Carnage & Grace: Confessions of an Adulterous Heart

by Tullian Tchividjian

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 who would love and protect them. I violated their trust, betrayed their confidence, and injured their hearts. I devastated them. And even though that happened years ago, the consequences remain. There isn’t a day that goes by when I am not reminded in some way of what I did. I could give you dozens of examples, but here’s one seemingly small example of the further collateral damage. I was in a Barnes & Noble in 2016 when I happened to pick up a book published before my 2015 crash; it had been written by a young author whom I’d never met face-to-face. He’d reached out to me after he finished his manuscript to tell me he looked up to me and how my books and messages had greatly impacted him. He told me this would be his first book, and he’d be honored if I’d read it and possibly write an endorsement. I agreed to do it. And here I was, only a few years later, staring at my name on the back cover of his book. In that moment, I was overcome with grief. He had thought my name and words would help give his book credibility, because at the time I wrote the blurb, my credibility was through the roof. But there it was, my name, now an unmistakable scarlet letter on his hard work. I felt sick. No, not a day goes by . . . my own damn fault.