May 29, 2025 • 27 mins
Chapters:
- 00:01 - Introduction to the Misfit Preachers
- 04:13 - The Impact of Divorce and Acceptance
- 09:49 - Reflections on Marriage and Regret
- 15:47 - The Search for Grace in Divorce
- 22:58 - Finding Grace in Isolation
- 27:11 - Finding Hope Amidst Pain
Divorce is a tough cookie to crumble, and today, we're cracking it open with our usual blend of humor and heartfelt conversation. We're diving deep into the nitty-gritty of what happens when marriages go kaput and how we can sprinkle some grace on those messy situations. Like, seriously, over 50% of people we know have been touched by divorce—inside and outside the church—so it’s a big deal! We’re sharing our own stories and the lessons we've learned about the pain and the redemption that can come from such heart-wrenching experiences. So grab your favorite snack, settle in, and let’s navigate this wild ride together, because trust me, grace is lurking around every corner, even in the chaos!
Takeaways:
- Divorce can feel like a tornado of chaos, leaving emotional wreckage in its wake, but there's hope.
- Finding grace in the chaos of divorce means recognizing the beauty in new relationships and life experiences.
- Living with the consequences of divorce is tough, but it can lead to personal growth and gratitude for the future.
- Even in the messiness of life, moments of joy and connection can serve as reminders of grace and healing.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
You're listening to the misfitpreachers, talian Chavigian, Jean
LaRue and Byron Yan fromProdigalPodcast.com we're plagiarizing
Jesus one podcast at a time.
Now here are the misfits.
This is misfit preachers always.
I'm flanked by Jean Larue.
(00:22):
Hello, Nullian.
Chavidian.
Good to be with you.
How are we, gents?
Spectacular.
Glad to be here.
That didn't sound sincere.
I'm sorry.
It sounded pretty sincere to me.
Well, Byron, I.
I don't want to be here.
Byron thinks he's the HolySpirit, which is the net net on that
one.
The things we talk aboutaround this table are super important.
(00:47):
Not because we are important people.
Right.
But because the subject matteris a matter of life and death.
At least it has been in my experience.
And I never had anybody.
If I had a place where I couldhave this type of conversation, I
would have never put it down.
Yeah, it.
It.
These are the sermons thatpreachers won't offer and people
(01:07):
never hear but need to hear.
Let me give you a subject you've.
Been listening to the mysticpreachers like subscribe and share.
How does resources at prodigal Podcast.
That's prodigal.
P R O D I G or.
When we are divorced, lookingback at our life.
But let's apply grace to theconcept, the experience of divorce,
(01:36):
which the three of us have experienced.
And a little more than 50% ofeverybody we come in contact with
is either in or hasexperienced in the church and outside
of the church.
My wife Stacy and I were doingsort of this mental survey of people
at the sanctuary and marriagesin particular.
(01:58):
How many people at our churchare still on their first marriage?
Dude, we couldn't come up withmore than 15% of the people in our
church, which means roughly85% of the people, including the
pastor and his wife, arepeople on their second, sometimes
(02:20):
third and fourth marriages.
So it is as much of a probleminside religious circles as it is
outside religious circles for sure.
When I think of a gracelesscontext where there is none offered
and often none embraced orseen, it has to be the turmoil, the
(02:45):
chaos, the vitriol that canexist within the context of divorce.
If there's any place wherethere is no restraint.
Yeah.
On the self and the self will,self preservation, especially when
(03:07):
lawyers get involved.
It is in this space.
It is.
It is.
It's hard to find, I think,and apply, I'm certain, the gospel
in this space because it is sopainful so jagged, so confusing.
And it meets most people kindof at the base of their humanity.
(03:30):
It's the amalgamation of all fear.
The financial piece, thechildren piece, the provision piece,
the savings piece, theretirement piece, the identity piece,
the social piece, the socialcircle, the friends.
All of them come together atonce in.
In an environment that bydefinition is adversarial.
(03:51):
Right.
By necessity, almost, yeah, itis adversarial.
So it is a powder keg for selfrighteousness for me.
Concurrent victimization.
Right.
Self pity, self pity.
Self medication.
We could go down the list.
(04:12):
Yeah.
I would say that I've beendivorced now for almost 10 years
and I will live with theconsequences of that for the rest
of my life.
I'm grateful for the life thatGod has given me and the people,
both new and old, meaningpeople from my former life that I'm
(04:34):
surrounded by now.
Grateful beyond measure for mywife Stacy.
Grateful for the relationship,the close relationship I have with
all three of my kids.
But the consequences of goingthrough a divorce will follow me
all the days of my life.
I've accepted that.
It took me a while to acceptthat because I would become very
(04:57):
nostalgic and wish that I hada go back in time machine to do things
differently.
I really lived in the past inmy mind for a long time, regretting
the decisions that I made.
And I've arrived on the otherside of that, for the most part,
incredibly grateful for theredemption for the life that God
(05:21):
has given me.
