After enduring a difficult 2015, in which he in which he filed for divorce from his wife amid multiple adultery accusations and resigned from his position at Coral Ridge Church, Tullian Tchividjian, grandson of the Rev. Billy Graham, has revealed that today, he is doing better "spiritually, emotionally and mentally" than he has in years.
Tchividjian, who controversially accepted a staff position at Willow Creek Presbyterian Church in Winter Springs in September despite being deposed of his clergy credentials by the South Florida Presbytery, took to social media on Thursday to reflect on his spiritual growth and assure followers he is getting the help and healing he needs.
"The first couple months were very painful and difficult as I was detaching from everything and everyone I love in my hometown of Ft. Lauderdale," Tchividjian said of the time following his resignation from Coral Ridge. "But as time has gone on, God has increasingly been settling my heart and mind by meeting me in the deep places...exposing my idols and replacing them with a fresh assurance of his love and grace. I could tell you a thousand stories of the ways God has sweetly met me very specifically in my darkest and most despairing moments, of which there have been many. Through many of you, God has met my guilt with his grace, my mess with his mercy, my sin with his salvation."
The 43-year-old "Surprised by Grace" author revealed that thanks to the help of a "great counselor, a great pastor, great elders, and a great church," he's doing better now "spiritually, emotionally, and mentally" than he has in years.
"This place and these people have become a sanctuary for me...a place where I'm getting the help and healing I need and long for, a place where I'm learning to breathe again. I was telling my mom the other day that, even though this past year has been rocked by loss and pain and so much death, I'm more content and clear and at peace than I was a year ago...two years ago. Sometimes when it seems that God is killing you, he's actually making you alive."
Tchividjian concluded his post by asking for continued prayers, because "resurrection is God's specialty, I have great hope (on most days) that the best is yet to come. He really does work ALL things out for our good and his glory."
During an August interview with William Vanderbloemen, Tchividjian, who has three children with his ex-wife, opened up about his past indiscretions and how the despair he experienced, as a result, enabled him to understand why some people commit suicide.
"I could never really fully understand why people would take their own lives and while I have not been, thankfully by God's grace, tempted to do so, I for the first time understand why," he said. "I get the desperation, I get the despair in a way that I never have."
Tchividjian added having an affair really forces a pastor, a person, to look at themselves and ask, "What kind of person did I become for me to do what I did, my wife to do what she did, where did I fail? Did I become something, someone I didn't see I was becoming?"
