The Mosaic of Broken Pieces: Jean Larroux's Story
In this deeply moving episode of Misfit Preachers, Jean Larroux sits down with Tullian Tchividjian and Byron Yawn to share his story of navigating the heights and depths of ministry, identity, and self-redemption. Jean reveals the transformative power of grace in his life as he sheds his past facade, learns to embrace vulnerability, and journeys toward a deeper understanding of himself and his relationships. Join us as we delve into the raw honesty, painful realizations, and life-altering moments that shaped Jean’s path to freedom and acceptance. This episode is a powerful reminder that no matter how broken, grace is real and available to all who seek it.
0:30 Introducing the Misfit Preachers and Purpose of the Podcast
3:20 Jean on Vulnerability and Breaking Isolation
6:45 Story Work and Narrative Therapy
17:45 Jean’s Church Journey and the Rise of Ego
28:45 Consequences and Rock Bottom: Jean’s Arrest
41:10 Valerie’s Grace and Testifying on Jean’s Behalf
57:20 The Symbolic Tent: Family Reconciliation and Forgiveness
1:01:50 Concluding Thoughts on Grace as a Continuous Journey
Catch this episode for a raw, honest, and inspiring look at growing through pain, rebuilding trust, and focusing on what truly matters. 💬 Tune in now! 🎧🔥
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Transcript
You're listening to the Misfit Preachers, Talian Chavidjian, Jean Leroux, and Byron Yan from ProdigalPodcast.com we're plagiarizing Jesus one podcast at a time.
Jean Leroux:Now here are the Misfits.
Tullian Chavidjian:Welcome to Misfit Preachers.
Tullian Chavidjian:It's such a privilege to be here.
Tullian Chavidjian:I'm here with Jean Le Roux and Tullian Chavidjian, and we're having a good time.
Tullian Chavidjian:We're having a very good time.
Tullian Chavidjian:I was having a conversation before we recorded with a young mom who was present.
Tullian Chavidjian:She was just kind of asking, what.
Tullian Chavidjian:What is this thing?
Tullian Chavidjian:And what are you doing?
Tullian Chavidjian:And this podcast, the podcast Misfits.
Byron Yan:What, she saw this stuff?
Tullian Chavidjian:Yeah.
Byron Yan:Okay.
Tullian Chavidjian:Yeah.
Tullian Chavidjian:And what's the purpose behind it and what are you trying to do?
Tullian Chavidjian:And I said, there are a lot of ways to describe it, but I can tell you how we're doing it in terms of accomplish what we want to accomplish, which is setting people free to rest completely in the work of Christ and in grace, which is a hard place to get to for anybody, for me, for you, for Jean.
Tullian Chavidjian:I said, one of the things we're doing is we're going to go first, we're going to lead by example and put ourselves out there.
Tullian Chavidjian:Because, you know, we've all sat in that circle where somebody over here has confessed something in their life, put some struggle in their life out, and you immediately go, I'm not alone.
Byron Yan:Right.
Tullian Chavidjian:Somebody put words to what I've been struggling with but couldn't articulate.
Tullian Chavidjian:I was never going to tell anybody.
Tullian Chavidjian:I'm trapped in this mindset, situation, struggle, whatever it is.
Tullian Chavidjian:And so that's really the purpose of the three of us putting our cards on the table.
Tullian Chavidjian:Right.
Tullian Chavidjian:It's not.
Tullian Chavidjian:It's not an easy thing to do.
Tullian Chavidjian:It's not an easy thing for you for telling or for me.
Tullian Chavidjian:Maybe it is for.
Tullian Chavidjian:You've done it many times at this stage.
Tullian Chavidjian:But that's.
Tullian Chavidjian:That's the core.
Tullian Chavidjian:We want you to feel safe here.
Tullian Chavidjian:We want you to.
Tullian Chavidjian:We want to earn your trust by demonstrating what this looks like.
Tullian Chavidjian:So, therefore, we're all telling our stories and today.
Tullian Chavidjian:And these are.
Tullian Chavidjian:These are privileged moments.
Tullian Chavidjian:I know that these are privileged moments.
Tullian Chavidjian:And another observation I would make, these types of conversations are rare among most people, but they shouldn't be.
Byron Yan:Yeah, Right.
Tullian Chavidjian:So it's a huge privilege to sit in the presence of another person's honesty and brokenness anyway.
Tullian Chavidjian:And then reciprocally, for that person to have people step toward that and not away from it.
Byron Yan:Right.
Jean Leroux:To echo what you just said, Byron, I have noticed over the last eight years or so that I've been sort of putting myself out there, not because I wanted to, but because I literally felt compelled to.
Jean Leroux:I discovered that when someone shares their successes with you, their wins, you may feel temporarily inspired, but when someone shares their failures with you, you feel much less alone in this world.
Jean Leroux:And that, like you said, is our hope that people would recognize they're not alone.
Tullian Chavidjian:That's very, very succinct way to put it.
Tullian Chavidjian:You know, we.
Tullian Chavidjian:The bromide is you learn more from your failures than you do from your successes.
Tullian Chavidjian:I don't think we take that seriously until you fail.
Jean Leroux:Right.
Tullian Chavidjian:Really, truly.
Tullian Chavidjian:So we're honored that you would do this.
Tullian Chavidjian:It really is a privilege and we hold it that way.
Tullian Chavidjian:So I'm going to let you.
Byron Yan:I feel that.
Tullian Chavidjian:Let you start.
Byron Yan:I, you know, Tolian, when you gave your.
Byron Yan:It was so helpful for me, the way you framed it when you described your story, especially hearing the extended versions of that.
Byron Yan:And I love how each of our personalities kind of show through in this, you know, to your point of, kind of the.
Byron Yan:I'll go first thing.
Byron Yan:It's been the better part of the last six and a half years probably that I've been pretty transparent with my story, but worked in one particular church in a city in doing that.
Byron Yan:And I think the thing that happens when you're willing to go first or continue to go first would probably be a better description at this point is that people don't feel like they're alone.
Byron Yan:They don't feel like they're the only ones.
Byron Yan:They don't feel like they're crazy.
Byron Yan:And they immediately begin to tell you their story.
Byron Yan:Immediately, immediately.
Byron Yan:It is a guarantee because they feel safe.
Byron Yan:When I was leaving, before I left to start misfits, this older woman came up to me who I had known for the last five or six years when I'd been there, and she was crying and she hugged me and she said, I don't want you to go.
Byron Yan:And I said, I don't want to go either.
Byron Yan:I said, I understand.
Byron Yan:I have so much affection.
Byron Yan:I love you, too.
Byron Yan:And she said, you don't understand.
Byron Yan:She said, who's going to go first now?
Byron Yan:And I said to her, I said, kathy, you will, like if you, if you, if you've been bitten by the bug, like, you don't need me.
Byron Yan:You.
Byron Yan:You got this.
Byron Yan:And so I hope, I hope that's the result.
Tullian Chavidjian:Before you launch, can I.
Tullian Chavidjian:And I know you have more knowledge on this than I do.
Tullian Chavidjian:And you don't have to give.
Tullian Chavidjian:No, it's true.
Byron Yan:Maybe Buffett trivia, Parrothead narrative therapy.
Tullian Chavidjian:And telling your story is such an important thing.
Tullian Chavidjian:It's how I process stuff.
Tullian Chavidjian:And I didn't even know I was doing something that therapists recommend that you do.
Tullian Chavidjian:But it is very.
Tullian Chavidjian:Speak into that for a moment because eventually we want to hear other people's stories.
Byron Yan:Absolutely.
Tullian Chavidjian:How powerful is it and what is the power in it, in your mind?
Byron Yan:Well, I happen to be familiar.
Byron Yan:I'm not by no means even a subject matter, you know, novice, but I'm familiar.
Byron Yan:The Allender center in Seattle, there was a gal named Kathy Lorzal who worked with Dan Allender and started doing what they call story work.
Byron Yan:And story work is basically framing your trauma, your recovery, all of those different things in the framework of these snapshots.
Byron Yan:And so you begin to look at what the surface things that happen in your life are and what the, the things under the foundation were that started the tremors.
Tullian Chavidjian:Right.
Byron Yan:Originally.
Tullian Chavidjian:Right.
Byron Yan:And so guy named Adam Young out in Colorado, Kathy Lord, Dan Allender all.
Byron Yan:I mean, they would be great.
