From Ruin to Redemption: One Man’s Comeback

There’s nothing quite like a divorce to make you feel like you’ve just been handed a one-way ticket to Disappointment City. Population: me. (And maybe a few million others who know what it’s like when your life doesn’t go according to plan.) Divorce is the kind of soul-crushing life event that doesn’t just rearrange your furniture. It flips your entire life upside down and leaves your heart in a pile of emotional rubble. (I wrote more about the high cost here.)

When my marriage ended, I didn’t just let down one person. I let down everyone in my emotional blast radius. Family. Friends. Church members. And probably even the sweet old lady who once told me I was her favorite pastor right before slipping me a tin of stale sugar-free cookies and whispering that “nobody preaches like you.” Yeah, I’m pretty sure even she stopped praying for me and started praying at me.

Disappointment? Check. Confusion? Check. Silent judgment from the sidelines? Oh, you better believe that was there too. But I understand that people were confused, hurt, and terribly disappointed.

So was I.

I get it. Nobody gets married thinking, “Can’t wait to crash and burn!” We all start with big dreams, unquestioning optimism, and a level of confidence that should probably be illegal. And yet, there I was, wrecked and wondering how in the world I ended up a cautionary tale.

The Pain of Letting Yourself Down

Here’s what most people won’t say out loud (but I will): the deepest wound wasn’t what others felt about me. It was what I felt about myself.

I looked in the mirror and saw a failure, and not just a flawed man but a man who had betrayed his convictions, promises, and expectations of who he thought he’d be. There’s no heartbreak quite like self-disappointment. It’s like losing faith in your own reflection. Trust me, you don’t come out of a divorce without some serious self-reckoning.

Here’s another brutal truth: I never expected to be a divorced man. I was supposed to be the example, the guy who got it right. But when the dust settled and the marriage was gone, I didn’t just end a forty-plus-year relationship; I lost the version of myself I thought was supposed to be.

I saw a catastrophe. Not the kind you can hide behind a clever sermon or a cleaned-up Sunday smile, but the gut-wrenching, soul-exposing kind that makes you want to disappear. And believe me, I tried.

And while I’ve messed up plenty in my life (trust me, I’ve got receipts), this one hit different. Divorce isn’t just an ending; it’s a thousand goodbyes. To the marriage. To the dreams. To the “we” you thought would always be.

The Long Goodbye

Divorce didn’t just separate me from a spouse and most of my previous family. It separated me from an entire ecosystem of relationships and roles I once took for granted. The Church community I poured my blood, sweat, and tears into for 40 years? MIA. Relationships I thought were solid? Gone. Friendships that once seemed unshakable? Distant. People I thought would never turn their backs on me disappeared like mist in the sun. Some ghosted, others kept their distance, and a few made their opinions known with the subtlety of a wrecking ball. (Here is another good article on how the trauma of divorce affects everyone involved.)

Suddenly, I was no longer a safe person to be associated with. I went from pastor to pariah faster than you can say “church discipline.” It felt too harsh and like I’d been emotionally, spiritually, and relationally abandoned. I was walking on a road I never thought I’d travel, and it was lonelier than I imagined.

I know. There are consequences to your choices. I take full responsibility for mine. I understand how upset and frustrated people were. I can even accept their anger. But some of my closest friends who saw me bruised, beaten, and bleeding-out walked on the other side of the road, and that surprised me.

But just when I thought I’d reached the outer limits of grace, God showed up in the most unexpected way.

The God Who Doesn’t Give Up

See, here’s the thing about God that still messes with my head: He doesn’t operate on the same rules we do.

While I was assuming God had written me off, too, like some disappointed parent shaking His holy head in disbelief, He was actually waiting, with open arms and a ridiculous amount of patience. Not mad. Not shocked. Not even mildly surprised.

Just present. Faithful. Kind.

I knew this theologically, but until this experience, I never completely embraced this reality: God saw it coming. He wasn’t shocked by my foolish choices. He wasn’t surprised by my mistakes. Every misstep, every selfish decision, every stupid thing I thought was a good idea at the time, everything. And yet, He loved me anyway. He saw my idiocy coming from a mile away and had already set up a grace plan for me before I even realized I needed one.

In my darkest, most depressed moments, I could almost hear Him whisper what He said to Adam and Eve: “Why are you hiding?”

That’s what grace does. It isn’t passive. It’s not some polite sentiment we sing about in worship. It’s aggressive. Tenacious. It chases you down, tackles you in your shame, and refuses to let go even when you’re trying to run.

God’s grace met me on the road marked “Failure” and renamed it “New Beginnings.”

A Neon Sign That Reads: FAILURE

You don’t have to be divorced to know this feeling. Any kind of failure will do. The kind that follows you around like a bad smell. The kind that makes you feel like everyone’s watching and silently (or not-so-silently) tallying up your sins.

For a while, I felt like I was wearing a neon sign on my forehead that flashed the word “FAILURE” in bold red letters. No matter where I went or what I said, I couldn’t escape the sense that I had let everyone down, and I knew it.

But then I realized something that only grace can teach: God is not in the business of disqualifying people. He’s in the business of redeeming, restoring, and renewing them.

I still carry the scars. I still grieve what was lost. But I no longer live under the weight of shame, because grace doesn’t just give you a second chance; it gives you a new name. I’m not the man I used to be, and thank God, I don’t have to be. I am living proof that failure isn’t final, and disgrace doesn’t get the last word—God does. And His word over me is beloved. Not because I got it all right, but because He refused to give up on me when I had all but given up on myself. So if you’re walking through your own rubble, just know: you’re not alone, and this is not the end. Grace is already on the way.