Hello, my name is Salvador and I want to share my testimony how I came to Christ.
I remember you know just the last time that I was living in and I felt like,
I'd have a plan and a purpose, there was no hope and there was no future for me.
I didn't know anything better you know what to do with my life besides drink, get high,
party and the way life was you know, I was just in this world. I seen a lot of bad things you know,
I've seen the ugliness to addiction. When the first time, I smoked weed that I felt like this
peace you know this I enjoyed the feeling because it helped me cope with whatever I
was going on inside of me. My father wasn't in the picture. My mom was a single mother trying to
work to provide for us and you know, I was always looking for acceptance to my friends. I was always
looking for a father or a friend or an older brother or someone to comfort me, growing up in
high school, I just I didn't care about school, I would just skip school and get high. By the time,
I was like a sophomore in school, I was like a full-blown alcoholic. I didn't care you know,
I was just angry and bitter. I didn't care about anything. I didn't care about myself. I just
cared about getting high you know whether it was stealing for my mom to breaking into cars and just
doing all these nonsense to smoke weed you know to drink, to have money because I always felt like,
I never had the support of anybody. My mom, my father so you know as I grew older,
I just started drinking more, partying more and hanging around the wrong crowd. I remember,
we moved to another side of town and you know there was gangs and there was drugs and there
was party scene and you know, I just I felt like the people I was around like I could relate to all
these people because all my friends, they were all fatherless. They have friends. They all like to
smoke weed and party and they were just they were hurting deep inside. So we always had like a point
of like comprehension with one another you know like a bond ship. When I became 18, I remember
I was partying in a trailer somewhere and we destroyed the trailer and
I went to jail that night, a blacked out drunk woke up in jail and my life came upside down
you know I woke up and I was wearing an orange jumpsuit and everybody was wearing
blue and you don't know why and I'm like ,why am I wearing orange, why everybody's wearing blue and I
was just in confusion and chaos and somebody told me that I was looking at prison time.
And people ask me like, do you know what happened? I'm like, No you know and I think that's what
my drinking started getting out of control. I constantly be blacking out and started living with
people who were in gangs and were drug dealers and I just remember just liking to party and have
friends and feel protected you know by people you know I feel like a sense of belonging and
that led me to drugs, you know led me to cocaine and it led me to crystal meth and heroin and I
started selling drugs and I just made a lot of bad mistakes you know being around that drug scene,
I've seen so much. I just remember that I needed to get high. I didn't realize when
addiction took over my life. It happened so fast that when I realized it, I couldn't stop getting
high. I would constantly get sick and how to figure out a way to get high and I had to be
constantly around bad stuff. Now I remember, as I was living at lifestyle I just felt like this
fear you know of dying, this fear of not getting high. I kept living this lifestyle, I remember
just feeling so alone and so empty and so fearful and I always knew that God existed and I knew
that He was the only One that can save me from my misery and everything that I was going through. I
remember God talking to me through music, through Christian hip-hop music, through radio station. I
can just feel God's drawing my heart and I felt just drawn to Him you know, I eventually started
listening to sermons on the radio and it gave me courage to know who this God was. I was tired of
living the way I was living and I knew, I needed change. So I started going to church. I would go
to this church and they had a parole section, where I saw you know welcome I felt like I
belonged somewhere and I just remember that, I wanted God so bad but I couldn't stop getting
high. I was living a double lifestyle mind, trying to get high and do all these bad things but have
the blessings of God and it was just leading me down a path of destruction. I just remember being
tormented in my mind by the enemy, by fear, by addiction you know just empty and feeling
rejected my life, I just felt like I had nobody. I had nothing like I burned every bridge in my life,
like I don't push everybody away with my addiction and it was tough you know, it was very tough that
my family didn't want to be around me. They had to push me away because you know they didn't know
what can happen to them. I remember one Wednesday night, specifically as I was getting high in
the parking lot with crystal meth that it was a Wednesday night deliverance service at this church
and I'll go to this church but I always wanted to get close to God but I didn't know how. I didn't
really know God. I knew about God. I knew about Jesus but I never personally encountered Him.
I just knew that He was calling me. I remember this particular Wednesday recovery night, I went
into church and I sat down and the pastor, he was giving an altar call and he was asking somebody,
if you want to give your life to Christ, I mean to come up to the altar and I remember that I
needed God. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and I remember, I wanted to get up
but I just remember feeling bound to my chair. I felt like I couldn't get up like something
was weighing me down, you know I just had this desperation to want to get to God but not having
the strength or whatever to get up you know, I just remember the pastor, he just locked eyes
on me and it was like a big church you know, there was hundreds you know a thousand people
there and he was just walking towards his way and I just remember seeing God on his face you know,
having compassion, he just walking to me were like love and and grace and and mercy of God you know,
I knew this is what I needed. I remember, when he came up to me and he put his hand on my shoulder
and I felt like chains fell off of my arms and my feet and I got up. I remember, he helped me get up
and he walked me to the altar and I remember, when I was in the altar that he asked me if I wanted to
accept Christ into my life. I don't know what he asked me to say, I don't remember the moment but
I remember the feeling. I remember the feeling of encountering God and Him coming into my life.
His magnificent power, this high that I've been looking for, I remember being instantly sobered
and filled with love. I remember sitting there on my knees, crying. It was rivers flowing out of my
face, my shirt was drenched in tears because I always thought men don't cry and you gotta
hide your feelings and you know in reality, I was looking for relief you know I encountered God and
that night, I went into a hotel, slept the night, went into rehab, not knowing what Deliverance was,
it was the last day I ever got high. It was the last day, I ever drank alcohol. It was
the last day that I ever had to live that kind of lifestyle and now I've been clean
and sober for eight years here in July you know and you know, it's been the best decision in my
life to follow Christ. So after that you know I noticed that I was delivered that I was set
free that I no longer needed to get high or drink to satisfy myself that you know that I
had a purpose and a plan and that God had a plan for my life and ever since, I made that move,
I got involved with a community, I got involved in a church and you know I found people that were
going through the same things that are going through you know discipleship, people who've
been through it like real father figures who were there to know what I went through. I just
remembered just the love of God you know what I've been looking for a community, friends,
people that I can relate to who've been through what I've been through. My life is completely
transformed since I stopped getting high and drinking you know, my pastor started asking
me to get involved in the youth and he asked me to be a youth leader and he asked me to be one
of the ministers and he had me preaching on the pulpit. Here I am thinking I'm no good. God could
never use someone like me and maybe, you find yourself like me. Maybe you've been in and out,
you know you find yourself lost in addiction. You find yourself in a double lifestyle mind where you
you're trying to live in the world and and live for Christ. Man, I'm here to tell you that God
has a plan for your life and He wants to set you free. There's a purpose and plan for your life.
God has called you. He wants to set you free from the addiction, from the hurt you feel like God has
been drawing your heart and you feel like you want to make that decision to give your life to Christ
that you want to change your life. I want to encourage you to say this prayer you know it's not
a prayer that changes you, it's a decision in your heart. Just repeat your simple words after me,
Jesus Christ, I know that I am a sinner. I know that I sinned against you. I know God that I
need You God that I was heading down a destructive path and I need You in my life. Come into my life.
Fill my heart. Change my life. Set me free. Be my Lord and Savior, in Jesus Name. Amen.