Byron Yan:Follows great reads for any of that information that's helpful and, and hopefully we can, we can springboard any resources if, if this stuff resonates, we can help you.
Tullian Chavidjian:Thanks.
Tullian Chavidjian:Thanks.
Jean Leroux:Yeah, no thanks for interesting bit of trivia.
Jean Leroux:Dan Allender and my dad worked together back in the early 80s.
Byron Yan:Really?
Jean Leroux:Early mid-80s.
Jean Leroux:Yeah.
Byron Yan:Gosh, that's so.
Byron Yan:It's so impressive.
Jean Leroux:I grew up in South Florida because when my dad finished his PhD in psychology at Marquette University, Larry Crab reached out to my dad and said, I'm thinking about starting a private practice.
Jean Leroux:Would you come down here and start it with me?
Jean Leroux:And Dan Allender was working under Larry at that time.
Jean Leroux:So that's why I grew up in Larry Crab is the reason why I.
Byron Yan:Grew up in for Lardo is Allender's work with Kathy and the stuff that Adam has.
Byron Yan:All those things are incredibly impactful.
Byron Yan:We're all.
Byron Yan:We'll.
Byron Yan:We'll list there'll be a link somewhere you can get resources.
Byron Yan:We're glad to share.
Byron Yan:We.
Byron Yan:We want people to have the same resources we have access to.
Jean Leroux:So what you're saying in asking that question is it not only helps others when you tell your story, it helps you.
Jean Leroux:It's therapeutic.
Tullian Chavidjian:Yeah.
Tullian Chavidjian:The way I see it practically, and then I'll be quiet and let John take the floor.
Tullian Chavidjian:Is the most, most people's lives and.
Tullian Chavidjian:Or trauma or even the good bits of it are like taking a puzzle, jumping it out onto a table and then throwing the picture on the box away.
Tullian Chavidjian:Right.
Tullian Chavidjian:And when you start to write these things out, the picture comes forward and the pieces go together.
Jean Leroux:Yeah.
Tullian Chavidjian:And it's kind of like having a you're not crazy conversation with yourself and.
Jean Leroux:Your self awareness is raised higher and higher.
Tullian Chavidjian:I appreciated what you put out recently about on your social media about the importance of self awareness as a goal for sanctification Christian lives.
Byron Yan:I'll take your analogy, that puzzle piece picture and frame, this conversation with that.
Byron Yan:We've all seen those pictures that when you step way back from it, it's like a face or something like that.
Byron Yan:But when you get really close, the face is made up of thousands of little bitty pictures and they were used as the pixels.
Byron Yan:But when you can step back, you see the big picture.
Byron Yan:If you stepped back and looked at the big picture of my life, what you're going to see is idolatry, arrogance, self service, fear and pride.
Byron Yan:These little vignettes I'm about to share are the little pictures that make up the big story.
Jean Leroux:Super helpful, very helpful, very helpful.
Byron Yan: the Mississippi Gulf coast in: Byron Yan:I was working for a big steeple in Memphis, Tennessee and went down there to help recover their bodies, help the city recover, and ended up starting a recovery organization.
Byron Yan:We hosted, I don't know, 17, 18,000 people over five years.
Byron Yan:It was wonderful and terrible, exhausting and all those things.
Byron Yan:As Tullian described some of the you're on the rise thing in his story, when you do something at ground zero of the greatest natural disaster in US history, people happen to notice more than if you did that in Des Moines, Iowa.
Byron Yan:It's not different work, it's just work with a spotlight on it.
Byron Yan:But that spotlight, if you step back and the big picture is it's all about me.
Byron Yan:That spotlight is like a drug.
Byron Yan:And so you start to believe your own press and you start to be.
Byron Yan:When people question you, you bristle.
Byron Yan:Everything has to be.
Byron Yan:But on the surface it just seemed like it's all together.
Byron Yan:And it was, it was something that was incredibly helpful to many people.
Byron Yan:And the notoriety was intoxicating.
Byron Yan:The work was exhausting.
Byron Yan:And after about five years, the opportunity came to go somewhere and just preach.
Byron Yan:All you gotta do is preach, teach and write and we'll do everything else.
Byron Yan:And I was like, well, I need a break.
Byron Yan:I'm exhausted.
Byron Yan:And felt truly the sincerest sense of calling to this particular church.
Byron Yan:The message was communicated to me as we're lockstep with you.
Byron Yan:Well, some were and some weren't.
Byron Yan:And what happens when some were and some weren't?
Byron Yan:The ones that were in line with my message, we formed an incredibly tight bond.
Byron Yan:The ones that weren't started to feel this arrogant ass start to poke him from the pulpit.
Byron Yan:I didn't want them.
Byron Yan:I mean, this is terrible to say, but it's honest.
Byron Yan:I didn't want them to really get what I was saying.
Byron Yan:I just wanted to win the argument.
Jean Leroux:Sure.
Byron Yan:I wasn't communicating truth in such a way that it was compelling and magnetic to them.
Byron Yan:It was just this jackass poking him in the eye every time.
Byron Yan:And the worst part about it is I was right.
Byron Yan:I mean, the theology is right.
Byron Yan:It's in black and white.
Byron Yan:It's right.
Byron Yan:But I'm most dangerous when I'm right.
Byron Yan:And so created a context that was really a pressure cooker for a church that had two philosophical things underneath.
Byron Yan:But it played nice up until that point, and I didn't play nice.
Byron Yan:So we went to war and the church split.
Byron Yan:2500 people turned into 700 real quick.
Byron Yan:You lose money, you lose staff, you lose notoriety.
Byron Yan:And about that time, Tullian and I are both digitally going after the entire world about the gospel, fighting inside denominations outside of denominations getting called grace boys.
Byron Yan:You know, they abused grace on and on and on.
Byron Yan:And we're both so self absorbed that at least we were like, at least somebody else is doing it.
Byron Yan:And so we knew Steve Brown did it before we did and we knew Tim Keller did it, but he was nice about it.
Byron Yan:And so we're just like, oh, we'll be dumb and dumber and we'll frickin crucify everybody.
Byron Yan:And we did.
Byron Yan:And we were right.
Byron Yan:And I'll speak for me, and so wrong, because I wanted to win.
Tullian Chavidjian:What would you do different if you could go back?
Byron Yan:Oh, that'd be a whole episode.
Byron Yan:You know, Jesus said a bruise, they said a bruised reed, he would not break.
Byron Yan:He was always tender with people who were struggling.
Byron Yan:He was always very firm with people who were inflexible.
Tullian Chavidjian:So your mindset would be different.
Byron Yan:I mean, I shut the gates of grace in the face of people who were asking honest questions.
Byron Yan:And I didn't have the humility or the patience to let them ask a damn question.
Jean Leroux:Yeah.
Byron Yan:Without being blasted.
Jean Leroux:We were talking a little bit about this, the three of us, a few days ago.
Jean Leroux:Off camera.
Jean Leroux:But it's very tempting when you know you're right about grace, to become self righteous toward those who are self righteous.
Jean Leroux:And the danger is, that's me.
Jean Leroux:Something like this.
Jean Leroux:You think you're good.
Jean Leroux:I know I'm not.
Jean Leroux:That makes me better than you, which that is.
Byron Yan:Put that on my tombstone.
Jean Leroux:Yes, so.
Jean Leroux:And it's, you're right, it's dangerous.
Jean Leroux:We become a Pharisee to the Pharisees.
Jean Leroux:It's very, very, very tempting to do.
Tullian Chavidjian:When I made this discovery and shifted, I think the net effect on people, the visual, that explains it for me as I ran into a sandwich shop and declared that I had discovered sliced bread.
Tullian Chavidjian:Yeah, we've been here for a while.
Tullian Chavidjian:And then the other thing was, and I'll let you continue, is that grace was hard for me to get my head around.
Tullian Chavidjian:It still is.
Jean Leroux:Yeah, me too.
Tullian Chavidjian:And it's hard for those who have lived in a different world to get their minds around as well.
Tullian Chavidjian:It takes a minute.
Tullian Chavidjian:And I asked that question because.
Tullian Chavidjian:And I think you answered this way.
Tullian Chavidjian:Softness, gentleness, compassion.
Byron Yan:I'll give you one little window into this.
Byron Yan:There was a conversation that started on a little thing we did, called Pastors on the Patio, where we sat down to kind of answer questions about grace and how does it work?
