Recently, Riva Tims had an interview with Ebony magazine where she talks about her ex-husband, the late Zachery Tims. Check out excerpts from the interview below to see what she has to say about their marriage and why she considers herself an enabler.
More than one-and-a-half years after her former husband was found dead inside a New York City hotel room, Riva Tims tells a lifestyle magazine that she believes the late Florida megachurch pastor, Zachery Tims, did not have a struggle with substance abuse, but it was his “lifestyle.”
“I thought that was stuff in the past. I didn’t realize it was still current. I found out for sure about the affairs and substance abuse at the same time. When he started telling me stuff, I began to dig and other things came out,” Ebony quotes Riva Tims as saying in its latest issue.
“I had no idea it was so much. I’ll put it this way: It’s one thing to have a struggle; it’s another thing to have a lifestyle,” adds Riva Tims, who along with Zachery Tims founded New Destiny Christian Center (NDCC) in Apopka, Fla., in 1996. “When it’s a struggle, there’s grace. But when it’s a lifestyle, there’s no grace.”
She also says she was perhaps an enabler while married to the NDCC senior pastor. “Looking back, he probably felt like he could just do anything. I was an enabler in a sense.”
Titled, “What Really Happened to Pastor Zachery Tims,” the story in Ebony also carries quotes from friends on what could have led to his death on Aug. 12, 2011.
Police at the time said Zachery Tims was discovered on the floor of a room in the W Hotel in Times Square. An autopsy conducted on his body was inconclusive, but reports surfaced that a small glassine envelope holding white powder was found on the pastor.
Ebony remarks that with the late pastor’s mother demanding that the medical examiner not release the autopsy report, the mystery may never be solved.
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rippedmusclex.us
February 14, 2013 at 7:11 PM
Hello colleagues, how is the whole thing, and what you want to say regarding this piece of writing,
in my view its actually awesome in favor of me.
alicia Gail Anderson
February 15, 2013 at 6:34 PM
Love you Dr. Tims and will continue to carry you in my heart and in my throughts and in my prayers. Know that I’m missing you so that it hurts.
Emanuel S
February 21, 2013 at 10:43 AM
I really do not understand why ex wife or wives put husband personal business in public dead or alive. Can someone please explain this to me. Charles Stanley went through a divorce and you never hear of his former wife saying anything. Think about Jimmy Swaggerts wife and Jim Bakers wife Tammy Faye you never herd of them speaking about there husbands personal issues. It just seems this is something that African American women do this is one of there trade marks.
Barbara O.
February 26, 2013 at 2:02 PM
I understand, that stories like this make good reading. But the truth is that some where along this thin line, maybe clergy who have reached celebrity status will realize that their foolish selfish actions will affect a new soul. Lets face it the world keeps it real. Christians do not.
Carmen Love
March 10, 2013 at 3:51 PM
I applaud you Riva for having the courage to talk about something so sensitive and painful. Why do people think it’s okay to cover up secrets? Why? She has every God given right to share her testimony.It was the people in the church who treated her like she was the one on drugs and having affairs while he was protected. Why do people protect predators and disparage the victims? Sounds pretty backwards…but it’s life! Thank God He is a just God.