Incredibly grateful.
My heart is filled with gratitude.
I do not deserve the life thatGod has given me today in light of
what I've done to squander thelife that he gave me previously.
But the consequences of thatwill haunt me for the rest of my
life.
They just will.
I mean, I will.
(05:42):
I live with a low grade feverof sadness every day of my life.
I don't deal with deepdepression, thank God, but I do deal
with a low grade fever ofsadness that marks almost every moment
of every day in some way,shape or form.
Yeah.
I was going to ask you whenyou, when you talked about the consequences
(06:04):
of divorce, when we say thatmost people think external.
Once you get, Once you processthrough all the external consequences
that come, what you're reallyleft with are the internal, yes,
consequences of it, therelational consequences, the, you
know, the intangible fibers oflife that make life worth living,
(06:28):
the things that you go through.
I remember when divorce was onthe horizon for me, when it became
real.
A friend of mine at the timewho was divorced and remarried who
actually had a Very, veryrocky and toxic relationship with
his first wife.
There was no love loss at theend, despite that toxicity and the
(06:50):
pain of having been in thatmarriage after divorce.
Right.
So he sits me down after that.
He's remarried, he's lookingat me, and he goes, byron, if I could
explain to you the pain you'reabout to encounter in ways that are
true and real, the way that Ifelt them after the time, the regret
(07:14):
I felt despite what it waslike after having gone through that.
If I could give you anaccurate description and feeling
in this moment, you would doeverything in your power to avoid
it right now.
Yeah.
And he said, but I know that I can't.
Yeah.
And when you get to the otherside of it, you will come to me and
(07:37):
go, I know exactly what you'retalking about.
And after the fact I did that.
There are just.
They're just innate realities,existential pieces to this.
The.
The pain of which when theybegin to fall apart, it's.
Is.
Defines description.
(07:59):
And you can only give anaverage description of on the other
side.
And that was true when I.
When I wrote about this, Italked about how the.
The things that mattered mostin life were vaporized by the process
(08:22):
and the experience.
And I suppose in.
In that way, it's some.
Somewhat of a cautionary taleto the listener out there that if
you find yourself in a spaceand there is any opportunity.
Yeah.
To double down on the worknecessary to keep that together.
If you can do that in God'sgrace and by his power, if it's possible
(08:44):
at all, take the opportunity.
I wholeheartedly.
Wholeheartedly.
And the regret.
For instance, your friend whohad a miserable first marriage, got
divorced and shared what heshared with you.
The fact that he still dealtwith regret tells you because I've
experienced the same thing.
Although my first marriage wasnot miserable, but I experienced
(09:07):
the same thing.
The regret that you deal withon a daily basis may not be the regret
of actually getting divorced.
It's the regret of failing insuch a way that your marriage got
to the point where divorceseemed to be the only viable option.
(09:28):
So that goes back years.
I was married 21 years, thefirst time together for 23.
Kim and I met when we wereboth 19.
Actually, I was 19, she was 18.
She was about to turn 19.
Grew up together in many ways,had children together.
The first home I bought waswith Kim.
I mean, we built a life.
(09:49):
And someone asked me recently,if you could go back in time and
do it all over again, whatwould you do?
And I said, If I could go backin time, I would go back and be a
better husband.
I would put more work into my marriage.
There is so much at stake.
It's not just you and your spouse.
There is family and friendsand a life that has been built that
(10:10):
will be lost in a fairlysignificant way if that bond is broken.
And I think there's goodprecedence for that.
I mean, the marriagerelationship is the only relationship
in which the Bible describestwo people becoming one flesh.
It doesn't say that about ourrelationship with our kids.
It doesn't say that ourrelationship with our friends or
(10:32):
our parents.
It says that about ourrelationship to our spouse.
And the, the tearing apart ofthat one flesh has tentacles that
go way further and way deeperthan you think.
Way further.
The people that exit your lifeas a result in laws, whether it be
(10:54):
mother and father in law,brother or sister in law, mutual
friends.
I mean, the relational loss inthe context of divorce, and you alluded
to this, Sean, the relationalloss is so much bigger than simply
two people getting divorced.
Yeah, absolutely.
I can remember exactly where Iwas standing when I was talking to
(11:18):
my ex wife, Kim, and Valeriewas standing next to me.
And I said to Kim, if I hadhad the benefit of the counsel and
the counseling and the therapyand the patience that I should have
shown, we would still be together.
And so the impatience, theselfishness, other things like that,
(11:42):
I look at that, those are deep regret.
There's no take backs, no,there's no way to fix it.
Valerie looked at Kim andsaid, and if I had had that with
Chris, the same would be truefor us.
And so I think the, and this isn't.
I mean, I want us to get towhere the gospel speaks to.
This could be the, thepragmatic, pragmatic, like, hey,
today's episode, divorce sucks.
(12:03):
What's new?
Yeah, right.