Byron Yan:What do you do next?
Byron Yan:When do I get past the gospel, all the normal questions.
Byron Yan:And there was an individual who I'd been talking to off and on, who had some real struggles with the things that I was saying and had made no bones about it.
Byron Yan:She had been candid, she had come to me privately.
Byron Yan:We had done, I mean, really had followed what I would consider to be the right protocol.
Byron Yan:I mean, wasn't gossipy, wasn't any of that stuff.
Byron Yan:And at Pastors on the Patio, that private conversation we had, she revisited the same questions.
Byron Yan:And so I started answering.
Byron Yan:I said, well, you know, we've said that.
Byron Yan:And I said, you know that your biggest problem isn't what you do wrong, it's what you do right that you think is okay.
Byron Yan:And she said to me, she said, well, if that's true, then my greatest problem is not my sin, it's my self righteousness.
Byron Yan:And I said, you are hearing me 100% clearly.
Byron Yan:And she said, well, I've looked in my heart and I've asked the Lord and there is no self righteousness in there.
Byron Yan:And I said, in front of 75 other women in the list of what's actually wrong with you?
Byron Yan:Self righteousness might be a virtue.
Jean Leroux:Geez, you were A real ass, huh?
Jean Leroux:I mean, I mean I, in my heyday, I would have never said something like that.
Byron Yan:I, I just want to note for the record that Tully and Javige and just said I'm not as bad as that guy.
Jean Leroux:Exactly, exactly.
Jean Leroux:I'm feeling, feeling very self righteous right now.
Byron Yan:Now you both feel better about yourselves.
Tullian Chavidjian:I'm leaning into the leper.
Tullian Chavidjian:I feel clean.
Byron Yan:But here's the truth.
Byron Yan:There was somebody who is honestly struggling with the real weight and the conundrum of grace and couldn't figure it out.
Byron Yan:And her pastor was such a smug self righteous asshole that he decided he would spike the ball in front of 75 people and watch her crumble and put the mic down.
Jean Leroux:Yeah, yeah.
Jean Leroux:You know, Michelangelo once said that the best way to critique something is to create something more beautiful, to present something more beautiful.
Jean Leroux:I have had that quote memorized since my graduate school days.
Jean Leroux:And the times that I have actually applied that or employed that have been few and far between, especially during that season in my life and my critique.
Tullian Chavidjian:Personal critique of fundamentalists.
Tullian Chavidjian:In the beginning of all this, I became a fundamentalist in the opposite direction.
Byron Yan:You were a fundamentalist about not being a fundamentalist?
Jean Leroux:100% sure, yeah.
Byron Yan:Got it.
Byron Yan:That's why I like what you said.
Byron Yan:You know that I'll just judge the judgers.
Jean Leroux:Yeah, right.
Jean Leroux:Yeah, yeah.
Jean Leroux:We're a Pharisee to the Pharisees.
Byron Yan:And so that, so take that Polaroid and tack it right there at that point, for the better part of 10 years, my first wife Kim and I had been going to counseling, doing lots of things.
Byron Yan:Life had always been hard for us as married people.
Byron Yan:I'm 100% responsible for my 50% of the problems that happened in our marriage.
Byron Yan:A church split and a church plant did not create a context where two unhealthy people got healthy together.
Byron Yan:And I didn't know it, couldn't see it was in it, and was blind to it if I had no, like, that's why I think doctors don't work on their own fat.
Byron Yan:Like it couldn't be objective and just couldn't see up from down.
Byron Yan:And so the last ditch effort to quote, save the marriage in that, and this is hundreds and thousands of dollars of therapy was, okay, I'll leave the ministry, I'll just resign.
Byron Yan:I mean, the only thing I've never tried, we've tried inpatient, we've tried outpatient, we've tried everything we can do.
Byron Yan:The only thing I haven't tried is just get out of ministry and let's See if that fixes it.
Byron Yan:It didn't fix it.
Byron Yan:Because when the problem is you, you keep going with the problem, right?
Byron Yan:Like, I unfortunately, I forwarded myself.
Jean Leroux:Wherever you go, there you are.
Byron Yan:There I was again, the same guy.
Byron Yan:And didn't have the humility, the right amount of counsel in my life, or the right ears to hear it.
Byron Yan: And she and I divorced in: Byron Yan: At the end of: Byron Yan:It was me throwing my hands up and giving up.
Byron Yan:It was her saying, can't we do something else?
Byron Yan:And me saying, we've already done everything, and just wanting to stop feeling the pressure, the pain, the shame of having left a church, having had a church split, all the things that were said and all the stuff deep under the surface that I didn't even know I was coping with as I built this mosaic of me.
Byron Yan:And that's all there.
Byron Yan:Well, if you can get rid of the problems around you, which.
Byron Yan:First problem, church gone.
Byron Yan:Second problem, job.
Byron Yan:Now I'm no longer officially in.
Byron Yan:Don't have my union card anymore, so I can go sell insurance or.
Byron Yan:Which is what I did.
Byron Yan:And then, well, we'd have a terrible marriage.
Byron Yan:We'll just get rid of that.
Byron Yan:Because, remember, the goal is to finish this mosaic, which is this beautiful portrait of me.
Byron Yan:And those things were black spots, and so you gotta get rid of them.
Byron Yan:So he says, pluck them out.
Byron Yan:And I did and worked and loved my kids.
Byron Yan:And there were college graduations all spread throughout this story.
Byron Yan:And I moved to Nashville, where I started dipping my toe back in working with the world of faith and saying, can we help churches find, you know, people that are good grace, people that work with the church?
Byron Yan:And so a little bit kind of an executive headhunting in that sense for churches.
Byron Yan:It was great.
Byron Yan:Started went out on a couple of dates with people, and I was on match.com.
Byron Yan:it's not a promotion for match.com and met somebody on Match and her name was Valerie.
Byron Yan:People always ask, like, I mean, this is where, like, people always say, like, what's it like?
Byron Yan:Like, you've been in this, like, forbidden land.
Byron Yan:Like the forbidden land of online dating.
Byron Yan:And I basically say this, like, everybody has four pictures.
Byron Yan:At least every woman on dating apps has four pictures.
Byron Yan:Here's the I'm a good mom picture.
Byron Yan:Here's the I work out picture.
Byron Yan:Here's the I don't eat bad food picture.
Byron Yan:And then here's the crazy me living life picture with the hot air balloon ride.
Byron Yan:And I just had all shirtless pictures.
Jean Leroux:I think I just threw up in my mind.
Tullian Chavidjian:You would have never met Valerie.
Byron Yan:No, they don't allow nudity.
Byron Yan:And so it was.
Byron Yan:But.
Tullian Chavidjian:But knowing you, you would have thought they'll see the humor in it.
Byron Yan:I would.
Byron Yan:I truly would have thought like, oh, they'll.
Byron Yan:If they don't get my personality, you know, and then you get no swipe left for me.
Byron Yan:Val and I, she swiped.
Byron Yan:Is you swipe.
Byron Yan:Is it right or left?
Tullian Chavidjian:I have no idea.
Byron Yan:Val swiped right on him.
Jean Leroux:I'm happy to say I don't either.
Byron Yan:I know, I don't know.
Byron Yan:I actually know the answer.
Byron Yan:But Valerie swiped right on me.
Byron Yan:I swiped right on her.
Byron Yan:Or left, depending on which side of the equator you live on.
Byron Yan:And we fell in love.
Byron Yan:She had worked in the church before.
Byron Yan:She had worked in a large steeple in Atlanta.
Byron Yan:Had a lot of things going on in terms of her exposure to the church world.
Byron Yan:And I thought it would be pretty.
Tullian Chavidjian:Impressive in that window.
Tullian Chavidjian:Did you, did you feel the kind of the tailwind of there's new lease on life and we'll go complete the picture in that moment or.
Byron Yan:Oh, listen, we're re releasing the iPhone, baby.
Byron Yan:I mean this isn't an Android coming out.
Byron Yan:I mean, we're remastered.
Byron Yan:You're gonna be able to check your stocks.
Byron Yan:I mean, I've got.
Byron Yan:We're.
Byron Yan:We're re releasing this brand.
Byron Yan:I mean, LaRue is coming back, baby.
Byron Yan:I mean, all I needed was a wife.
Byron Yan:The divorce is far enough in the rearview mirror.
Byron Yan:I got a wife.
Byron Yan:I'm back in the.
