept coming back to me. I had to keep telling myself not to put my expectation in my dad… get your expectation on the one who doesn’t disappoint… and I had to do it over and over and over again.

Forgiveness When it Seems Impossible

I tried very hard to forgive my dad, but for many many years I was swallowed up in grief… grief and anger and unforgiveness.

I remember driving home from work one day listening to Christian radio. I was just getting close to home when I heard someone on the radio (I think it was Ken Davis) say “Holding on to unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

That hit me hard. I realized that unforgiveness was a trick that the enemy was hitting me with… I was being swallowed up, not living in victory… laying facedown in the arena… barely breathing… dying a very slow, death… poisoned by my own unforgiveness. I decided that day that I had to do better.

Forgiveness is hard. And I struggled. My dad had always preached that forgiveness meant “no payment due”.

I was able to get myself to the place where I didn’t want my dad to pay ME… but I never was able to get to the place where I didn’t want him to pay “at all”. In my heart I didn’t want my dad to be TOO happy. I got myself to the place where I didn’t want him to be miserable, but I just couldn’t get myself to the place where I wanted him to be completely happy. 

It wasn’t until after my dad’s death that I had a revelation that changed my life. It was the first Sunday that I had gone back to church after my dad passed away. Our pastor spoke on the Lord’s Prayer. “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

The weight of those words hit me like a punch in the gut… had I forgiven my dad the way that I want to be forgiven? I had forgiven my dad as much as I was humanly able, I was sure of that. But was that the kind of forgiveness that I want?

Of course not! I want supernatural forgiveness… the kind that conquers death and brings me life and freedom… Is that the kind of forgiveness I had offered my dad?

No, of course it wasn’t… I argued back to God “I am not supernatural so how could I offer him supernatural forgiveness?”… And that’s when it hit me: I should have asked my supernatural God to help me offer supernatural forgiveness … that revelation just brought me to my knees. Even now, years later, I cry as I type these words. It had never occurred to me to ask God to help me completely forgive my dad.

True forgiveness is supernatural… it’s not human… it requires a miracle… a miracle in your very own heart. I hope that I never again have the opportunity to forgive someone so much, but if I am faced with that, I will pray that God will give me the gift of supernatural forgiveness so that I can truly forgive the way that I want to be forgiven.

Battling False Beliefs

There are many many common false beliefs in the world that well-meaning Christians repeat and the devil uses as traps for the broken.

I have heard lots of people say that God won’t give you more than you can handle. When I hadn’t slept in days, when my world felt like it was crashing down, “God won’t give you more than you can handle” was certainly not what I needed to hear.

And the Bible never says this. In fact, sometimes I think God gives us more than we can handle to remind us to turn things over to Him.

I have also heard “everything happens for a reason”. The Bible says that God causes things to work together for good for those that love Him… but it doesn’t say that God causes everything to happen for a reason.

God did not CAUSE my dad to have an affair. I believe that it was the devil that worked overtime to derail my dad’s ministry. He comes against every Christian with a well-crafted plan to steal, kill and destroy.

He convinced my dad to make a decision that cost him nearly everything. His decision could have cost me everything too… if I held on to bitterness. But I do believe that as I turn over my brokenness, God can cause something beautiful to emerge from the ashes.

I think of coming to God with all of my junk and brokenness – all the things that the devil meant to harm me – and God working his amazing magic (also referred to as grace) to make something beautiful… something GOOD.

We can hang on to the pile of crap if we want to… God never FORCES us to give it up. It can be painful to give it over because sometimes God has to dig out broken pieces that are embedded in our souls. It can be painful, but I promise you it’s worth it. What God can do with brokenness will absolutely blow your mind.

How should WE respond to a fallen pastor?

So how should we respond to a fallen pastor and his family? With mercy and love.

Every time we hear of a fallen pastor, let’s come together as Christians and immediately get to work to stop the chain reaction that the enemy has put in motion.

Let’s look at it through this lens: we are all sinners. Judgment in and of itself is a sin so let’s just stop judging.

Let’s lift up their families, not tear them down. Stop on the spot and pray for them. God still has plans for them!

Pray for healing. Pray that God will in some way use us to stop that chain reaction of destruction in that family’s life.

And let it serve as a reminder that we are all susceptible to sin. Pray that God will strengthen your own families as well.