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Joseph Rojas: I was a drug addict. I had a $400 a day cocaine addiction. I didn’t really believe in God, you know, to be honest, growing up. My mother would take me to Mass like once a year and that was like Easter, you know, and then sometimes on a Christmas Eve, you know, she would take us, but I grew up without a father. My father used to beat my mother and my only memories of my father were of the last time he beat her, you know, and I was 3 and a half years old and I was ten feet away. So I grew up with that image in my mind and without having a father in my life, a father figure, you know, to be there for me.

And so at 14 years old was the first time that I tried cocaine. 12 years old was the first time I thought about suicide. I was a fat kid growing up, you know, I never got picked for any teams. As you can see, I don’t look like Brad Pitt, you know what I mean? I always struggled with a weight problem, you know, and people made find of me a lot and so I got put down quite a bit, and drugs were a way of coping with that. It was a way for me to deal with the pain. By the age of 21 years old, I had a $400 a day cocaine addiction, and by around 22 years old I was a 4-time convicted felon, by the age of 22. And there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about committing suicide. I stole from my own mother to get high, a mother that did nothing but love me and be there for me. But drugs had a hold of me.

Three years before my 21st birthday my mother met this lady that took her to church. My mom was so desperate looking for help for me that this lady just said, “You need to come to church and hear about Jesus,” and my mom went and gave her life to Christ and she came back and she would always tell me about God.

Anyway, one day I just decided that I was done living. At the age of 22 I decided that I was done living and I was going to end my life. I was tired of hurting my mother. I took a lethal dose of cocaine to stop my heart. My mother had a mother’s intuition, and she left work and came home. She wasn’t the one who was supposed to find me, but she left and came home because she was felt something was wrong. As she walked in, I tried to walk over to her to tell her how sorry I was for breaking her heart, and I took about two steps and then I had a heart attack in front of my mother on her living room floor. She was screaming and crying out to this God in Heaven that I didn’t believe in. In the back of the ambulance I felt the power of God, and I said, “Jesus, would you save me?” I said, “I don’t know how to pray, I don’t even know a Bible verse. I don’t know what to say to you but if you could make some sense out of my words then I would gladly give my life to you tonight.” That was the first time in my life that I ever felt like I got picked, and it was the first time in my life I ever knew the love of a father.

I started going to church with my mom and there was this youth pastor that spoke into my life, and he began to mentor me and tell me more about Jesus, you know. Today I’m a husband that honors my wife, Laurie, and I’m madly in love with her. We’ve been married eight year, and after eight years of marriage my wife still gives me butterflies in my stomach when I look at her. I’m a father that loves my kids more than life itself. Seven months ago I led my own father to Jesus. And God did that for me. But that’s where I was and this is where I am now, and that’s how powerful God is.