Byron Yan:I'm in the groove.
Jean Leroux:So you thought that would make you accepted again amongst the religious folk that you wanted to get back with?
Byron Yan:Yeah.
Byron Yan:The 50 year old divorced guy.
Jean Leroux:Yeah.
Byron Yan:Feels creepy.
Jean Leroux:Yeah.
Byron Yan:You know, like, right.
Byron Yan:I'm the singles minister.
Tullian Chavidjian:Wow.
Byron Yan:Right.
Byron Yan:And so in my mind, at least that had to be there.
Byron Yan:What I didn't know and what the picture tells you is that I was really looking for somebody to fill out the picture of me, not me looking at someone to see who they were.
Byron Yan:And so when you date someone with the intention of using them, not knowing that you just take what you want, you use them.
Byron Yan:And we met, we dated.
Byron Yan:All the things you would imagine are normal or normal.
Byron Yan:And that picture is coming together.
Byron Yan:You know, I had started to get a job.
Byron Yan:I had a pretty decent lead on a job in Nashville with a pretty significant organization.
Byron Yan:Used my master's degree.
Byron Yan:I mean, I was like, this is.
Byron Yan:I'm back.
Byron Yan:And because of who I am under the surface, we're sleeping together, we're drinking too much.
Byron Yan:We are living just using each other in every way that you could use another person.
Byron Yan:And truly figured, like, you know, Jesus, I mean, we're getting a pass.
Byron Yan:Like, we've been married.
Byron Yan:Jesus understands we've been married before.
Byron Yan:I mean, I'm not a spring chicken here.
Byron Yan:And so.
Byron Yan:And thought we're gonna get married, so we're just.
Byron Yan:I mean, God's outside of time, so this just all counts.
Byron Yan:And the truth is it's just this gross rationalization of I just want what I want that all came to a head, you know, God, the last words.
Byron Yan:And I love.
Byron Yan:Sometimes there are these great words that the Bible records of people saying that you just can't forget.
Byron Yan:And the last words of this king, this Old Testament king, that was this group that was always fighting, you know, Israel called the Babylonians.
Byron Yan:And they had this king named Nebuchadnezzar.
Byron Yan:And he had this terrible thing happen.
Byron Yan:God kind of, you know, whips his ass and he comes back and he gets in his right mind.
Byron Yan:And the last words this guy ever says is, he who walks in pride.
Byron Yan:God is able to humble.
Byron Yan:It's the last thing he's ever recorded as saying.
Byron Yan:And that's true.
Byron Yan:And so we went out one night.
Byron Yan:We were spending some time that afternoon planning what we were going to do.
Byron Yan:We had thought about going to dinner, whatever.
Byron Yan:And then we heard this band was coming.
Byron Yan:And so we had started texting each other and talking about the plans for the night.
Byron Yan:She was like, oh, I can get Hannah Maria, who's our daughter, to spend the night out.
Byron Yan:And then we can have the house to ourselves.
Byron Yan:And we're both like, you know, bouncy bow.
Byron Yan:Meow.
Byron Yan:You know, that's.
Byron Yan:That's what we're thinking.
Byron Yan:I mean, that's just the truth.
Byron Yan:It's the truth.
Jean Leroux:Yeah.
Byron Yan:And so, because, I mean, remember the picture.
Byron Yan:Don't forget the picture here.
Byron Yan:This is about me, my needs, my wants, my desires.
Byron Yan:And we went out to the band, had too much to drink.
Byron Yan:And Hannah Maria called and needed a ride home from the spend the night party because something had happened at the house.
Byron Yan:A water line broke or there was a small fire or something.
Byron Yan:Valerie got very concerned and wanted to go get her as any normal mother would.
Byron Yan:Well, I knew if there was a fire truck or a police car there, I'd been drinking and I wasn't about to add a DUI to my spotless record, so I said no.
Byron Yan:And I'm from South Louisiana originally.
Byron Yan:She's from Miami.
Tullian Chavidjian:You had a lot to Drink.
Byron Yan:And I had a lot to drink, but we both have, you know, a high tolerance for loud conversations.
Byron Yan:And that's what a chicken shit way to say that.
Byron Yan:We both yell at the drop of bat.
Byron Yan:And we got in a screaming match over whether or not I was going to go to Hannah, and she's like, you're not a good father.
Byron Yan:And I'm like, well, you're demanding and you want too much and you blah, blah, blah.
Byron Yan:And we're going at it.
Byron Yan:And she says to me, she says, well, you know what I'm going to do?
Byron Yan:I'm going to call that guy because I know him in the church where you want to get hired.
Byron Yan:I'm going to call him and tell him you're drunk and that you are driving.
Byron Yan:Good luck getting the job then.
Byron Yan:And I.
Byron Yan:We're driving in the car and I reach her and said, why are you pushing my buttons?
Byron Yan:Why are you always pushing my buttons?
Byron Yan:And I physically pushed her three times when I said it.
Byron Yan:I had to be driving 100 miles an hour in this insane moment.
Byron Yan:Yeah, because of course the guy who won't drive to help her is driving to get home to help himself.
Byron Yan:To help himself.
Byron Yan:Because don't forget the picture.
Byron Yan:And so we got back, I drove back to her house, dropped her off, and I had taken her phone so she couldn't call him.
Byron Yan:And she walked inside and she said, well, she said, you can.
Byron Yan:I don't care if you have my phone.
Byron Yan:She goes, I've still got the Internet.
Byron Yan:I can email him, you know, if we're going to war.
Byron Yan:And I pulled the plug out of the wall and it shorted out dramatic fashion.
Byron Yan:The neighbors heard us screaming and they called the cops.
Byron Yan:By this point, I had gotten in my car, driven to the other side of the complex and passed out in my car, laid down, said, okay, I'm not driving.
Byron Yan:I'm not that stupid.
Byron Yan:About 3:00 in the morning, I woke up and got in the car to drive home, ostensibly, and got pulled over on the interstate in Nashville, blue lights behind me.
Byron Yan:And I thought, well, I'm fine.
Byron Yan:Who knows what they want.
Byron Yan:License and registration.
Byron Yan:The female officer walks back to the car and she says, oh, Jean Le Roux.
Byron Yan:She goes, we've been looking for you.
Byron Yan:And I said, for me?
Byron Yan:She said, do you know a Valerie C.
Byron Yan:And I said, I do.
Byron Yan:She said, we've been at her house for the last three hours about what happened tonight.
Byron Yan:She said, I'm going to need some good contact information.
Byron Yan:We'll be in touch.
Byron Yan:And I Said, okay.
Byron Yan:And I went home and called a friend of mine named Bob Bradshaw and told him everything that had happened and was concerned about how elevated everything had gotten, but didn't catch the gravity of what had happened.
Byron Yan:At about 6am the next morning, the Williamson County Sheriff's Department arrived at my pool house where I was living and arrested me for domestic assault and destruction of property.
Tullian Chavidjian:I've been in those sort of moments or like a gun goes off by your life sort of thing.
Tullian Chavidjian:Describe your reality and that.
Tullian Chavidjian:And like, knock on the door, what's happening?
Byron Yan:It's surreal.
Tullian Chavidjian:Yeah.
Byron Yan:It doesn't feel real.
Byron Yan:It feels like, wait, this is a TV show and I'm watching it.
Byron Yan:Bad boy, bad boy.
Byron Yan:But I'm in it.
Byron Yan:And I really, in a lot of ways, I think time stood still.
Byron Yan:And then you go through all of the, you know, you're fingerprinted, you're given Crocs, you're given prison clothes to wear.
Byron Yan:You do all those different things, you were given Crocs.
Jean Leroux:That's a crime.
Byron Yan:It's all the rage in prison.
Tullian Chavidjian:It's all the Raven olive branch for being honest.
Byron Yan:You gotta love that.
Byron Yan:As I'm describing being booked Tolian's, like, what a terrible fashion choice that is.
Tullian Chavidjian:Were they white Crocs with an orange jumpsuit?
Byron Yan:They were orange.
Jean Leroux:There's a method to my madness, but we'll get to that later.
Byron Yan:I got it now.
Byron Yan:You need to know how deep my self righteousness goes.
Byron Yan:I mentioned this to you guys the other night at the Vault.
Byron Yan:But even as I was being arrested, I said to the police officer charming her, I said, do I need to turn around and put my hands on the car like on tv?
