{"id":3722,"date":"2022-10-11T17:16:01","date_gmt":"2022-10-11T17:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/garisonfitch.com\/?p=3722"},"modified":"2022-10-11T17:16:03","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T17:16:03","slug":"the-woman-caught","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garisonfitch.com\/?p=3722","title":{"rendered":"The Woman Caught"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

a Mended Lives story<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexander \u201cOpie\u201d Gates, a young man from west Texas, finds himself being greeted by a woman in a bar in New York City. At first glance, she\u2019s kind of pretty and he likes the attention. But over the evening, he begins to think she is considerably older than she appears and worn down by life. Over the next few days, Opie finds himself drawn to this woman (who proves to be younger than he thought), but then he makes a horrible discovery about her lifestyle. Telling himself he\u2019s emulating Jesus, he continues to be her friend. But then, two things Opie never anticipated happen almost at once: The woman comes to share his faith, and he begins to fall for her. Suddenly, he\u2019s no longer just trying to be understanding and forgiving of a semi-nameless person. He\u2019s trying to be forgiving of someone he wants to fall in love with but he can\u2019t get over the idea that she\u2019s already violated something he holds very dear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Order today on Kindle<\/a>!
\u2026
Reading Sample<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexander \u201cOpie\u201d Gates sat at the dimly-lit bar of the dimly-lit dive a few blocks from Times Square reading his Bible and sipping on a Sprite. It was an attention-grabbing spectacle and he knew it. It was completely intentional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019d got the idea from an old roommate in college. The guy was short of stature and tended to dress like he\u2019d just gotten off a gator-hunting swamp boat, which wasn\u2019t as much of a stretch as one might think. He\u2019d take his Bible\u2014a big, leather-bound job with study notes in the margins and hundreds of handwritten notes on sticky-papers stuffed here and there from Genesis to Revelation\u2014and he\u2019d go to a bar, order something obviously non-alcoholic, and sit and read. He told Opie that, invariably, someone would come over and ask what he was doing, and then Allen would share the gospel with them. The long-term efficacy of such an evangelism approach Opie had always doubted, but he had admired it, nonetheless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, with nothing else to do on a night in Manhattan when he couldn\u2019t sleep, he had decided to give it a try. He\u2019d left a note for his host and, wisely or no, had slipped out into the big strange city and found his way to this bar, not so far from his friend\u2019s apartment as the crow flew, but more than half a world from home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With his red hair and a father who adored \u201cThe Andy Griffith Show\u201d to be nick-named \u201cOpie\u201d had almost seemed pre-ordained. When he had read in a book that the kid from the TV show had actually been named after one of the star\u2019s favorite performers, Opie Cates, the name had seemed inevitable. He knew he had been born bald as a bowling ball, so he guessed the only reason he hadn\u2019t been named Opie officially was that they had been waiting to see what color his hair would take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now here he sat, clearly a tourist and clearly out of sync with the rest of the bar\u2019s patrons. They seemed a reclusive lot\u2014hiding back in the shadows like rats\u2014and if they paid him any mind at all, it wasn\u2019t for long. He\u2019d only been in the Big Apple for a couple days, but he\u2019d seen enough to know that there wasn\u2019t much that would garner the attention of the locals and a tourist with a Bible barely even registered on the meter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019d read a good bit of the middle section of the book of Ezekiel and was thinking about heading back to Rory\u2019s pad when a voice said from beside him, \u201cIs that a Bible?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He looked up in surprise, answering \u201cYes\u201d before even seeing who had spoken. He was getting ready to go into his old roommate\u2019s routine when he saw her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was a pretty woman, probably in her mid-twenties, just like Opie. She had dark hair and was dressed in tight jeans and a loose-fitting top that showed some cleavage. He caught a glimpse of a tattoo of a rose on her left breast and quickly looked away. Glancing back, making sure he looked only at her face, his second glance made him think she was probably a lot older than him, maybe even pushing forty. But she had expertly applied makeup which created the illusion of a much younger woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly, he felt very sad for her. Probably not the impression she wanted men to take away from her looks, he thought ruefully. If he knew her, he thought, he\u2019d tell her to lose the makeup and just look her age. She might not be as striking, but he was sure she would actually be prettier. He wasn\u2019t about to say such a thing to a complete stranger and any further thoughts were stricken from his mind by the question, \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy what?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy are you sitting in a dump like this and reading your Bible at,\u201d she glanced at the clock over the bar, \u201cAlmost midnight?\u201d She tapped a finger against his glass, watched the bubbles move, and added, \u201cAnd drinking a Sprite?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He thought back to what his roommate always said in such situations, and suddenly it seemed canned and disingenuous. So he told her the truth, \u201cI couldn\u2019t sleep and I figured if I did this someone would eventually ask me why and I could tell them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, go ahead and tell me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alexander “Opie” Gates was in New York City, helping a friend, when he met her. She was fun, attractive, and had a horrifying background. When she started attending the mission where Opie was helping out, he felt pretty good about his ability to emulate Jesus’s dealings with “the woman caught in adultery” and forgive her.
\nBut then he began to fall for her. Suddenly, he wasn’t just trying to forgive some person on the periphery of his life, he was trying to forgive someone he wanted to fall in love with of sins he would have once thought unimaginable.
\nWhat would Jesus do? That’s easy to answer. What will Opie do? He’s not so sure about that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3723,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1981,2026],"tags":[1368,1075,2043,2044,1608,1058],"class_list":["post-3722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian","category-romance","tag-christian","tag-fiction","tag-nyc","tag-porn","tag-romance-2","tag-samuelbenwhite-2"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Woman Caught - After Time Ends<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Alexander "Opie" Gates was in New York City when he met her. 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