Jesse Rodríguez

My name is Jesse, I am 24 years old and thanks to God's intervention in my life I am a completely new person. This is the testimony of His rescue…

I was born into a newly formed family (I am the first of four siblins). My parents both met the Lord years ago and I grew up in a healthy environment. I attended our congregation since I was born, I was educated according to Christian principles and surrounded by a healthy environment. But that wasn't enough to make me a good person. My problem had nothing to do with what others did. It was not about being mistreated or bullied at school, and it was not about having a bad childhood (my childhood was privileged). The real  problem in my life was me. It was the fact that I preferred evil to good, and that my heart was inclined towards evil for as long as I can remember. 

My will always had to be carried out, but making sure I was not causing problems; I had a strong desire to be loved and appreciated from a very young age, and I had to combine that with always having my will fulfilled. So one of the first evils that I remember in my life was lying. I quickly realized that if I did something wrong, something that made me look bad in front of my parents, something that would result in punishment, I could avoid it by lying. I remember the terrible shame I felt when one of my lies was exposed when I was just over two or three years old. I never wanted to look this bad again! So I quickly became very skilled at lying, and I resorted to it, not only to get my way, but to look good to others, to appear interesting... and as I grew up, the lie grew with me until it began to be part of my life. of my reality, that border between what is real and what is fictional became very tenuous... truly crazy.

This dance with lies turned me into a person full of insecurities, fears and appearances. I always tried to appear what I thought others wanted to see in me. It enslaved me, it dominated me completely, and it determined my identity and my personality. I couldn't be who I knew I had to be and I changed my attitudes, opinions and even my personality like someone who changes clothes depending on the weather outside. I had one personality at school, another at church, another with my parents, another with my siblings... and at the same time I was ashamed of who I really was, not wanting to be the person I knew I should be... I knew I was a Christian and that I had principles, in fact my parents set the limits that the word of God sets to guide their children in righteousness. I hated those limits with all my heart. I knew they were for my own good but I hated them because they made me different from the rest. I couldn't tolerate the shame of not being able to go out with my classmates after school, or not having a cell phone when it started to become popular. My parents wanted to protect me from the deadly dangers in the world and from growing up crookedly but I didn't want to.

That's when rebellion truly started in my heart, and soon it began to show itself at home. At first it was  hidden, since I did not dare to face authority openly, but soon it enslave me more and more. That was when I completely lost control. I gave free rein to evil in my life, not that I ever had it, but I had gave myself over to it completely since pretending to be a good boy was no longer convenient for me. The monster that had been brewing during my childhood began to be revealed itself as I became a teenager.

And where was God in all this? Who was He to me? All my life I had been hearing about Him, I had gone to church and Bible school, the inner circle of friends and family I had were all believers, my mother every morning spoke to me and my brothers about the word and what God wanted from us, I didn't go out partying, I didn't live a life of parental ease that my schoolmates did, but despite all this I had no relationship with God. And as time went by I became hardened towards everything that had to do with God. Being a "Christian" made me different in the eyes of the world, it restricted me from doing what I wanted and I came to detest everything that had to do with God. There were specific times when He touched my heart and in those moments I wanted to say yes to him. I did want the life that he offered me if I dedicated my life to him... but the decisions I made were based on the emotions of the moment and had no solid foundation, so every time I said yes to God, my commitment lasted a couple of weeks at most. This was the tone of my life until adolescence, when total rebellion towards everything that represented God came.

At this point I was not able see God's love for me. I can't understand it yet because if anyone was his enemy, it was me. If anyone deserved a life apart from Him, it was me. If anyone deserved the harsh eternal consequences of consciously blaspheming God as I did, it was me. But God has been incomprehensibly GOOD to me! At fourteen years old, some terrible things that I was doing in secret came to light. My parents confronted me about it but I did not change. Instead, I started to  coexist with them and so, the decision was made for me to go to Vida Nueva. I saw it as another adventure, as if I was going to a summer camp. By living this crucial moment in my life in this frivolous way, I did not allow God to do the work of salvation and restoration that He wanted to do in me. 

I continued with the appearance and the lies, I continued to be inclined and attracted towards evil. And what could have been the precious turning point in my life ended in eight months. I learned more harm than good (for hanging out with those I shouldn't have and for hiding my sin) and leaving with more hatred in my heart, with more harshness against God and the church. In the year that followed, my life took a dizzying downward trend, where I began to go into very dark and gloomy holes, where everything didn't matter to me, where the only thing that mattered to me was myself and feeling good about myself. I became an unbearable and terribly proud teenager, thinking that because I had a certain ease in studies I was superior to the rest, mocking my mother's faith, hating my father and refusing to speak to him, slave to a terrible rivalry towards my brothers and with a corrosive envy towards my sister. But God kept pursuing me. HE NEVER STOP DOING IT.

A year later the situation at home became unsustainable due to the problems that I and my brother caused and my mother made the decision to join the Community as a family. And that's where God grabbed me and where he hasn't let me go yet. I had arrived at the hospital, I had arrived at the place where I would be told the truth, I would be treated, I would be helped out of my slavery, I would be taught to live again... I didn't see it that way at first, my whole being rebelled against having to submit to authority and having to obey the rules. But by the grace and mercy of God he surrounded me with the things, the people and the treatment that I needed. I was given simple orders to obey, and in doing so the strongholds of sin in me were gradually demolished. I was able to take steps such as asking for forgiveness from my mother for all the damage and stress I caused her, from my sister for having treated her so badly for years, I was able to forgive those who had hurt me, I was able to confess many things that had remained hidden, the relationship with my father could begin to be restored... but all this was not in my strength, it was impossible for me to do anything other than what sin dictated. It was the grace and power of God that He poured out on me in every small obedience, in every treatment. It was his love that was breaking my very hard heart, and that love became tangible in the people who had to deal with me. I was never reproached for anything, I was never condemned, I was treated with a dignity infinitely superior to what I deserved. And so God broke my heart. He had to invest a lot of time, and it took many tears. Many times I wanted to leave and give up and I was on the verge of ruining everything.

But God ALWAYS had mercy. He put authority over my life, excellent examples to follow. He has done the impossible in me: he has made me a completely new person. I cannot understand it and I am falling extremely short when trying to explain it, I was a staunch enemy of the gospel, if anyone did not deserve the blood of Jesus shed in his favor it was me... but he had mercy. And only He could save me, no one else. And now my life is his, he belongs to him, he has bought it with his blood, he has more than paid the price for it to belong to him. And there is no better life than that, it is being much better than I would have ever thought. It's not that it was worth it to give my life to Jesus, it's that it was the only option. That is the quality of love with which he has loved me. And all that love of the Father has been translated through the Vida Nueva center. That's how special this place is. Today I can call the place that I once hated with all my heart my home, my family. And it is all due to the tremendous and wonderful power of the gospel, which God has made so easy to follow that even the most clumsy can walk in it (and the most clumsy is me).

So GLORY be to GOD for everything he has done and what he continues to do. Because there are still things to change and deal with daily. I'm just starting to live this new life, there is a lot to learn. But thanks to Him I am another person. That's how my Father is.