Byron Yan:I said, or can we just do the noble front cuff thing?
Byron Yan:She goes, I guess front cuff will be fine.
Byron Yan:And I thought to myself, well, I'm not that bad.
Byron Yan:I just got the front.
Byron Yan:I don't have the jacket to drape over it because there are no news cameras.
Byron Yan:But other than that, I was still finding like, well, it's not as bad as it could be in all those moments.
Byron Yan:And it was it.
Byron Yan:But it was worse than what it.
Byron Yan:What I knew it was.
Byron Yan:I laid.
Byron Yan:So they booked me in jail.
Byron Yan:It was April 9th, and I know that was my daughter's birthday.
Byron Yan:They'd taken my phone so I couldn't call her.
Byron Yan:And that was on my mind.
Byron Yan:And then they, you know, they give you a cell and there's no clocks, there's no windows, there's the brightest.
Byron Yan:Like, if you ever been to a Vet's office and seen how bright those lights are.
Byron Yan:That's how it is inside.
Byron Yan:Like when they book you, so you're sitting in there and it's about 60 degrees, they give you a blanket just big enough to make you mad that it only goes up to your shoulders and your feet are uncovered or your feet are uncovered and then it starts about mid chest.
Byron Yan:It's just.
Byron Yan:Even if you turn it the triangle way, it still doesn't work.
Byron Yan:And I'm just laying there and I.
Byron Yan:All I wanted was a Bible.
Byron Yan:And I felt myself like I just want somewhere in.
Byron Yan:I mean, I kind of like tapped into immediately.
Byron Yan:Like this is what people do when they're at the end, the end of their rope.
Byron Yan:This is the.
Byron Yan:I need the Gideon's Bible in the hotel, in the hotel dresser drawer.
Byron Yan:They didn't have any.
Byron Yan:And so I had to go with what I had memorized and unfortunately have more Jimmy Buffett lyrics memorized than psalms and had time to sit and write.
Byron Yan:And so I started writing the goodbye note to the kids.
Byron Yan:I mean, it was done.
Byron Yan:I was.
Byron Yan:The level of shame, embarrassment.
Byron Yan:My life is over, it's ruined.
Byron Yan:I'm taking my life when I get out.
Byron Yan:I know I am.
Byron Yan:Now, I've mentioned to you guys before that God, like being from New Orleans originally and kind of that whole thing, God's voice to me when he speaks to me is like when he talks to Job, it's real sarcastic.
Byron Yan:And so when I kind of concocted this plan like, kids, I love you.
Byron Yan:I've brought so much shame on you.
Byron Yan:I can't live with myself.
Byron Yan:You know, that God that where I am, da, da, da, you'll be fine.
Byron Yan:Insurance money, blah, blah, blah.
Byron Yan:And all like in the corner.
Byron Yan:If there would have been a visible representation of God, it would have been the slow clap, the slow sarcastic clap.
Byron Yan:And God says, well, well, well, isn't this a great plan we have?
Byron Yan:So let me get this right.
Byron Yan:Because of your unmanageable, unbelievably great public sin, you're going to use your death as the atonement instead of Jesus's death?
Tullian Chavidjian:What?
Tullian Chavidjian:What voice?
Tullian Chavidjian:In whose voice do you hear God's voice?
Byron Yan:For you, it's just that it's sarcasm.
Byron Yan:There's no.
Byron Yan:There's no like, dialect in it or.
Jean Leroux:A particular person's voice that you've heard before?
Jean Leroux:Because I have a feeling the reason Byron asked you that question is when God speaks to him, he hears a particular.
Tullian Chavidjian:He told me once that he.
Tullian Chavidjian:It sounds like Theo Vaughn.
Byron Yan:Oh, it is that same sarcastic.
Byron Yan:Yeah, it's that.
Byron Yan:Yeah, absolutely.
Byron Yan:That same banter.
Jean Leroux:And for you, Morgan Freeman, for me, it's Billy Graham.
Jean Leroux:Yeah.
Jean Leroux:For me, it's my mother, it's my father when I'm being congratulated.
Jean Leroux:It's my mother when I'm being punished.
Tullian Chavidjian:We'll get to your wounds.
Tullian Chavidjian:We'll get to your wounds momentarily.
Byron Yan:And I said, literally out loud, I said, well, then, what am I supposed to do?
Byron Yan:And God said, give up.
Byron Yan:And so you don't know how long you've been in there.
Byron Yan:There's no time.
Byron Yan:And I just laid there and thought and tried to sleep and cry and pray.
Byron Yan:And my friend Bob Bradshaw picked me up, and he knows me well enough to say, hey, listen, we're going by your house, and you're going to give me your gun.
Byron Yan:He goes, that's not the answer.
Byron Yan:I said, how did you know?
Byron Yan:He goes, you think I don't know you?
Byron Yan:You think I don't know what you've been doing for the last 12 hours?
Byron Yan:And I was like, okay.
Byron Yan:And then he took me to his house, and I can't.
Byron Yan:I know there are people here listening who have just been let out or about to go in or everything's fallen out.
Byron Yan:You understand the meaning of somebody putting you in their car and taking you to their house and feeding you from their table and not locking the bedroom door when you go to sleep after you've just been arrested for a felony.
Byron Yan:It was the coolest drink of water that I could have ever imagined in that moment.
Byron Yan:Because behind the mosaic that I want you to see is the picture of me that I see, the one nobody wants.
Byron Yan:And what Bob and Rose did, they walked over and they took some of the black off of that picture, and there was life behind it.
Byron Yan:And that's what started to happen in that moment.
Byron Yan:I stopped filling out this damn picture and started pulling black tiles off the other one.
Byron Yan:And light comes through.
Byron Yan:God was working on Valerie.
Byron Yan:At the same time.
Byron Yan:We're not allowed to talk to each other, because the nature of what I was arrested for and the nature of what I did.
Tullian Chavidjian:I'm curious, too.
Tullian Chavidjian:I think that's a providential piece of this whole thing, because if I were in your shoes, I.
Tullian Chavidjian:The very first person I would try to start convincing otherwise, manipulating for sure, would have been her.
Jean Leroux:Yeah, of course we're.
Byron Yan:I mean, the analogy I just gave is the ultimate picture.
Byron Yan:But the truth is, that's exactly what I wanted to do, because this picture is crumbling, and she's got the duct.
Jean Leroux:Tape and the inability to do it is maddening.
Jean Leroux:I don't have even the opportunity to do it.
Jean Leroux:It's like without legal consequence, separating, separating.
Tullian Chavidjian:Someone who's addicted to substances from their substance.
Jean Leroux:Right.
Tullian Chavidjian:The.
Tullian Chavidjian:With there's a withdrawal, there's no question.
Jean Leroux:Control freak out.
Tullian Chavidjian:Control is a drug.
Byron Yan:Because even apologizing gives me some measure of virtue.
Byron Yan:Sure, you can't even apologize.
Byron Yan:You can't con, you can't do by proxy.
Byron Yan:You can't do anything.
Byron Yan:And so my therapist at the time, there was a lot of hurt both ways and a lot of wrong done both ways.
Byron Yan:Val would say, amen to that.
Byron Yan:And my therapist said, you know, I think in order for you to really deal with this, you're going to need to just put it down on paper.
Byron Yan:We'll bring it to the next session, we'll tear it up, burn it, we'll be done.
Byron Yan:You can get that frustrated feelings with Valerie and the circumstances all out.
Byron Yan:She said, just write it down, email it to me and then we'll do it together.
Byron Yan:Okay.
Byron Yan:So I started writing it and went to bed, thought I was going to finish it.
Byron Yan:And my buddy Bob called me the next day and he said, why did you do it?
Byron Yan:And I said, do what?
Byron Yan:And he said, contact Valerie.
Byron Yan:I said, I didn't contact Valerie.
Byron Yan:He said, jean, I read the email.
Byron Yan:I said, bob, I didn't send her an email.
Byron Yan:He said, jean, it's time for the lies to stop.
Byron Yan:Like, he's done with this picture.
Byron Yan:Like, dude, the gig is up.
Byron Yan:And I was like, I didn't.
Byron Yan:I had started writing the email to my therapist in a shared email group that Valerie and I had.
Byron Yan:And so the draft of it, every time I wrote it, and we're starting.
Byron Yan:This is the kind of letter that starts with, you know, you, Jezebel, and laundry listed every single nuance of every single thing I could contrive that she had ever done wrong to me.