I mean, like, yeah, we got check.
Yeah, but this, but describingthe ways in which it sucks is existentially
helpful for me and for other people.
Well, and to that point,without understanding, because there
was, there was a period ofshame, embarrassment, feelings of
(12:25):
failure, actual failure, allthose things that paralyzed me, I
wouldn't have been able to saythat to Kim were it not for Jesus
entering in.
You know, as we talked abouton a previous season, you know, we
said, where does, where does,where do we find grace?
When.
And you flipped it and said,where does grace find you?
(12:46):
When?
And where grace found me wasin that place of shame, all those
things.
And Jesus said, okay, like thesame place when he knelt down with
the Woman caught in adultery.
And he said, you know, whereare your accusers?
I'm still here.
Yeah.
And so the gospel comes alongand grace is applied in those deep,
deep, deep wounds, many ofwhich that are self inflicted.
(13:09):
And I, I think while I agreewith everything you just said, I
think for the listener, I'monly, I'm assuming this.
It's an educated guess, butI'm assuming this because these are
the kinds of conversations Ihave on a weekly basis.
But that sounds great, youknow, Jesus comes alongside of me
and says, I got you, I loveyou, you're mine.
(13:33):
What does that look like?
What does that feel like?
In what ways is that evidencedin you on the ground, that sort of
thing.
So I can look, for example, asI mentioned a minute ago, at my life.
And while I live with this lowgrade fever of sadness, while I live
(13:55):
with these regrets of anunfinished love story, you know,
what could have been, whatmight have been.
Where does grace find me inthose moments?
It finds me in therelationship with my kids.
It finds me in the laughter ofmy grandchildren who still love their
(14:16):
tutu even though he and Nonaaren't married.
I find it in the tenderacceptance of my flaws by my wife,
Stacy.
I find it in so many different places.
I see it in so many different places.
And all of them, all of thosethings are winks from God saying
(14:39):
to me, I've never left you,I've never forsaken you.
The friends that I have, theopportunities that I have, the fact
that I live in a place where Iwant to live, I drive a car that
I like, I have the friendsthat I have.
You know, these are allmassive evidences of grace.
(15:03):
My kids and I went to musicfestival in Miami recently.
House music.
Some people may like it,others may not.
We happen to love it on thebeach in Miami.
Loved it.
And we're, we're.
I mean, it's like midnight andI'm with all of my kids right in
the front.
There's, you know, thousandsof people there.
(15:25):
We're laughing, dancing, justletting the music move us in all
of the right ways.
And in those moments, I'm soaware of this being a moment of worship,
really.
I look at that and I go, I seesignals of transcendence all over
the place here, all over the place.
(15:47):
So when I went through mydivorce, or if you're going through
a divorce, I would just saygrace is all around you.
In the midst of the chaos, inthe midst of the rubble, it's around
you.
You may have to look for it alittle bit harder because things
are so noisy and messy, butit's there.
(16:08):
And all of those things arewinks from God.
Yeah, I.
When I.
When I.
After the divorce hadhappened, my kids came to me and
to their mom and did aninformal survey.
The question to me was, dad,had you not met your affair partner,
(16:29):
had you not left mom for thisperson, do you think you and mom
would have been divorced anyway?
My answer was yes.
When they asked their mom thatquestion, the answer was no, which
identifies the divide inperspective that was present while
(16:52):
we were married.
We were living in twocompartments inside the same marriage,
uninformed by the other partyas to what was going on.
Which leads me to say what Isaid in a previous episode.
And I think this is grace inthat it's a dose of truth and reality
(17:18):
on the horizon, that no onewho is married believes truly that
divorces happen because oneperson failed in one way in the marriage.
You have to climb a treebefore you fall out of it.
(17:39):
Right?
And part of the grace and theprocess eventually is coming to the
point where you can own, asJohn says, 100% of your 50%, because
divorce requires the lack ofcivility and the presence of self
(18:09):
preservation in the process.
And I would say to the personthat's there, here's where you're
gonna find grace through thedivorce process.
It's quite possible becauseit's true for most people.
You're gonna see versions ofyourself in that process that you
hope to never, ever see again.
It is an ugly battle whereself arrives fully, fully armed.
(18:38):
And the lack of restraint inthose spaces, it's frightening.
It is.
It was frightening to me whatI saw coming across the other side
of the table of these peoplewho had lived and loved each other
for so long just fell apart.
And when you go through it andit's so damaging, you come out on
(19:01):
the other side.
You make decisions that you'regoing to regret.
You and get in behind yourlawyers and let them do what they're
you're supposed to do.
There's a certain level ofself disgust that happens.
And it was that way for me forany number of reasons.
And where I found the gospelwas in that space that despite what
(19:22):
I had done, the pieces that Ihad done to cause it, Christ, my
heavenly father, loved methrough it all, loved the person
underneath, the confusion, thevitriol, all those things that were
happening, the tornado ofchaos that was around it.
