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RAFAEL
|
"I wanted somebody that would
understand me. I wanted someone that when I said to them what I had
gone through that I could have that shoulder to lean on as opposed to
being judged."
Linda had just moved from New York to live with family members in
Florida when she found that person. At her new school, she met Rafael.
He recalls, “When I got to school that day, I saw a group of
friends of mine, and I saw this new girl standing there. I said, 'Wow!
That’s a new girl. She’s beautiful.' So I walked up to the crowd and
introduced myself.”
Linda says, “As soon as I looked at him, I said, 'Wow.' I liked him at first sight.”
Linda and Rafael felt an instant connection and started spending time together.
“It was just a lot of talking at first. We fell in love that way,"
Linda says. "Me pretty much airing out all my feelings, all my
frustrations and him doing the same thing having gone through the life
that he lived.”
Rafael was coping with the loss of his mother. She was a drug
addict and died from AIDS when he was 13. Linda had her own problems.
“I looked to alcohol as a refuge due to everything that happened
in my childhood with my father drinking and the domestic violence that
was in the home," she says. "I was sexually abused at an early age.”
But their troubles were just beginning. Linda was only 16 and Rafael was15 when she became pregnant.
Rafael says, “There were people that were telling me, 'You guys
are too young to have a baby. Get rid of it.' 'Don’t worry about her.
Women have raised kids by themselves before.' You know, 'don’t throw
your future away.' But I was set on it. I was like, ‘I don’t care
what it takes. I’m gonna stay with Linda, and I’m gonna raise this
baby. We’re gonna have a family.'”
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LINDA
|
Rafael and Linda moved back to New York to live with Linda’s
family. After the baby was born, the young couple realized they
weren’t ready to settle down.
“We would still go to the clubs," Linda confesses. "We would still
go to the bars. So that life didn’t change. It was like now I had
somebody to join me at the clubs. I wasn’t drinking by myself. ”
Just three months after their first son’s birth, Linda got pregnant again.
“Because things were a little shaky at the time, we decided to
just get married," Rafael says. "We were like, 'OK, maybe it’s time to
make things right.'”
instead, they had more complications.
Rafael continues, “The problems really started once we got
married, and things became very, very difficult My stepfather passed
away, and we had custody of my brother and [our own] two children.”
Rafael worked hard to support his growing family. Then he met a man at work who made things even harder.
“One day he invites me to his house for lunch, and he pulls out a
bag of cocaine. I had vowed I would never do drugs. My mother was into
drugs, and she actually died of AIDS when I was 13-years-old. I always
vowed that I would never use drugs. So I was like, 'Put that away. Do
whatever you want but I don’t do that.' A week later, I don’t know
what happened, but we ended up at the same house. He pulled it out, and
this time I tried it. From the first time I tried it, I was hooked. I
was addicted."
Rafael’s addiction grew. He was soon spending $500 a day on drugs.
Linda recalls, “That’s why we lost everything. Every single dime
would go into his habit. We would get income tax check -- sometimes
$3,000, $4,000. I never saw them.”
“It was a really bad situation," Rafael says. "Lying to my wife,
wouldn’t come home. From the time I would get up in the morning, I
couldn’t resist having it. So I’d do whatever it took to get it.”
Again, Linda became pregnant, but she couldn’t take it anymore. She packed up the kids and left.
“I arrived at my sister’s house. He never followed me," Linda
shares. "He loved the drugs more than his family -- that’s how I saw
it.”
Linda realized that the one who would love her and never leave her
was God. She accepted Jesus as her Savior and began praying for
Rafael. Just three months later, she saw a flyer advertising a
revival.
"It said on the top that if you need a miracle come
at 7:30.”
Linda needed a miracle in her marriage. She convinced Rafael to come along.
“We’re sitting way in the back," Rafael says. "He starts to preach
his message, then he stops and he says, 'I’m not gonna preach yet.
There’s somebody here that’s tired of living the way they’ve been
living. The living God tells you today, if you give Him a chance, your
life will never be the same.'
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RAFAEL, LINDA AND SON
|
“A lot of people came, and they threw like boxes of cigarettes on
the altar. But he kept insisting that the Lord was saying that there
was still someone. He kept on and on until he finally just stood, right
in front of our section. He said, 'Somebody in this section, today is
your day.'”
Linda
says, "I was just praying and praying. Finally when I opened up my eyes
and I looked to the side, my husband was going to the front.”
Rafael opened up his heart to God and was immediately delivered from his drug addictions.
He says, “I instantly felt something change. I felt something
right away. I said, 'Whoa, something happened here.' And I cried. I
cried in front of that platform. My life has never been the same. I
haven’t touched another drug, another drink since that day.”
Rafael and Linda are now teaching their children about God’s power
and how He transformed their lives and brought them back together.
“We’ve had our ups and our downs like any family even after being
saved. But there’s one thing that I think is the most important thing
is that I have them there. I know that it’s because of God. God is
powerful. You give your life to God, and God will take care of you."
I don't know what you are going through or how you are going through it in your relationship. Jesus is here to help you out, Once you say Yes to him, he'll stand in for you. (MATTHEW 11VS28-30)
Do you have someone you will like us to pray for,send me a mail here adafindeji@yahoo.com or follow me and message me on Facebook @daygeeJohnson Adafin.
