Wrecked & Redeemed

How losing everything made room for grace

By Tullian Tchividjian

“The older I get, the more I realize how much my life is one long testament to this abiding truth. I’m not overstating things when I say that discovering the message of God’s one-way love in all its radicality saved my marriage, my relationship with my kids, and my ministry. So this is not an abstract subject to me. One-way love is my lifeblood.”

Those words were published in a bestselling book of mine called One Way Love, back in 2012—which, dear God, feels like a lifetime ago. I still stand by those words. But to say things got complicated after that is a gross understatement. I really had no idea. No, God’s grace wasn’t entirely abstract, but in that other, visceral sense, yes—it was. You see, grace doesn’t really prevail until we run out of steam. And I hadn’t yet arrived at the place where I was out of aces. I had yet to truly thirst for grace like that psalmic deer panting for water. I hadn’t come to the end of me, with nothing else to hold on to, no one and nowhere else to turn.

I really had no idea.

“Used to be …”

There’s a certain amount of longing in that phrase, isn’t there? It’s almost always said with a sigh. Those words immediately set up a past-tense frame of mind—some things used to be a certain way for a time or a season, but they’re not that way anymore. Things changed.

I know that phrase well.

I used to be an influential Christian leader, following in the footsteps of my famous grandfather, Billy Graham. I used to lead a large, famous church in my hometown of Fort Lauderdale—Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. I used to write a book a year, and they used to be award-winning bestsellers. I used to travel extensively across the country—doing book tours, speaking at conferences, churches, universities and various events. I used to be on TV every week around the globe, and on the radio every day. I used to be a popular guy, a widely sought-after guy, a “successful” guy. I used to have the world by the tail, as they say. I used to have it all—and then some. In a word, I used to be a winner. And man, it felt good.

But then things changed. “Used to be” imploded. Unraveled. Life as I knew it came crashing down. My sins caught up with me—they always do. That was the beginning of the learning years—minutes and hours and days and weeks and months of learning what it means to lose.

I used to consider two things to be secure forever and ever, amen: my 21-year marriage and my role as a pastor. In 2015, I lost both. I cheated on my first wife and got caught. And because of my public persona, I lost both my marriage and my ministry (and everything else) in a very public way. If you pressed me for a reason behind it all, I’d have to point to that haunting phrase in Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville”: “my own damn fault.”

But loss never happens in a vacuum. Those two monumental losses were the dominoes that tipped a thousand others:

The loss of peace and security on my kids’ faces.

The loss of close friendships.

The loss of purpose.

The loss of public (and private) credibility.

The loss of influence.

The loss of confidence in God’s friendship.

The loss of financial stability, of hope, of joy.

The loss of opportunity.

The loss of life as I used to know it.

The loss of life as I used to love it.

And in addition to being the cause of my own losses, I caused loss in many other people’s lives as well. First and foremost, I caused loss in the lives of those who depended on me as a husband, a father and a spiritual leader—those who trusted me to love and protect them. I violated that trust. I betrayed their confidence. I injured their hearts. I devastated them.

And even though that happened over ten years ago, the consequences remain. There isn’t a day that goes by when I’m not reminded in some way of what I did.

Cancelled and crushed overnight.

You can read about the fall in the headlines. It was everywhere. But what you won’t read in those articles is the internal devastation.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that a subtle shift had been taking place for years—a shift that came on like the slow creep of the tide, not a sudden tidal wave. It was a shift in identity—from locating my identity in God’s love for me to locating it in what I was making of myself: my accomplishments, my accolades, my success, my network.

In other words, my worth, my value, my deepest sense of who I was and what made me matter—my identity—was anchored in my status, my reputation, my position, who my friends were, my skill at communicating, my ability to lead, the praise I received, the opportunities I had, financial security and so on. Basically, the way the world has and always will measure worth. And because of this, my losses didn’t simply usher in grief and pain and shame and regret. They ushered in a crippling identity crisis.

We typically don’t know what it is we depend on to make life worth living until we lose it. So, without the things I’d relied on to make me feel valuable and important, I no longer knew who I was. It wasn’t just that I lost everything—I lost myself. I hadn’t just lost things. I lost me.