(19:47):
I found peace in the center ofthat hurricane, in grace.
So when you're Done.
I want to say, well, I justwant a question.
I want to ask you guys aquestion because I'm thinking about
people in my life, people thatI'm sure are listening, who hear
us describe the surroundinggrace in the midst of chaos.
(20:08):
And they're like, dude, Icheated on my spouse and my kids
haven't talked to me in 10 years.
I don't have any friends.
I live in a smaller town whereeveryone knows my story and I don't
have the luxury of moving toanother place and starting fresh.
Like, I don't want us.
I want to be careful.
So me in particular to comeacross like, yeah, grace is everywhere.
(20:32):
I mean, my kids are great andI'm good and my relationship with
my ex wife is, is fine.
And I've got a great new wifeand newish in nine years.
But still I, you know, I wantto be sensitive to the people who,
who are 10 years removed fromtheir divorce and primary relationships
have been forever lost, neverto return in this life.
(20:55):
Right, right.
Yeah.
I think to that person, thepain is a daily reality.
Sure.
And they would say, yes andamen to everything we're saying.
And it's still continuing intheir lives.
There's still work, there'sstill grace to be found on a daily
basis in those things.
(21:17):
And the fact that God wouldsurround you with new relationships,
new things like that, part of,part of it is really leaning into
the loss.
And those things are really lost.
Yeah.
And to be able to say, okay, Ican find myself at the bottom with
God sitting next to me.
And so I, I can answer thisfrom my own personal experience.
(21:42):
Yes, I have my relationshipwith my adult children now.
I'm grateful for that.
I lost it for the better partof a year, for the better part of
three years because of allthe, all that I went through and
the cancellation and all thosesorts of things, the lawsuit, the
loss of friends, everything evaporated.
My entire network fabric evaporated.
(22:03):
I was alone for two years,completely isolated, besides some
very close friends, maybe oneto two texts a week, no phone calls.
And it was crushing anddespairing and depressing.
(22:28):
And I saw no way forward.
I saw no way forward.
And the door I walked through,through my divorce and all of those
circumstances became a wallthat could not be scaled.
I was completely trapped.
No hope, no light on the horizon.
Lost who I was as a person.
(22:50):
I would have clawed throughsomething if I knew the direction
to go, but I did not know thedirection to go.
Completely paralyzed by it.
And then slowly I began torealize that the parts of me that
led me to do the things that Idid that led to the consequence that
I was in, or being exposed inmy isolation and being put to death
(23:19):
in a certain way, and in thatI was being brought back to life.
It takes a while.
It takes a while.
But to that person, I wouldsay you.
You begin to see the shoots ofgrass coming up in the hard concrete
of that circumstance.
And it may not be the placeswhere you want it.
It is a completely differentworld and existence.
(23:43):
And if you hold on to what wasbefore as the hope of the future,
hope will never arise.
Well said.
But if you are willing, if youare willing to let God in his grace,
design a new footprint of whatexistence looks like, you will be
shocked at the happiness thatyou can find in it.
(24:04):
And just last thing, myisolation went from isolation to
solitude.
And the distinction betweenthose two things is very important
because in isolation, graceisn't there.
In my mind.
No one's there.
Solitude is grace and me andGod and every hope, no expectation
(24:28):
at all.
Anyway, say, I'll let youclose this out.
Yeah, I just.
I appreciate your pushback.
To me initially saying, oh,that all sounds well and good.
The Jesus part, I think what'smissing in that is, you know, I love
to cook.
From New Orleans.
I love to cook.
You can.
You can cook a dish and youcan put some.
(24:50):
Some meat in a pan with somegarlic, and at the end of the day,
there's some flavor.
You put it in a pressurecooker and you pull that meat out,
it is saturated.
It is flavored from the inside.
And I think what I wasdescribing when I said God met me
there was the Jesus that hadbeen as a side, on the plate, as
(25:16):
part of this life that I had,God left me in the pressure cooker
with nothing but grace.
And that's why it's soremarkably different, because you
start to see those shoots cometo the cracks.
You know, telling your question.
Question to me is profound.
I mean, and to define myexperience, the freedom was found
(25:37):
in letting go of what wasbefore and allowing, quote, unquote,
God to shape in my mind acompletely new future.
And the work that God iscommitted to is not restoring some
measure of external, you know, things.
(26:00):
Your relationships with yourchildren may be lost.
What God will do on the insideamidst that incredible pain is set
you free from needing thatrelationship to save your life.
So there's.
I mean, I've got a friend whois in his 70s, divorced many 35 years
(26:24):
ago, left his first wife orhis second wife.
His he and his new wife havebeen New wife He and his second wife
have been married for 35 years.
They're both in their 70s.
Amazing people.
They're in our church.
He has one daughter thathasn't talked to him in that amount
of time.
Hasn't talked to him.
Never a phone call.
(26:44):
Happy Father's Day.
Happy birthday.
