Video Transcription

My name is Gonzalo Fajardo and I am 43 years old.

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California.

Very violent neighborhood, gangs and drugs, crime, yeah homicides in the streets. I was seven years old when I saw my first death in our neighborhood.

My mom was a single mom with a lot of kids for a long time and very frustrated woman and violence in my home was normal.

When I first met my wife, we were both into the same things, doing drugs, criminal mentality, wrong crowd of friends, just two broken crazy teenagers that fell for each other. I was a little bit scared. I was a little bit scared. I was a little bit scared. I was a little bit scared. I was a little bit scared. I was a little bit scared. I was a little bitâl I could not give her what I didn't have.

I didn't even love myself.

So in 2001, we left Oregon for Texas, thinking well maybe if we change where we live, the people we hang around with. Maybe we can start over, just start fresh. But we were still the same broken people, just a little older. We had careers, a family of Expanded our family, but still as broken as before. It got worse. I got extremely depressed. I got suicidal, manic, and I didn't understand it.

I realized then that it wasn't the place, that it was me that was broken.

Finally, my wife had enough, and then she left Texas to Oregon with my kids. At the moment, I was over the edge. About a week after she left, there was a night where I had my pistol. I had some drugs that someone had dropped off that night. So I had my pistol, those drugs. I was contemplating which way to go to end my life, and I just fell asleep. Now I feel like the Lord just gave me this peaceful rest, and I just passed out and fell asleep that night.

That third option, that lifeline that God handed me that night, is the reason I am here today. I woke up, and I remember this place called the Spiritual Growth Center that my wife and my mother-in-law were trying to get me to go for a while.

And I made the choice to start that journey. And for the first time in my life, I had said yes to God many times. I had a desperation as a child, but for the first time in my life, I did it with my spirit. I knew I meant it.

And those 90 days at the center were miraculously. Every day, I felt a different chain fall off. I mean, He healed me from manic depression overnight.

It wasn't a season. It was instantly for me. I got on a bus and left everything behind in Texas. After I got to Oregon, I connected with Hilaire and the kids shortly after that, and started going to the center. It was the same church that they were going to. And at some point, God spoke to my wife during worship and told her, take your husband. He has changed.

I'm talking miracle after miracle, and I could truly say right now that I love who I am. Because I love who God made. Not all that brokenness that I was. Not all that brokenness that I was. Not the scars that I carry emotionally and mentally and physically, but my essence that the Creator breathed into me when I came. I love that person. And that's what changed everything. I know who I am. I am His most precious creation. That's who we all are.

There's nothing God can't change. There's not a person He can't change. There's not a habit He can't break. There's not a stronghold that's too strong for Him to shatter.

You are definitely never too far gone to surrender to Him.