Tullian Chavidjian:Got burned by technology, too.
Byron Yan:And me too.
Byron Yan:Yeah.
Byron Yan:And she read every word of it unfiltered, without.
Byron Yan:It didn't say to my therapist, the letter said, dear Valerie, Wow.
Tullian Chavidjian:Has she ever described the feeling of having read that?
Byron Yan:No.
Byron Yan:Really?
Byron Yan:And I've never asked.
Tullian Chavidjian:I can.
Jean Leroux:I'm surprised.
Jean Leroux:I'm going to ask her next time I see her.
Tullian Chavidjian:Do we have shared Google Docs?
Byron Yan:No, that's a good.
Byron Yan:I mean, I think that's a really good question to be able to say.
Byron Yan:I mean, I'm not all about digging up dead bodies, but that that's.
Tullian Chavidjian:I mean, I have some people in My life that at times have said really, really vicious things like caretakers of my life, people.
Byron Yan:Right.
Tullian Chavidjian:But those people never sat down and did a bullet point on their disdain and contempt for me.
Byron Yan:Yeah, she read.
Byron Yan:And then.
Byron Yan:And then she testified for me.
Jean Leroux:On your behalf.
Byron Yan:On my behalf.
Byron Yan:Unbeknownst to me, she spoke to the judge after reading the letter.
Byron Yan:After that was.
Byron Yan:That was 10 days into it.
Byron Yan:I went to court 50 days later.
Tullian Chavidjian:Bro, that is this in our entire purpose and in one episode.
Tullian Chavidjian:That's.
Tullian Chavidjian:I can't.
Tullian Chavidjian:I would have left your ass in there for show in that context.
Tullian Chavidjian:That's not true.
Tullian Chavidjian:I wouldn't have done that.
Tullian Chavidjian:But if I.
Jean Leroux:But if you were his wife, you may have.
Jean Leroux:Or his girlfriend, you may have.
Jean Leroux:Sure.
Tullian Chavidjian:That the grace in that is supernatural and ridiculous and a super.
Byron Yan:And even more amazing.
Byron Yan:She didn't go in touting my virtue or pleading mercy.
Byron Yan:She went in saying, me too.
Byron Yan:She said, we both should have been arrested.
Byron Yan:We were both out of control.
Byron Yan:We were both doing wrong.
Byron Yan: u've got to remember, this is: Byron Yan:So the me Too movement is at its peak.
Byron Yan:And Valerie flipped the script, not me, to the victim.
Byron Yan:Me too.
Byron Yan:The perpetrator.
Jean Leroux:Yeah.
Byron Yan:I mean, who does that?
Byron Yan:Yeah, me too.
Byron Yan:The perpetrator.
Byron Yan:Unbelievable.
Byron Yan:So I was given 12 months of expungeable probation.
Tullian Chavidjian:What does that mean?
Byron Yan:It means that you're.
Byron Yan:You admit that you committed a felony, you're not denying it, and if you are successfully completing probation, alcohol counseling, anger management, and check in with your parole officer or probation officer, then it never happened.
Byron Yan:And I asked the judge when that.
Byron Yan:I mean, I'm like, you know, we're really never kind of still vote.
Byron Yan:All those kind of things that a felon can't do.
Byron Yan:And he said, jean, if you're ever asked by anyone, if you successfully complete this, if you're ever asked by anyone, have you ever been arrested, the answer is no.
Byron Yan:I said, what do you mean?
Byron Yan:He said, it never happened.
Byron Yan:He said, when you.
Byron Yan:He said, when you go the last day, he said, they will hand you your file.
Byron Yan:And he said, and that is the.
Tullian Chavidjian:Only copy I can get to the doctrine of justification.
Jean Leroux:There my sin is cast into the sea of God's forgotten memory.
Byron Yan:I sat on the court on the front steps of the Williamson County Courthouse and sobbed like the first time I'd ever heard the gospel.
Byron Yan:Like they let me take my shame and carry it out.
Byron Yan:It was unbelievable.
Tullian Chavidjian:Where do you think you would be had the.
Tullian Chavidjian:It been an actual felony count?
Jean Leroux:Where would you sitting with us?
Tullian Chavidjian:No, I know where you would have gone, but where would have you.
Tullian Chavidjian:Where would you have been?
Tullian Chavidjian:Where would you as a person?
Tullian Chavidjian:I don't mean geographically.
Byron Yan:Oh, yeah.
Byron Yan:It would have been a dark spiral.
Byron Yan:A dark, dark spiral.
Byron Yan:Yeah.
Byron Yan:There's nothing I'm not capable of.
Byron Yan:It would have been dark.
Byron Yan:The shame would have been too much.
Byron Yan:Yeah, I get that.
Byron Yan:Like, I get that for the people, like, people listening, that they say, if anybody ever knew.
Byron Yan:The truth is, when it all came out, it was the most free I've ever been.
Byron Yan:I thought I was gonna die.
Byron Yan:I felt like I was gonna die.
Byron Yan:I was sure I was gonna die.
Byron Yan:If not killed by the circumstances, killed by me.
Byron Yan:But I was actually coming to life.
Byron Yan:That was the crazy part.
Byron Yan:When you hug the cat and you say, okay, this is me.
Byron Yan:And I remember posting on my blog the morning before I went to court the whole story of what happened.
Byron Yan:And I said, I don't know whether I'll get to touch this blog again, but here's what it is.
Byron Yan:And I.
Tullian Chavidjian:What compelled you to do that?
Byron Yan:Because I knew.
Byron Yan:I knew in my.
Byron Yan:I mean, you start to really think about the people who are suffering in the world when you're suffering and you think, there are people out there, somebody's going to read this and it's going to be their court date.
Byron Yan:It's going to be their inability to say, me too, or whatever, somehow God can use this.
Byron Yan:And that was my hope.
Byron Yan:But I needed to get the story out.
Byron Yan:I need to write it out.
Byron Yan:And I only had the guy driving.
Byron Yan:Bob was driving me to court.
Byron Yan:That was it.
Byron Yan:He knew the story.
Jean Leroux:I wrote some things in the immediate aftermath of my world exploding publicly and put it up on my social media.
Jean Leroux:And of course, they went viral because the story was so fresh.
Jean Leroux:And I regret writing all of those things because I know that the reason I wrote them was because it was.
Jean Leroux:Even in that moment of complete collapse, I was gifted enough and enough of a wordsmith and enough of a manipulator to be able to begin the process of getting people to feel sorry for.
Tullian Chavidjian:Control the narrative.
Jean Leroux:Control the narrative.
Jean Leroux:Absolutely.
Tullian Chavidjian:Control the narrative.
Tullian Chavidjian:I didn't.
Tullian Chavidjian:I didn't think that was your motivation.
Jean Leroux:No.
Jean Leroux:And I'm not saying that was yours.
Jean Leroux:I'm just reflecting on the stuff that I wrote in the immediate.
Byron Yan:There's no way.
Byron Yan:There's no way.
Byron Yan:That's not also.
Byron Yan:It's not.
Byron Yan:That's an And.
Byron Yan:Yeah.
Byron Yan:For me.
Byron Yan:Right.
Byron Yan:It has to be.
Byron Yan:But you can't.
Byron Yan:If you're intellectually and emotionally honest, the picture that I've been building was a picture of me, which is what you're saying, like the next consistent puzzle piece would have been.
Byron Yan:Start managing the story.
Byron Yan:Right, right.
Tullian Chavidjian:Yeah.
Tullian Chavidjian:When my first run at Repentance, Flawless impersonation.
Tullian Chavidjian:There was always a very accurate description of what I did, a brief silence and a.
Byron Yan:But sure, nobody knows the trouble I've seen.
Jean Leroux:Yeah.
Byron Yan:And so that's definitely in there at that moment.
Byron Yan:It took the better part of three years.
Byron Yan:After that, Valerie and I married while I was on probation.
Byron Yan:It was November.
Tullian Chavidjian:Also.
Tullian Chavidjian:Fabulous Grace.
Jean Leroux:What was.
Jean Leroux:What.
Jean Leroux:When was that?
Byron Yan: ,: Jean Leroux:Okay.
Byron Yan:And wow.
Byron Yan:Yeah, it was amazing.
Byron Yan:We had a great.
Byron Yan:All the kids got married on SEC football Saturday in a college town, Oxford, Mississippi.