You want to know what hell feels like? It feels like being exiled from your own self.

When I was feeling the most lost and hopeless—at my absolute worst and most desperate—my friend Paul Zahl said something to me that I will never forget: “Tullian, the purpose behind the suffering you are going through is to kick you into a new freedom from false definitions of who you are.”

I didn’t understand the depths of Paul’s statement in that moment. There was no way I could have. But I’ve learned. And I’m learning.

I’ve come to see that failure, for all its brutality, can be strangely liberating. It strips away illusions. It burns down the scaffolding. It exposes the false gods we’ve built altars to—like reputation, platform, influence, usefulness. It reminds us that we are not the sum total of our accomplishments or accolades. It reminds us that we’re not ultimately defined by what we’ve done or failed to do, our struggles or our successes, our strengths or our weaknesses.

Who we truly are, at our core, in other words, has nothing to do with us.

You are defined by God’s unconditional love and acceptance of you. What you do with your life does not define you. What Jesus did with His life for you—that’s what defines you. You are beloved. You are forgiven. You are held. Even when you can’t hold on, He’s holding you.

That is the Christian gospel. And that is freedom.

So, if you’re reading this and you feel like a spiritual screw-up, take heart. God only loves and uses weak people who fail—because there aren’t any other kinds of people. Let me say that again for the people in the back: God only loves failures because that’s all He has to work with.

Your disqualifications don’t disqualify you—they’re your credentials. The only people who qualify for grace are the ones who admit they don’t.

I’m now deeply embedded in the recovery community. Not because I had a substance addiction in the traditional sense, but because when you fall hard, you land in a room full of desperate people who know what it’s like to be stripped bare.

And I’ve discovered that the recovery community often understands truth and grace better than the religious one. There’s less pretense. More honesty. Less posturing. More vulnerability. Less blaming. More owning.

I’ve sat in circles with broken men and women who’ve told the truth about their lives—horrible truths, heartbreaking truths—and yet experienced something sacred in the sharing. I’ve found Jesus more often in those raw moments than in any church meeting I’ve ever been part of.

I’ve sat under brilliant minds—Ph.D.s in theology, church history, New Testament, Old Testament. And I’m grateful. I learned a lot from these well-educated people. But I’ve learned more about sin and grace and forgiveness from people in active recovery than in any classroom. I’ve heard more truth in the trembling voice of an addict admitting powerlessness than in a thousand polished sermons. More self-awareness in rehab than in most churches. More honesty in raw confessions than in buttoned-up testimonies. Redemption has a face—and it looks a lot like a felon, an adulterer, a divorcée, a drunk finally getting honest.

God’s not limited to religious spaces or sacred words. He speaks through the wrecked and the weary, the messed-up and the misunderstood. He’s preaching through people who don’t even know they’re preaching—accidental saints, wounded healers. People like me. People like you.

Yes, I’ve found God in all the wrong places—the places they swore He’d never go. In my brokenness, my desperation, my infidelity. In suicidal thoughts, hopeless nights, guilty mornings and shame-soaked regrets. In my badness, my rebellion, my arrogance, my recklessness.

He met me there. Not in my strength, but in my collapse. Not in my virtue, but in my vice.

And He didn’t just show up in unlikely places—I’ve heard Him speak through the most unlikely people. The ones they said weren’t qualified:

Alcoholics.

Divorced dads.

Unfaithful wives.

Porn addicts.

Chain smokers.

People with track marks and rap sheets.

Random people at the gym.

People who don’t fit the mold, who don’t speak the lingo, who don’t check the boxes.

He keeps crashing into my life through breakups and breakdowns—in the real stuff, the raw stuff, the hard stuff, the bad stuff. As Leonard Cohen said, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

We were taught to look for the light in the sanctified places and to listen for the light through the sanctified people. But God keeps showing up in the cracked ones—in the ordinary, the overlooked, the secular. So, if you’ve missed Him in the religious settings, don’t worry.

He’s not lost. He’s just not confined to the places, or the voices, they told us He’d be.