In fact, she tells herchildren, his grandchildren, when
they ask about him, oh, hedied many years ago.
This guy lives withexcruciating pain.
He sits here every singleSunday listening to the message of
grace and finds hope in thatin whatever way God decides to dispense
(27:09):
hope.
So the story doesn't alwaysend in this life, romantically.
Just doesn't.
I mean, everything that wewant and everything that we long
for at the deepest part of ourbeing will be satisfied in the life
to come.
Not this one.
Some things lost in this lifewill never come back.
(27:32):
Great discussion.
Painful discussion.
Agreed.
You've been listening to themisfit preachers like subscribe and
share more grace centeredresources@prodigalpodcasts.com that's
prodigal P R O D I G A Lpodcasts with an s dot com.
You're listening to the misfitpreachers, talian Chavigian, Jean
LaRue and Byron Yan fromProdigalPodcast.com we're plagiarizing
Jesus one podcast at a time.
Now here are the misfits.
This is misfit preachers always.
I'm flanked by Jean Larue.
(00:22):
Hello, Nullian.
Chavidian.
Good to be with you.
How are we, gents?
Spectacular.
Glad to be here.
That didn't sound sincere.
I'm sorry.
It sounded pretty sincere to me.
Well, Byron, I.
I don't want to be here.
Byron thinks he's the HolySpirit, which is the net net on that
one.
The things we talk aboutaround this table are super important.
(00:47):
Not because we are important people.
Right.
But because the subject matteris a matter of life and death.
At least it has been in my experience.
And I never had anybody.
If I had a place where I couldhave this type of conversation, I
would have never put it down.
Yeah, it.
It.
These are the sermons thatpreachers won't offer and people
(01:07):
never hear but need to hear.
Let me give you a subject you've.
Been listening to the mysticpreachers like subscribe and share.
How does resources at prodigal Podcast.
That's prodigal.
P R O D I G or.
When we are divorced, lookingback at our life.
But let's apply grace to theconcept, the experience of divorce,
(01:36):
which the three of us have experienced.
And a little more than 50% ofeverybody we come in contact with
is either in or hasexperienced in the church and outside
of the church.
My wife Stacy and I were doingsort of this mental survey of people
at the sanctuary and marriagesin particular.
(01:58):
How many people at our churchare still on their first marriage?
Dude, we couldn't come up withmore than 15% of the people in our
church, which means roughly85% of the people, including the
pastor and his wife, arepeople on their second, sometimes
(02:20):
third and fourth marriages.
So it is as much of a probleminside religious circles as it is
outside religious circles for sure.
When I think of a gracelesscontext where there is none offered
and often none embraced orseen, it has to be the turmoil, the
(02:45):
chaos, the vitriol that canexist within the context of divorce.
If there's any place wherethere is no restraint.
Yeah.
On the self and the self will,self preservation, especially when
(03:07):
lawyers get involved.
It is in this space.
It is.
It is.
It's hard to find, I think,and apply, I'm certain, the gospel
in this space because it is sopainful so jagged, so confusing.
And it meets most people kindof at the base of their humanity.
(03:30):
It's the amalgamation of all fear.
The financial piece, thechildren piece, the provision piece,
the savings piece, theretirement piece, the identity piece,
the social piece, the socialcircle, the friends.
All of them come together atonce in.
In an environment that bydefinition is adversarial.
(03:51):
Right.
By necessity, almost, yeah, itis adversarial.
So it is a powder keg for selfrighteousness for me.
Concurrent victimization.
Right.
Self pity, self pity.
Self medication.
We could go down the list.
(04:12):
Yeah.
I would say that I've beendivorced now for almost 10 years
and I will live with theconsequences of that for the rest
of my life.
I'm grateful for the life thatGod has given me and the people,
both new and old, meaningpeople from my former life that I'm
(04:34):
surrounded by now.
Grateful beyond measure for mywife Stacy.
Grateful for the relationship,the close relationship I have with
all three of my kids.
But the consequences of goingthrough a divorce will follow me
all the days of my life.
I've accepted that.
It took me a while to acceptthat because I would become very
(04:57):
nostalgic and wish that I hada go back in time machine to do things
differently.
I really lived in the past inmy mind for a long time, regretting
the decisions that I made.
And I've arrived on the otherside of that, for the most part,
incredibly grateful for theredemption for the life that God
(05:21):
has given me.
Incredibly grateful.
My heart is filled with gratitude.
I do not deserve the life thatGod has given me today in light of
what I've done to squander thelife that he gave me previously.
But the consequences of thatwill haunt me for the rest of my
life.
They just will.
I mean, I will.
(05:42):
I live with a low grade feverof sadness every day of my life.
I don't deal with deepdepression, thank God, but I do deal
with a low grade fever ofsadness that marks almost every moment
of every day in some way,shape or form.
Yeah.
I was going to ask you whenyou, when you talked about the consequences
(06:04):
of divorce, when we say thatmost people think external.
