How Billy Graham's Adulterous Grandson Survived Thoughts Of Suicide

Tullian Tchividjian felt 'suicidal' after the truth of his adulterous behaviour emerged.Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church

The grandson of Billy Graham has confessed that in his darkest moments, he wanted to commit suicide.

Tullian Tchividjian was a megachurch pastor who famously "had it all".

Then his career ended in series of explosive revelations of repeated adultery.

Now he is writing for the website, ExPastors.com. 

And he is honest about his behaviour and its consequences, and how he found answers again in Christ. 

"Two things I had come to believe were secure forever (apart from my relationship to God) were my 21-year marriage and my calling as the senior pastor of the historic Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft Lauderdale, Florida. Both came crumbling down during the spring and early summer of 2015," writes Tchividjian.

"First my marriage. Then my position at the church.

"And with those two losses came a thousand other losses.

"The loss of close friendships, the loss of financial stability, the loss of purpose, the loss of confidence in God's goodness, the loss of hope, the loss of joy, the loss of opportunity, the loss of life as I knew it.

"Life went from feeling like a fairy tale to feeling like a violent tragedy."

The revelations sent shockwaves through the evangelical Christian community worldwide, but especially in the US.

And they went on for months.

Tchividjian left Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in 2015 after he and his wife both admitted to having affairs. He then accepted a post at Willow Creek.

This also ended, just a few months ago, when it was revealed that he had a previous affair in 2014 that he had not disclosed.

Although he was always honest about his "brokenness", in his ministry, for obvious reasons, he never went into detail.

But now, in his column, he describes the "disgusting things" which flowed from his inner being after his adultery was finally exposed: "The rage, the blame-shifting, the thirst for revenge, the bitter arrogance, the self-justified resentment, the dark self-righteousness, the control-hungry manipulation, the deluded rationalization, the deep selfishness, the perverted sense of entitlement."

He admits that circumstances "reveal" rather than "create" the truth about a person's heart.

"And what was revealed to me about my heart in the fiery hotness of dire circumstances was scary and destructive. This disgusting truth about myself (and the desperate aloneness that I felt because of it) made me want to commit suicide."

He even researched methods of killing himself for a couple of hours.

And at the time he wrote: "Words cannot express the pain I feel for the hurt I've caused. It has become too much to bear. Based on what I've done and the pain I've caused, I have concluded that it is safer for all those I love that I just disappear. Life without hope is death."

Now, he says, he has found hope in a new understanding of what Christ's death on the Cross really means. "The gospel doesn't just free you from what other people think about you; it frees you from what you think about yourself."