Character Assassination

When some people are at their worst, God is at His best

Written by Remaliah Evans

I hired a new administrative assistant named “Linda” who soon decided that she wanted to work for a client. Working for our clients is expressly forbidden by our client contracts. At 6pm on a Friday I received an email from Linda stating that I was not a personable supervisor, I did not provide the tools that she needed to succeed, and therefore she was forced to quit without notice. On Monday, another administrative assistant informed me and my Regional Manager that Linda was working for our client. Per the client contract our Operations Director promptly sent the client an invoice totaling 6 months of Linda’s salary.

Linda proceeded to accuse me of not training her, not paying her overtime, and not following up with her harassment claim involving another admin. She continued accusing me for two months and then threatened to sue my company unless we rescinded the invoice to our client. Fortunately I had a plethora of documentation to prove that Linda was not telling the truth. However I spent two months tormented with the fear that my professional reputation might be destroyed and concerned that I might lose my job.

It seemed that all I could do was dwell on the accusations. I found myself bursting into tears whenever I was alone because I felt betrayed. No one had ever tried to assassinate my character and have me fired before, and when it happened my heart broke in a way that I never knew it could break. I had invested a great deal of time into training Linda because she had great potential and I wanted to create a team environment and eventually promote her.

During this time family and friends prayed with me constantly and I was led to these verses:

Psalms 103:1-4 Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your sins, and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit.

Psalms 37:5-6 Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun.

Every time I would worry and get emotional, I would thank the Lord for redeeming my life from the pit and I would thank the Him for vindicating me. It was a very long two months, however in the end, the Lord did just what He promised. He completely protected and redeemed my reputation!

Dwelling on a negative situation is torment. When I started to dwell on the Father’s promises, I found hope. And then I saw that even though it all worked out in the end, I had to forgive. Not just say I forgave her, but really forgive her in my heart. I thought I had forgiven Linda but then God gave me a dream. In the dream, Linda came to ask me for forgiveness and I did not forgive her. I love God’s persistence speaks, if I am not listening during the day, He’ll talk to me through dreams! So God had me pray for her and bless her and her son daily; which was not easy. Through God’s grace and mercy, I was finally able to completely forgive her. These were hard lessons, however I thank God for teaching me, loving me, and sending me people to pray with me and speak truth. Oh! And after Linda left, God blessed with an admin who is reliable, incredibly easy to work with, and overqualified!