Victory over cancer, poverty, alcoholism, depression, and death.
Our family overcame it all and now lives free with a fully restored marriage! This is a real-life story of my miraculous journey with the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Story
My wife and I began our marriage following some really terrible circumstances. We were both on an emotional rebound and seeking comfort from anything and everything. I was beginning to rebuild my life after I had lost my first wife of ten years to cancer. My wife was rebuilding her life after a severely abusive relationship of seven years. She had a son from her prior relationship and I had two sons from my first wife. Despite having several rocky years together without any spiritual foundation or relationship with the Lord, we decided to marry; and had two more children together. We had been attracted to each other mostly for physical and superficial reasons. Both of us were obsessed with material things and chased after money. As a result, our family was constantly broke and looking for happiness, satisfaction, and approval. Under these conditions, our marriage soon began to crumble.
I decided that I needed to leave. I sent my two sons from my previous marriage to Florida to live with their grandparents, and I started work in Texas for about a year. My wife was left at home, against her will, by herself with our other children. In her desperation, loneliness, and bitterness, she cried out to the Lord for something more. She began to sincerely seek God with the help of Pastor Jerry and Pastor Janeth Santiago, as well as the leaders of United Faith Church. When I returned home from Texas, we continued an abusive and unfaithful marriage. I was not paying the mortgage and lost our house to a short sale. Our minivan was repossessed and bills were piling up. However, the Lord in His Mercy gave us a new place to live. We then began attending United Faith Church in Barnegat, New Jersey. We were seeking answers as to why our lives had fallen apart. We began to see how loving the Lord had been to us, even in our worst times.
Then suddenly, my wife was diagnosed with cancer. I immediately feared losing a second wife to this disease and fell off the deep end. I turned to alcohol to ease the pain and to forget the reality of my life. I left my home, my wife, and my children for a second time and started living in unheated and unfinished homes I was working to renovate. I was drinking my life away while my wife was getting ready for cancer surgery. I could not bring myself to go home, see my kids, be there fully for my wife during her surgery, or be in church.
God’s Great Plans
Needless to say, I needed a great deal of help. Through many phone conversations with Pastor Janeth Santiago, she began to councel me and was committed to the Lord for the salvation of my soul. After much struggle and prayer, The Lord came down upon me on New Year’s Eve two years ago as I was speaking with Pastor Janeth on the phone. My eyes were truly opened in that moment to see all that I had lost in trying to live life my own way. I understood the truth that I had truly betrayed all those who loved me and meant the most to me. Pastor Jerry and Pastor Janeth Santiago were a tremendous help to me. Through their love for me and the Lord Jesus Christ, they were unwavering in helping me to see myself through the mirror of the Word of God. I could see the truth of who I really was, and who I was not.
Pastor Jerry served as the strong Godly pillar of the Lord who I looked up to and wanted to be like. He, too, continued to show me how to compare myself to the Word of God in order to see my true state. With their help, I defeated the pride and selfishness that was woven within me from my past. It was only then that the Lord came into my life and turned my heart towards Him and gave me the victory! Immediately following my wife’s surgery, Pastor Jerry and Pastor Janeth Santiago, along with members of United Faith Church, helped to take care of my wife for three months in the slow recovery process. It was then that my wife and I started to truly believe in this all-loving and patient God. God began healing my wife, my marriage, and my entire family. I stopped drinking instantly and completely through the power of the Lord. I was able to move back home and my wife and I began to rebuild our marriage and the relationship with our kids, not my way but the Lord’s way. The Lord has restored our children from the pain they endured during the time in which my marriage was broken and I was in alcoholism. My wife fully recovered from her surgery and to this day is cured of her cancer. The Lord also continues to heal her from the abusive childhood she endured. Our eyes have been opened to see the glorious ways of the Lord and His power to move in our lives.
Together under Him we are free, a new creation in Christ. The Lord even allowed our son whom I had sent to live in Florida with his grandparents to come back home to live with us. The Lord continues to watch over our oldest son still living in Florida. He is now beginning college as an “A” student with the ambition of attending medical school. My entire career has completely turned around, and we have been saved from the depths of poverty, with money in the bank. In every aspect of our lives, the Lord has given us more than we have ever had before. Our marriage is nothing like it used to be, healed beyond our wildest imagination… and all this is just the beginning! God has opened our eyes to see things we would never have seen if we had stayed on our former paths. The Lord has opened doors for us and closed the doors on those who were against us. How faithful, loyal, and loving He has been to my wife, my family, and to me. I thank God for the victory that only He can give.
Praise God for Pastors that did not give up on this family and who truly hear and believe all the plans that the Lord has for us! Our love for our pastors is truly beyond measure. This true life story shows how the power of the Lord can take what the enemy meant for bad and use it for His good and for His glory. Thank JESUS for His true resurrection power and might! Thank the Father GOD in Heaven!! AMEN!!!
To read more about the victory found in the Lord Jesus Christ, please visit unitedfaithchurch.org in Barnegat New Jersey.