I think I'll Start with my own Personal Story

I grew up in a Christian home, I went to Church almost every Sunday of my life. But it wasn't real to me, nothing was real to me. That's probably the reason when I was 16, and the two strongest influences in our Youth Group got hit and killed by a drunk driver, I started smoking and drinking and getting into the party scene at my school. As time went on, I only got worse and worse. "It's okay," I told myself all the time, "everyone else is doing it. Therefore it must be okay."
But it wasn't okay. my friends would only encourage my behavior and I would blissfully indulge into it. Things got so painful emotionally, I started cutting myself, in which I mistakenly found refuge. I had never told anyone about it. I kept doing the things I did before, but as time went on and on, I began to cut myself more and more. Until finally one day, I was sitting in my truck before Saturday in February wrestling practice, and I had decided I was done living. So I grabbed my piece of glass that I used to cut myself, and started slitting my wrist. But after I started, I felt something pulling on my heart. "There's got to be something better than this," I said to myself. So I pulled out my glass and bandaged myself up (thankfully I didn't get too far).
The next day I ran into one of my friends from the Youth Group that I had gone to in the past. She invited me to go back to the Youth Group, so I was like, "Sure, why not. I got nothing else to live for. So when I went back they were talking about their trip up to Twain Harte. The Youth Pastor came up to me and asked me if I would like to go, which I did want to but didn't have the money. So he asked me if I would go if money wasn't an issue and I said for sure. So he got me a scholarship for the trip and I went on it.
A week before the trip, was wrestling finals for the league. I made a deal with God by saying, "God, if you exist, help me do well in this tournament and I promise to go into the trip with an open heart" (this was when I was still questioning his existence). I ended up taking 1st place in the tournament.
Then, on the trip, God did wonders in my heart. I broke down crying and told accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I felt a joy come over me that I had never experienced before in my life. But finally, it was the first thing real I experienced.
But the story doesn't end there. As soon as I got home from my trip, I went right back to doing what I was doing before. Nobody had told me that I had to give up the thing I was doing before. But there was one crucial difference that made it all bad, I was using the grace of Christ as an excuse to do what I was doing.
March 24, 2006. AT&T Park. Speakers Blasting, everyone going insane. This was BattleCry. This was my first experience at a Youth Conference. And this was their first Stadium Event (it was put on by Teen Mania who usually did smaller events called Acquire the Fire or ATF for short) and it was packed. It was here where he CEO and President of Teen Mania Ministries called us out as Christians to, "Stop living in the pig pen." To stop living in the gunk of this world and step out of it and live for Christ. This is when I realized how I had been living was wrong and was presented with a choice. I could choose to continue living as I had been in this world, or I could live completely for Christ. Seeing as while living for this world almost killed me, I thankfully took the second choice.
July 2006, after only slipping a little and given up on smoking finally and working on giving up on drinking, I go to Lake Shasta with my Youth Group. The theme for that trip was Heaven in your head but Hell in your heart. I didn't really understand the theme until early this January, after I totaled my truck.
Last year, God sent me to Peru on a Mission trip with Teen Mania, and it was the poorest conditions I had ever been in, but it was the most fulfilling thing I have ever done.
Since then, I've gotten the amazing opportunity to share the Word of Christ in Mexico and Panama. God is so amazing, and so good to me. Pray, and you shall see.


And that's my story. it you want any more detail, just message me and I'll try to see what I can dig up.

In His Grip,
-Joe Diaz-Romero