Once you get, Once you processthrough all the external consequences
that come, what you're reallyleft with are the internal, yes,
consequences of it, therelational consequences, the, you
know, the intangible fibers oflife that make life worth living,
(06:28):
the things that you go through.
I remember when divorce was onthe horizon for me, when it became
real.
A friend of mine at the timewho was divorced and remarried who
actually had a Very, veryrocky and toxic relationship with
his first wife.
There was no love loss at theend, despite that toxicity and the
(06:50):
pain of having been in thatmarriage after divorce.
Right.
So he sits me down after that.
He's remarried, he's lookingat me, and he goes, byron, if I could
explain to you the pain you'reabout to encounter in ways that are
true and real, the way that Ifelt them after the time, the regret
(07:14):
I felt despite what it waslike after having gone through that.
If I could give you anaccurate description and feeling
in this moment, you would doeverything in your power to avoid
it right now.
Yeah.
And he said, but I know that I can't.
Yeah.
And when you get to the otherside of it, you will come to me and
(07:37):
go, I know exactly what you'retalking about.
And after the fact I did that.
There are just.
They're just innate realities,existential pieces to this.
The.
The pain of which when theybegin to fall apart, it's.
Is.
Defines description.
(07:59):
And you can only give anaverage description of on the other
side.
And that was true when I.
When I wrote about this, Italked about how the.
The things that mattered mostin life were vaporized by the process
(08:22):
and the experience.
And I suppose in.
In that way, it's some.
Somewhat of a cautionary taleto the listener out there that if
you find yourself in a spaceand there is any opportunity.
Yeah.
To double down on the worknecessary to keep that together.
If you can do that in God'sgrace and by his power, if it's possible
(08:44):
at all, take the opportunity.
I wholeheartedly.
Wholeheartedly.
And the regret.
For instance, your friend whohad a miserable first marriage, got
divorced and shared what heshared with you.
The fact that he still dealtwith regret tells you because I've
experienced the same thing.
Although my first marriage wasnot miserable, but I experienced
(09:07):
the same thing.
The regret that you deal withon a daily basis may not be the regret
of actually getting divorced.
It's the regret of failing insuch a way that your marriage got
to the point where divorceseemed to be the only viable option.
(09:28):
So that goes back years.
I was married 21 years, thefirst time together for 23.
Kim and I met when we wereboth 19.
Actually, I was 19, she was 18.
She was about to turn 19.
Grew up together in many ways,had children together.
The first home I bought waswith Kim.
I mean, we built a life.
(09:49):
And someone asked me recently,if you could go back in time and
do it all over again, whatwould you do?
And I said, If I could go backin time, I would go back and be a
better husband.
I would put more work into my marriage.
There is so much at stake.
It's not just you and your spouse.
There is family and friendsand a life that has been built that
(10:10):
will be lost in a fairlysignificant way if that bond is broken.
And I think there's goodprecedence for that.
I mean, the marriagerelationship is the only relationship
in which the Bible describestwo people becoming one flesh.
It doesn't say that about ourrelationship with our kids.
It doesn't say that ourrelationship with our friends or
(10:32):
our parents.
It says that about ourrelationship to our spouse.
And the, the tearing apart ofthat one flesh has tentacles that
go way further and way deeperthan you think.
Way further.
The people that exit your lifeas a result in laws, whether it be
(10:54):
mother and father in law,brother or sister in law, mutual
friends.
I mean, the relational loss inthe context of divorce, and you alluded
to this, Sean, the relationalloss is so much bigger than simply
two people getting divorced.
Yeah, absolutely.
I can remember exactly where Iwas standing when I was talking to
(11:18):
my ex wife, Kim, and Valeriewas standing next to me.
And I said to Kim, if I hadhad the benefit of the counsel and
the counseling and the therapyand the patience that I should have
shown, we would still be together.
And so the impatience, theselfishness, other things like that,
(11:42):
I look at that, those are deep regret.
There's no take backs, no,there's no way to fix it.
Valerie looked at Kim andsaid, and if I had had that with
Chris, the same would be truefor us.
And so I think the, and this isn't.
I mean, I want us to get towhere the gospel speaks to.
This could be the, thepragmatic, pragmatic, like, hey,
today's episode, divorce sucks.
(12:03):
What's new?
Yeah, right.
I mean, like, yeah, we got check.
Yeah, but this, but describingthe ways in which it sucks is existentially
helpful for me and for other people.
Well, and to that point,without understanding, because there
was, there was a period ofshame, embarrassment, feelings of
(12:25):
failure, actual failure, allthose things that paralyzed me, I
wouldn't have been able to saythat to Kim were it not for Jesus
entering in.
You know, as we talked abouton a previous season, you know, we
said, where does, where does,where do we find grace?
When.
And you flipped it and said,where does grace find you?
(12:46):
When?
And where grace found me wasin that place of shame, all those
things.
