Years ago, while I was still working at Trophy Awards, I met a man at the gym. I will call him Nick.

Nick was probably fifteen or twenty years younger than me. For several months, we worked out together regularly, both trying to become stronger and live good lives.

He was intelligent and remarkably gifted with technology. He had a good job and ownership in a promising company, and he could recognize everyday problems and imagine programs or applications that might solve them.

He was also generous and enjoyed sharing what he had. When I mentioned wanting to go paddleboarding with a friend, he loaned me two of his paddleboards.

As our friendship grew, we began meeting for lunch. We talked about work, family, our pasts, faith, love, and what it means to live well.

I was not a coach yet, but something in me wanted to invest in him. Not because I believed I was better than he was or thought it was my job to save him. I simply hoped that some of what I had learned through my own successes, failures, and years of living might be helpful to him—and I knew I could learn from him, too.

Nick fell deeply in love with a young woman, and they hoped to build a life together. Soon they learned that they were expecting a baby, and their excitement grew.

He also had an ex-wife and three children living in another state.

As the birth approached, life became busy. Nick was working, preparing for the baby, and no longer coming to the gym regularly.

Several months passed without my seeing him.

Eventually, I began asking around.

“Have you seen Nick?”

One person pulled me aside.

“Have you not heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Nick is in jail.”

I was stunned.

The person would not tell me much more, but said I could find the arrest report online.

So I looked.

What I read was horrifying. Nick had been accused of sexually abusing one of his own children.

I did not know what to think.

The man described in the report did not seem like the man who had lifted weights beside me, shared what he had, eaten lunch with me, and talked with me about faith and becoming a better man.

Perhaps that was part of what frightened me.

We want evil to be obvious. We want dangerous people to look dangerous. We want a clear line separating ordinary people like us from people capable of causing terrible harm.

Life is rarely that simple.

A Cup of Coffee Is Not an Acquittal

Recently, my wife was giving a massage to someone who had known the gym’s previous owners before their separation and was aware that a great deal of pain had come from it.

During their conversation, the woman said she was surprised that I still met the former owner for coffee.

My wife responded graciously:

“Tom has coffee with a lot of people. That does not mean he agrees with everything they do.”

Her response stayed with me.

Why do we so easily assume that relationship means agreement?

Why do we interpret a conversation, a cup of coffee, or continued kindness as choosing someone’s side?

A cup of coffee is not an acquittal.

Listening is not endorsement.

Care is not approval.

Relationship is not a declaration that everything is fine.

This does not mean we ignore harm or pretend that painful choices do not matter. People who have been wounded deserve to be heard and cared for. Actions have consequences, and trust can be deeply eroded.

But does caring for the person who was hurt require me to reject the person who caused the hurt?

Does showing kindness to one person mean I have betrayed another?

I am not sure love was ever meant to be divided that way.

When Rejection Becomes a Loyalty Test

I wish I could say I have always understood this.

Years ago, a close friend told me about painful leadership failures involving someone we both knew and how those failures were hurting him and others. I cared deeply about my friend, and what he shared changed the way I saw the other person.

Before long, I noticed myself walking in another direction when I saw him. I avoided eye contact. I withheld ordinary warmth and care.

He had not personally harmed me. I had not spoken with him about what I had heard. I did not know every part of the story.

But distancing myself felt like loyalty to my friend.

Looking back, I have to ask:

Why did caring for one person seem to require me to stop caring for another?

My friend’s pain deserved to be heard. The concerns he shared may have been real and serious. But I turned rejection into proof that I was on his side.

We may never say it out loud, but sometimes our expectation becomes:

“If you care about me, you will reject them.”

We make rejection a loyalty test.

I can understand why. When someone hurts us—or hurts someone we love—another person’s kindness toward them can feel like betrayal. Their willingness to listen can feel like disbelief. A shared cup of coffee can feel like choosing the wrong side.

But perhaps loyalty is not proven by joining someone in rejection.

Perhaps I can stand beside a wounded person without declaring the person who caused the wound unworthy of all care.

Perhaps loving one person does not require me to stop loving another.

Love Does Not Mean Pretending

Sometimes the best question I can ask myself is:

What does love look like in this situation?

If I do not ask that question, it is too easy for me to stand back, pass judgment, and decide what another person deserves.

Loving someone does not require me to pretend that nothing happened.

Love tells the truth about harm.

It protects people who may be vulnerable.

It allows consequences to matter.

It recognizes when trust has been deeply eroded and when access or closeness must change.

Trust is not simply on or off. It is built or eroded through what people repeatedly say and do. A person may have a very low level of trust with me because of the harm they have caused. Rebuilding that trust may require honesty, responsibility, changed behavior, and a great deal of time.

But a low level of trust does justify a low level of love.

I can care about someone while refusing to ignore what they have done.

I can hope for their transformation without giving them unrestricted access to my life—or to the lives of people who could be harmed.

I can support consequences without celebrating their destruction.

I can believe a person needs to change without deciding they are no longer worthy of human care.

Love is not naïve.

But neither is love rejection.

Would You Coach a War Criminal?

My nephews enjoy asking unusual questions.

On a recent trip, one of them asked me:

“Would you coach a war criminal?”

My answer was a hesitant yes.

I hesitantly said Yes I would.

I would probably begin by asking about his present situation.

How did you get here?

What are you feeling now?

What do you believe about what happened?

What were you believing about yourself, other people, power, or the world when you made the choices that brought you to this place?

And what are you going to do moving forward?

I would listen—not because listening means agreeing, and not because understanding someone’s story excuses the harm they have caused.

I would listen because beliefs shape choices, choices shape actions, and actions eventually shape lives.

Perhaps, through honest questions, he might begin to see how the beliefs he carried helped lead him into destruction—both his own and the destruction of others.

Then perhaps we could begin talking about truth, responsibility, remorse, and whatever repair might still be possible.

Would it work?

I do not know.

I cannot force another person to change. Love is not magic, and one conversation does not cast out every darkness.

But I would rather bring whatever light I possess into a dark place than stand at a safe distance and merely announce that the darkness is dark.

If I believe transformation is possible, surely I must believe it is possible for more than respectable people whose failures make me comfortable.

What Does Love Require of Me Now?

Recently, I received another letter from Nick.

He told me that the Innocence Project is looking at his case and considering whether there may be grounds for another appeal.

I do not know where that will lead. I do not know whether anything will change. His letter did not resolve the questions I have carried all these years.

It reminded me that I still do not know the whole story.

Perhaps Nick is innocent.

Perhaps he is guilty.

The courts have rendered their judgment, but the question that belongs to me remains:

What does love require of me now?

Perhaps it requires care without naïveté.

Relationship without unrestricted access.

Hope without denial.

Compassion without endorsement.

Respect for the authority of the courts without pretending that human systems are incapable of error.

And humility about how little I can truly know about another person’s heart.

I do not want fear of other people’s judgment to determine whom I am willing to love.

Nor do I want compassion to make me careless about truth, justice, or the protection of vulnerable people.

I want to learn how to hold both.

If I am going to bring light into the world, I cannot reserve that light only for people whose stories are clean, whose failures are socially acceptable, or whose innocence is easy to defend.

I must enter dark places wisely.

I must protect the vulnerable.

I must never confuse love with trust, forgiveness with restored access, or relationship with approval.

But whether Nick is innocent or guilty, he is still human.

And I hope we have not reached a place where acknowledging another person’s humanity is mistaken for approving everything they have done.