Byron Yan:Whoop, whoop.
Byron Yan:Hotty Toddy.
Byron Yan:Absolutely.
Byron Yan:And then.
Byron Yan:And then God started to say, okay, now that we've wet ourselves, no go Hallmark movie only.
Tullian Chavidjian:Stop.
Tullian Chavidjian:Right?
Byron Yan:Just stop.
Byron Yan:And it's been beautiful ever since she and I were hired by Trippin Joanna Gaines to create a whole homewares line.
Byron Yan:No, it was a shit show, because all the stuff we.
Byron Yan:So I'm gonna.
Byron Yan:Let's fast forward all the way to.
Byron Yan:We'll get close.
Byron Yan:We'll.
Byron Yan:We'll go back three months and then go forward.
Byron Yan:Three months ago, Valerie and I sat eye to eye, knee to knee, on the floor.
Tullian Chavidjian:Three months ago.
Tullian Chavidjian:From where we're sitting right here.
Byron Yan:Correct.
Byron Yan:And I said to her, I used you when I married you because I needed a wife to get back into ministry.
Byron Yan:And she said, and I used you when I married you because I needed a dad for Hannah, Maria, and help paying the bills.
Byron Yan:Start there.
Jean Leroux:Yeah.
Byron Yan:Three months ago.
Byron Yan:This isn't three victorious years ago.
Byron Yan:This is three months ago.
Byron Yan:Not because I'm so astute, because my therapist finally said, are you ready to finally say the fucking truth?
Jean Leroux:And at this point, you've been married for six years when you have this conversation.
Byron Yan:Correct.
Byron Yan:I mean, we've been through therapy.
Byron Yan:We've been intensives.
Byron Yan:What I didn't know and what she didn't know is we were both building a mosaic and we kept stealing pieces from each other.
Byron Yan:Wait, that piece.
Byron Yan:If I don't have that piece for my picture, then my life won't be okay.
Byron Yan:And she goes, but if I don't have that piece for my picture, then my life won't be okay.
Byron Yan:And we just.
Byron Yan:You took my picture.
Byron Yan:And we had to tear them up, because until then, we had just been negotiating the exchange of puzzle pieces.
Byron Yan:What will you give me for that one?
Byron Yan:What will I give you for this one.
Byron Yan:Will it work out?
Byron Yan:And it's been in this process that we go, okay, that the Idolaters Anonymous club is welcoming new members.
Byron Yan:And to be able to really say that.
Byron Yan:And it's taken that amount of time, that amount of therapy, group therapy, individual therapy, pastoral counsel, counsel from friends, and my horoscope.
Tullian Chavidjian:What are you, by the way?
Jean Leroux:Taurus, Pisces, Cancer.
Tullian Chavidjian:Makes sense.
Byron Yan:Like the cancer question yesterday.
Tullian Chavidjian:It explains all of us.
Byron Yan:It does.
Byron Yan:Next week, the moon of Jupiter.
Byron Yan:And so I guess what I'd say is, it's live.
Byron Yan:I mean, I want the Hallmark story.
Byron Yan:I really do.
Byron Yan:I mean, I'd like to be able to say.
Byron Yan:And then.
Byron Yan:And then after court, we went and had dinner at Cracker Barrel.
Tullian Chavidjian:There was a Cajun version of the Hallmark movie.
Tullian Chavidjian:It would be phenomenal if you fear were the lead.
Byron Yan:But it.
Jean Leroux:But it's live.
Jean Leroux:The struggle is real.
Jean Leroux:It's.
Jean Leroux:It's now.
Jean Leroux:It's not.
Jean Leroux:It's now.
Byron Yan:I was packing my truck to come and record with us, and we had gotten in an argument.
Byron Yan:I don't even know what it was about.
Byron Yan:But we're aware enough of our propensity to build the picture that Val knew.
Byron Yan:She said, you know what?
Byron Yan:This is not the week that we need to spin the top.
Byron Yan:So she said, you know what?
Byron Yan:You want me to go see Hannah Maria for a week in school, and I can just work from the apartment and it'll be great and give you some space because I care enough about you to leave right now, because I know that if we get into it, it's going to spin you up.
Byron Yan:And at first, the thought was intoxicating.
Byron Yan:I was like, honk, honk.
Byron Yan:You know, can I get your bag for you?
Byron Yan:And then I thought, wait a minute.
Byron Yan:Only a person self aware enough to know that that would be a problem is actually safe enough to be around.
Byron Yan:So if you know that you don't trust yourself, then now I trust you.
Byron Yan:And it was so beautiful.
Byron Yan:I was like.
Byron Yan:And I told her that.
Byron Yan:I said, you know, I think the answer would have been yes.
Byron Yan:But now that you ask, it's no.
Tullian Chavidjian:Are those.
Tullian Chavidjian:Are those sorts of things, skills that you, the two of you have learned, tools that you have learned to love each other.
Byron Yan:If I say anything that sounds remotely healthy, it is something I learned.
Byron Yan:It is not.
Byron Yan:It is not a tool that comes naturally in my toolbox.
Byron Yan:If.
Byron Yan:If it comes out of me, you're like, man, that sounds like a really good decision.
Byron Yan:You're really.
Tullian Chavidjian:You're stabilized.
Byron Yan:No, that is triage.
Byron Yan:They Pack the wound.
Byron Yan:No, I.
Byron Yan:My life, my.
Byron Yan:If you get to the under story, the image is everything.
Byron Yan:And if anything gets in the way of the puzzle piece you want, you just crush it.
Byron Yan:And so if you go back to the story and each of the little vignettes, it was about me asserting, getting big so I could control the narrative in Huntsville.
Byron Yan:I could control my wife with the marriage to Kim.
Byron Yan:I can control my image.
Byron Yan:I can control all of those things.
Byron Yan:And the way you do that is you open the toolbox and there's a hammer.
Byron Yan:And when you have a hammer, everything's a nail.
Tullian Chavidjian:That's right.
Byron Yan:Everything's a nail.
Byron Yan:I remember there was a guy who was talking to me about discipleship, which.
Byron Yan:I don't like that word, but he was a friend of mine who happened to be talking to me about his shit.
Byron Yan:And I talked to him about my shit.
Byron Yan:That's the better definition of discipleship.
Byron Yan:And he said to me, I was telling him something, and this is when the kids were a little bitty.
Byron Yan:I was talking about my obsession to have the room picked up and the toys put in certain places and control the environment.
Byron Yan:And he said, can I ask you a question?
Byron Yan:I said, sure.
Byron Yan:He said, how do you think your kids will ever go to God when their lives are messy if.
Byron Yan:If they can't make it through the afternoon for fear that their dad will come home?
Jean Leroux:Bro, that is gold.
Jean Leroux:It's gold.
Byron Yan:And I said, exactly right.
Byron Yan:It's exactly right.
Jean Leroux:And it's exactly what tens of thousands of people have learned about God.
Jean Leroux:Not just from parents, but Christian schools, churches, youth groups, Sunday school classes.
Byron Yan:From me.
Jean Leroux:Well, yes, but I reported that story.
Byron Yan:Until God destroyed me with grace.
Byron Yan:That was.
Byron Yan:Yeah, I mean, I was a part of the problem.
Byron Yan:Yeah, you're right.
Jean Leroux:But we.
Jean Leroux:You're.
Jean Leroux:He's exactly right.
Jean Leroux:We communicate something about God even when we're not communicating something explicitly about God.
Jean Leroux:There's no question.
Tullian Chavidjian:Yeah, I'm glad you re articulated that, because I'm certain there are people's visions, views, perspectives of God that are shaped like the tens of thousands.
Jean Leroux:No question.
Tullian Chavidjian:And they don't even know.
Jean Leroux:They don't know it.
Tullian Chavidjian:They don't.
Byron Yan:Right?
Jean Leroux:No, no, no.
Byron Yan:God is the Father who walked hand in hand with Valerie into the judges chambers and pled for my exoneration and sat with me in a prison cell waiting for them to call my number and come to court.
Jean Leroux:Yeah.
Byron Yan:And he was in both places.
Jean Leroux:Sure.
Byron Yan:And it's.
Byron Yan:That's what's so beautiful about grace.
Byron Yan:And in the gospel, it it, it makes you a gracious person.
Byron Yan:It turns you into that.
Tullian Chavidjian:Put some texture on grace in this context.