And Jesus said, okay, like thesame place when he knelt down with
the Woman caught in adultery.
And he said, you know, whereare your accusers?
I'm still here.
Yeah.
And so the gospel comes alongand grace is applied in those deep,
deep, deep wounds, many ofwhich that are self inflicted.
(13:09):
And I, I think while I agreewith everything you just said, I
think for the listener, I'monly, I'm assuming this.
It's an educated guess, butI'm assuming this because these are
the kinds of conversations Ihave on a weekly basis.
But that sounds great, youknow, Jesus comes alongside of me
and says, I got you, I loveyou, you're mine.
(13:33):
What does that look like?
What does that feel like?
In what ways is that evidencedin you on the ground, that sort of
thing.
So I can look, for example, asI mentioned a minute ago, at my life.
And while I live with this lowgrade fever of sadness, while I live
(13:55):
with these regrets of anunfinished love story, you know,
what could have been, whatmight have been.
Where does grace find me inthose moments?
It finds me in therelationship with my kids.
It finds me in the laughter ofmy grandchildren who still love their
(14:16):
tutu even though he and Nonaaren't married.
I find it in the tenderacceptance of my flaws by my wife,
Stacy.
I find it in so many different places.
I see it in so many different places.
And all of them, all of thosethings are winks from God saying
(14:39):
to me, I've never left you,I've never forsaken you.
The friends that I have, theopportunities that I have, the fact
that I live in a place where Iwant to live, I drive a car that
I like, I have the friendsthat I have.
You know, these are allmassive evidences of grace.
(15:03):
My kids and I went to musicfestival in Miami recently.
House music.
Some people may like it,others may not.
We happen to love it on thebeach in Miami.
Loved it.
And we're, we're.
I mean, it's like midnight andI'm with all of my kids right in
the front.
There's, you know, thousandsof people there.
(15:25):
We're laughing, dancing, justletting the music move us in all
of the right ways.
And in those moments, I'm soaware of this being a moment of worship,
really.
I look at that and I go, I seesignals of transcendence all over
the place here, all over the place.
(15:47):
So when I went through mydivorce, or if you're going through
a divorce, I would just saygrace is all around you.
In the midst of the chaos, inthe midst of the rubble, it's around
you.
You may have to look for it alittle bit harder because things
are so noisy and messy, butit's there.
(16:08):
And all of those things arewinks from God.
Yeah, I.
When I.
When I.
After the divorce hadhappened, my kids came to me and
to their mom and did aninformal survey.
The question to me was, dad,had you not met your affair partner,
(16:29):
had you not left mom for thisperson, do you think you and mom
would have been divorced anyway?
My answer was yes.
When they asked their mom thatquestion, the answer was no, which
identifies the divide inperspective that was present while
(16:52):
we were married.
We were living in twocompartments inside the same marriage,
uninformed by the other partyas to what was going on.
Which leads me to say what Isaid in a previous episode.
And I think this is grace inthat it's a dose of truth and reality
(17:18):
on the horizon, that no onewho is married believes truly that
divorces happen because oneperson failed in one way in the marriage.
You have to climb a treebefore you fall out of it.
(17:39):
Right?
And part of the grace and theprocess eventually is coming to the
point where you can own, asJohn says, 100% of your 50%, because
divorce requires the lack ofcivility and the presence of self
(18:09):
preservation in the process.
And I would say to the personthat's there, here's where you're
gonna find grace through thedivorce process.
It's quite possible becauseit's true for most people.
You're gonna see versions ofyourself in that process that you
hope to never, ever see again.
It is an ugly battle whereself arrives fully, fully armed.
(18:38):
And the lack of restraint inthose spaces, it's frightening.
It is.
It was frightening to me whatI saw coming across the other side
of the table of these peoplewho had lived and loved each other
for so long just fell apart.
And when you go through it andit's so damaging, you come out on
(19:01):
the other side.
You make decisions that you'regoing to regret.
You and get in behind yourlawyers and let them do what they're
you're supposed to do.
There's a certain level ofself disgust that happens.
And it was that way for me forany number of reasons.
And where I found the gospelwas in that space that despite what
(19:22):
I had done, the pieces that Ihad done to cause it, Christ, my
heavenly father, loved methrough it all, loved the person
underneath, the confusion, thevitriol, all those things that were
happening, the tornado ofchaos that was around it.
(19:47):
I found peace in the center ofthat hurricane, in grace.
So when you're Done.
I want to say, well, I justwant a question.
I want to ask you guys aquestion because I'm thinking about
people in my life, people thatI'm sure are listening, who hear
us describe the surroundinggrace in the midst of chaos.
(20:08):
And they're like, dude, Icheated on my spouse and my kids
haven't talked to me in 10 years.
I don't have any friends.
I live in a smaller town whereeveryone knows my story and I don't
have the luxury of moving toanother place and starting fresh.
Like, I don't want us.
I want to be careful.
So me in particular to comeacross like, yeah, grace is everywhere.
