Life Above Reproach

Juan Wissar

            I am a 44-year-old Hispanic.  I grew up in a city called Pacoima located in the San Fernando Valley.  At the age of 12, I started junior high school and I saw older guys kicking it with girls.  They were popular people (gang members) and that interested me.  I wanted to be like them; and at the age of 13, I became a gang member.  I was looking for love in all the wrong places.  At the age of 16, I got shot in the back, only one inch away from my spinal cord and that didn’t even stop me. 

            My mom was staying in Bell, California in the Los Angeles area.  It took me six or seven months to heal because I chose to have surgery.  I was bleeding internally as the bullet hit my lung.  After six months when I was doing better, I would go back and forth between Bell and Pacoima.

            At the age of 17, I learned how to sell drugs which lead to more gang banging.  I sold drugs off and on.  At the age of 25, I met my wife and started doing good and then I would fall back into using cocaine every now and then.  Then I started using meth a lot and selling drugs.

            In 2002, my wife and I had a baby boy.  I always wanted a boy, but I was still doing drugs and running the streets.  Then in 2008, my wife and I had our daughter, and still I was selling drugs and running the streets.  I put my family through a lot.  In 2017, I went to the emergency because I was not feeling good.  The doctor said I had heart failure and a clogged artery.  Yet, I still didn’t learn.

            It was about two and a half years ago when I caught my 2^nd case for selling.  I was a felon with a gun, but I still didn’t learn my lesson.  Then 17 months ago, I got caught by probation dropping off drugs at a buyer’s house.  His probation officer happened to be my probation officer, and they hit his house.  I got caught with more drug violations. 

            Look how good God works.  He’s always on time.  When I got to the county jail, the nurses took my vitals.  My blood pressure was 200 so the county jail wouldn’t take me.  I had to go to the hospital.  If I hadn’t gotten caught, I would have died.  After I got released from the hospital two days later, I called my wife and she said she didn’t want anything to do with me.  At the time I owed money for the drugs I had, and now the people I owed were calling my wife and threatening my family.  My wife paid it off; and after this, I decided that I’m done with the street life.  My family is more important to me. 

            A riot kicked off in the county jail and I was sent to the hole for 30 days.  I couldn’t talk to my family, and I was going crazy.  I got a bible while there in the hole and I started reading the Book of Job.  Reading Job made me think even more.  I got three years for my charges with half-time.  God is good.      My heart is doing better and I’m back to normal.  Jesus has restored my health and restored my life with my family.  Jesus is good!  He has shown me how to be a husband and a father; how to be humble and to love, how to be patient and how to think; how to be a man of God; and how to walk in the light and not in darkness.

            Jesus has been by my side since day one and so has my family.  Thank you, Jesus, for all you have done for me and my family.  Thank you for my salvation.

            Read Romans 1:15 through 8:2.

            Thank you for all the blessings and for my baptism on May 2, 2019.