Ten years later ... after the crash, the burn, the fallout, facing the bloodbath I caused, and the long road of amend-making and recovery, I can honestly say this: Getting canceled by the Christian subculture was the best thing that could’ve happened to me.

My darkest exile became the brightest grace.

In the wreckage, I found freedom. I found people who bleed out loud, who tell the truth about themselves even when it’s ugly. Outside the sanitized bubble of Christian subculture, I met the misfits, the addicts, the failures—those with dirt under their nails and failure on their résumé.

And they are real. Raw. Honest. Unimpressed by religious performance, allergic to fakeness and pious platitudes. These are my people now. And I’m never going back.

I may have lost my place in the system, but I found my soul.

I’m not where I thought I’d be at this stage of life. I’m not leading a big church. I’m not writing bestsellers. I’m not flying first class to speak to thousands. I don’t have the influence I used to.

And honestly? I’m good with that. Because something else has happened.

The people closest to me say I’m less and more than I used to be. I’m less “what’s next?” and more present. Less Superman (thank God) and more humane. Less self-assured and more self-aware. Less larger-than-life and more down-to-earth. Softer than I used to be—they say more understanding, more empathetic.

My own failures have forced me to reckon with God’s forgiveness in a way that’s made me more forgiving without even trying. As a result, I’m less likely to hold a grudge. I’m far more grateful for the smaller things now. You could say that small things are a big deal to me these days. I take a lot less for granted. People matter more—way more. Projects matter less—way less.

I’m more of a friend and less of a networker. I enjoy listening more. I love the things that matter most, more. Minutes and moments are so much more important to me now. I care way more about today and much less about tomorrow.

Life is smaller and slower than it used to be. A lot smaller. And much slower. And I love it.

It’s less grand, less busy, less impressive. I have less stuff, less money, fewer connections. I’m less celebrated, less influential, and less sought-after. And yet, I couldn’t care less about all that these days.

Because life is slower and smaller, I see more, hear more, feel more. Things are quieter inside me. I’m less distracted. I’m way more content, way more free and way more comfortable in my own skin.

Have I arrived? Ha! That’s funny. No—not by a long shot.

These days, I live with a seemingly incurable low-grade fever of sadness because of the people I hurt and some of the relationships I lost. It’s the grievous wound of used to be that won’t heal. I live with lopped-off limbs. I still feel like I’m white-knuckling it some days—prone to wander, taking destructive detours in my heart. Yes, I’m fully aware of my capacity to screw it all up again, repeating my adulterous history.

Lord, have mercy.

But some place or picture of arrival is not what I’m grasping after. If I’m reaching at all, it’s to receive what’s been so graciously given: Stacie’s love. A family of screwed-up, misfit friends. The voices of my children and grandchildren. Sunsets and ocean breezes. Midnight music festivals with my daughter under the Miami night sky.

I think those who know me best would say I’ve found some measure of peace and contentment in acceptance. That as I make my living amends, there’s a lightness about me. I can sing again. I’ve got a laughing heart. One with no reason to pretend anymore. One that only comes by learning to relax the way we relax in the presence of someone we’re certain is fond of us. One that dances to the tune of endless grace—the grace that never ceases to comfort me throughout my carnage-riddled life. A laughing heart has only one beat: gratitude.

Poet Maya Popa captures this sentiment perfectly in the title of her book Wound is the Origin of Wonder. That it is. And I’m grateful for the wonder that now marks my wounded, rattletrap life.

Frederick Buechner famously wrote: “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” That’s the abundant life, my friends—experiencing the abundance. All of it. The beautiful and the terrible and everything in between. Every stitch. Right in the cardia.

Grace, always grace.

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Tullian Tchividjian is the founder of The Sanctuary, a recovery place masquerading as a church in Jupiter, Florida. He’s written several bestselling books, including his latest tell-all, Carnage & Grace: Confessions of an Adulterous Heart. Known for not holding back, his message about grace and recovery is raw, messy and real—resonating deeply with those who feel like they’re too far gone. He’s spoken to audiences around the world about the beauty of rock bottom and the scandal of God’s grace. He and his wife Stacie wrangle a blended family of five grown kids (with wild stories) and four grandkids.