(20:32):
I mean, my kids are great andI'm good and my relationship with
my ex wife is, is fine.
And I've got a great new wifeand newish in nine years.
But still I, you know, I wantto be sensitive to the people who,
who are 10 years removed fromtheir divorce and primary relationships
have been forever lost, neverto return in this life.
(20:55):
Right, right.
Yeah.
I think to that person, thepain is a daily reality.
Sure.
And they would say, yes andamen to everything we're saying.
And it's still continuing intheir lives.
There's still work, there'sstill grace to be found on a daily
basis in those things.
(21:17):
And the fact that God wouldsurround you with new relationships,
new things like that, part of,part of it is really leaning into
the loss.
And those things are really lost.
Yeah.
And to be able to say, okay, Ican find myself at the bottom with
God sitting next to me.
And so I, I can answer thisfrom my own personal experience.
(21:42):
Yes, I have my relationshipwith my adult children now.
I'm grateful for that.
I lost it for the better partof a year, for the better part of
three years because of allthe, all that I went through and
the cancellation and all thosesorts of things, the lawsuit, the
loss of friends, everything evaporated.
My entire network fabric evaporated.
(22:03):
I was alone for two years,completely isolated, besides some
very close friends, maybe oneto two texts a week, no phone calls.
And it was crushing anddespairing and depressing.
(22:28):
And I saw no way forward.
I saw no way forward.
And the door I walked through,through my divorce and all of those
circumstances became a wallthat could not be scaled.
I was completely trapped.
No hope, no light on the horizon.
Lost who I was as a person.
(22:50):
I would have clawed throughsomething if I knew the direction
to go, but I did not know thedirection to go.
Completely paralyzed by it.
And then slowly I began torealize that the parts of me that
led me to do the things that Idid that led to the consequence that
I was in, or being exposed inmy isolation and being put to death
(23:19):
in a certain way, and in thatI was being brought back to life.
It takes a while.
It takes a while.
But to that person, I wouldsay you.
You begin to see the shoots ofgrass coming up in the hard concrete
of that circumstance.
And it may not be the placeswhere you want it.
It is a completely differentworld and existence.
(23:43):
And if you hold on to what wasbefore as the hope of the future,
hope will never arise.
Well said.
But if you are willing, if youare willing to let God in his grace,
design a new footprint of whatexistence looks like, you will be
shocked at the happiness thatyou can find in it.
(24:04):
And just last thing, myisolation went from isolation to
solitude.
And the distinction betweenthose two things is very important
because in isolation, graceisn't there.
In my mind.
No one's there.
Solitude is grace and me andGod and every hope, no expectation
(24:28):
at all.
Anyway, say, I'll let youclose this out.
Yeah, I just.
I appreciate your pushback.
To me initially saying, oh,that all sounds well and good.
The Jesus part, I think what'smissing in that is, you know, I love
to cook.
From New Orleans.
I love to cook.
You can.
You can cook a dish and youcan put some.
(24:50):
Some meat in a pan with somegarlic, and at the end of the day,
there's some flavor.
You put it in a pressurecooker and you pull that meat out,
it is saturated.
It is flavored from the inside.
And I think what I wasdescribing when I said God met me
there was the Jesus that hadbeen as a side, on the plate, as
(25:16):
part of this life that I had,God left me in the pressure cooker
with nothing but grace.
And that's why it's soremarkably different, because you
start to see those shoots cometo the cracks.
You know, telling your question.
Question to me is profound.
I mean, and to define myexperience, the freedom was found
(25:37):
in letting go of what wasbefore and allowing, quote, unquote,
God to shape in my mind acompletely new future.
And the work that God iscommitted to is not restoring some
measure of external, you know, things.
(26:00):
Your relationships with yourchildren may be lost.
What God will do on the insideamidst that incredible pain is set
you free from needing thatrelationship to save your life.
So there's.
I mean, I've got a friend whois in his 70s, divorced many 35 years
(26:24):
ago, left his first wife orhis second wife.
His he and his new wife havebeen New wife He and his second wife
have been married for 35 years.
They're both in their 70s.
Amazing people.
They're in our church.
He has one daughter thathasn't talked to him in that amount
of time.
Hasn't talked to him.
Never a phone call.
(26:44):
Happy Father's Day.
Happy birthday.
In fact, she tells herchildren, his grandchildren, when
they ask about him, oh, hedied many years ago.
This guy lives withexcruciating pain.
He sits here every singleSunday listening to the message of
grace and finds hope in thatin whatever way God decides to dispense
(27:09):
hope.
So the story doesn't alwaysend in this life, romantically.
Just doesn't.
I mean, everything that wewant and everything that we long
for at the deepest part of ourbeing will be satisfied in the life
to come.
Not this one.
Some things lost in this lifewill never come back.
(27:32):
Great discussion.
Painful discussion.
Agreed.
You've been listening to themisfit preachers like subscribe and
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