Tullian Chavidjian:Like you give it for the listener that like, I think they're right.
Tullian Chavidjian:I'm view of God has been shaped.
Tullian Chavidjian:How would you change their perspective?
Tullian Chavidjian:By leaning into the idea of.
Byron Yan:There was a billboard in Huntsville, Alabama on Governor's Avenue that had been there forever when I went to work for the church in Huntsville.
Byron Yan:And the billboard said, God's not mad at you no matter what, and I can't be true.
Byron Yan:I drove by it the first time and I thought, it's missing the asterisk.
Byron Yan:Except fill in the blank, right?
Tullian Chavidjian:Jean Le Roux.
Byron Yan:Right.
Byron Yan:Unless you're me or.
Byron Yan:Unless you're you or in that moment of shame.
Byron Yan:And what, what grace is, is that that billboard signs his name and puts your name at the top.
Byron Yan:Like you.
Byron Yan:I really can't screw this up.
Byron Yan:Like, I can't run so far that I've run off of the foundation of who you are.
Jean Leroux:That is an impossible concept for people to get.
Jean Leroux:And there's a reason for that.
Jean Leroux:Well, there are hosts of reasons for that.
Jean Leroux:The primary one being, we are conditional people who live in a conditional world with other conditional people.
Jean Leroux:There is nothing in our lives, no relationship, no attachment to anything, person, place or thing that is unconditional.
Jean Leroux:It is impossible for us to be unconditional people in this life.
Byron Yan:There.
Tullian Chavidjian:There's a phenomenon in cinema, particularly science fiction, that anything that has to do with an alien, there's a reason an alien all.
Tullian Chavidjian:You can always relate it to something in your experience.
Tullian Chavidjian:They.
Tullian Chavidjian:You can't create an alien that isn't comprised of something in our visual experience.
Tullian Chavidjian:You've never seen.
Tullian Chavidjian:They do have eyes, long arms or tentacles or all these things.
Tullian Chavidjian:But what we have to work with in our creativity ceiling is that.
Tullian Chavidjian:And grace has always been like that to me.
Tullian Chavidjian:It's like it's literally inconceivable to fully form it in our minds because what we have to work with here limits our understanding.
Jean Leroux:It's like John in Revelation when he's describing this vision of heaven or Ezekiel with the wheel.
Tullian Chavidjian:He's going, well, he's like, it kind.
Jean Leroux:Of looks like what I think may be a sea of glass.
Jean Leroux:It's not a sea of glass, but it kind of looks like.
Jean Leroux:It's almost like there's absolutely no reference point.
Jean Leroux:And so the unconditionality of God's grace and love, his one way love, is so otherworldly without any reference point for us in our everyday experience that it is actually impossible for us to understand it unless God opens our eyes to see glimpses of it.
Jean Leroux:And when Valerie shows up on your behalf, I mean, that is.
Jean Leroux:That is a glimpse of grace, that God is there just to remind you or anybody in the situation.
Jean Leroux:I've had tons of those from various people.
Jean Leroux:So is Byron, So have you.
Jean Leroux:It's just a reminder that I know this doesn't make sense, but it's true.
Byron Yan:Well, I'll add one more and then we can do some questions.
Tullian Chavidjian:Sure.
Byron Yan:I'm sure I left things out, but y'all will.
Byron Yan:I'll take your questions.
Tullian Chavidjian:You roll, you land it when you want to.
Byron Yan:So if you ask me, you know, what is grace, right?
Byron Yan: It is fall of: Byron Yan:Valerie and I have married in November of 18.
Byron Yan:In the fall of 19, the football season comes around and we're SEC people and our fat.
Byron Yan:We have a family reunion once a week in Austin.
Tullian Chavidjian:There's an actual season where we're from, like fall, winter, spring.
Byron Yan:And you don't plan a wedding.
Byron Yan:Then, if you're listening.
Byron Yan:And we go every week, we tailgate in at Ole Miss.
Byron Yan:And it's great, and the kids are there.
Byron Yan:But it was the first time since Valerie and I had been together that we were there.
Byron Yan:And one of the kids had invited their mom, my ex wife, Kim, and she was coming to the Grove for the first time.
Byron Yan:And you could sense, I mean, we'd all been tailgating together.
Byron Yan:I mean, I'd been there with Kim as a wife, and now with Valerie as a girlfriend, with Valerie as a wife, but I mean, and then with Kim as an ex wife, but never in the Grove tent.
Byron Yan:These are 10 by 10 pop up tents, few of them together in there with a present wife and an ex wife.
Byron Yan:And you could feel it like, I feel it here.
Jean Leroux:I've been there.
Tullian Chavidjian:I feel it right now.
Jean Leroux:I've been there.
Jean Leroux:Not in the tent.
Byron Yan:Gus, we're going to need the bourbon and trigger.
Byron Yan:Trigger warning.
Byron Yan:And so you could feel it among the friends, among the kids and everything else.
Byron Yan:And we are sitting there and you heard one of the older kids say, oh, mom's here.
Byron Yan:And then you could look in this path.
Byron Yan:And I mean, of course, y'all have seen pictures.
Byron Yan:There's tens of thousands of people.
Byron Yan:Kim is standing out in this open air portion where the public is not coming into the tent.
Tullian Chavidjian:Wow.
Byron Yan:And Val says, I don't think she'll come in here unless I go get her.
Byron Yan:So she walks out of the tent and throws her arms around my ex wife.
Byron Yan:She says, I'm so glad you're here.
Byron Yan:Kim said, I didn't know if it'd be okay.
Byron Yan:And she said, Valerie said this is where your family is.
Tullian Chavidjian:Yeah, she testified on her behalf as well.
Tullian Chavidjian:Yeah, dude, I don't have that gear.
Byron Yan:It.
Byron Yan:That's what grace is.
Byron Yan:And then if you fast forward two years, they're sitting together under the same tent talking about what they're going to do when I'm dead and planning your murder.
Byron Yan:They are planning on riding in the same limousine.
Byron Yan:Valerie.
Byron Yan:Valerie said, I'll get the life insurance.
Byron Yan:Kim said, I got everything when we divorced.
Jean Leroux:Yeah.
Jean Leroux:You are worth to them more dead than alive.
Jean Leroux:Both of them.
Byron Yan:And that is grace, too.
Tullian Chavidjian:And they're not joking.
Byron Yan:No, they're not.
Byron Yan:They're probably texting right now, laughing about it.
Byron Yan:So.
Tullian Chavidjian:Brother man, awesome.
Jean Leroux:Awesome.
Tullian Chavidjian:Yeah.
Tullian Chavidjian:Kind of without words.
Tullian Chavidjian:I don't.
Tullian Chavidjian:I don't.
Tullian Chavidjian:There's no bow to put on it.
Tullian Chavidjian:But I.
Tullian Chavidjian:I would say I love when I meet a person and a person's in my life and I notice these virtues, these.
Tullian Chavidjian:The benefits of close friendship, graces, that they have a gentleness, wisdom, whatever, and you wonder, where did that come from?
Tullian Chavidjian:And then where the source of that is in their story.
Tullian Chavidjian:And the closer you get to them, the more you can approximate that virtue was shaped by this experience and this attribute is shaped by that experience.
Tullian Chavidjian:And as you tell the story, I know you well and love you dearly.
Tullian Chavidjian:You've been such an unbelievable good friend to me.
Tullian Chavidjian:When you tell it, I'm like, I see it.
Tullian Chavidjian:I still don't know where your sense of humor came from.
Tullian Chavidjian:That's just my mother nature nurture.
Tullian Chavidjian:But.
Tullian Chavidjian:And you also can rewind that story and see how grace begins to eclipse fear and self loathing and all those things.
Byron Yan:So we're a work in progress.
Byron Yan:And when we talked the other day, I think for me there'd be one takeaways like, grace is live.
Byron Yan:It's not.
Byron Yan:We're not.
Byron Yan:These aren't rearview mirror stories for us in this.
Byron Yan:It's live.
Tullian Chavidjian:Were you the one that said that the struggles live too?
Byron Yan:I don't know.
Byron Yan:I think you did that.
Byron Yan:Like, struggle is real is real.
Jean Leroux:Yeah, the struggle is real.
Byron Yan:You've been listening to the misfit preachers.
Byron Yan:Like subscribe and share more grace centered resources@prodigalpodcasts.com that's Prime Prodigal P R O D I G A L podcasts with an S combat.
