One day it happened to me. My faith became weak and I started focusing on material things, not valuing the things that only God could have given me, so I took my wife and daughter, who was 2-years-old at the time, and left, thinking I would live this lavish lifestyle on the outside, but all I achieved were disappointments.

The world took hold of me, and before long, about 4 months after I left the Church, I sank into alcoholism, cigarettes, and soon after, I began using drugs. Six months after I left the Church, society considered me an addict. I wouldn’t wish that life on anyone. To make matters worse, my wife and I separated and I abandoned my daughter, without hope of ever getting back together. Drug dealers started threatening to kill me and I had a gun pointed at my head on several different occasions. I left Belo Horizonte and went to Sao Paulo to try to turn my life around, but this move just brought on more disgrace.

Until I started to think about when I was a pastor, when I preached the Word of God and people listened to me. So, while wandering around the beaches of Sao Paulo, I made the decision to return to my hometown in Belo Horizonte, because my daughter was terribly sick. However, once I was back to that situation, I sank deeper into drugs.

So one day, in the middle of an overdose, eager to find death, I heard the Voice of God. And He said, “Behold, I set before you life and death, now you choose. RIGHT NOW!”

In the height of despair, I cried out within myself: “I choose life!”

After all that suffering, God delivered me, because I made the decision to change, and it didn’t take very long for me to rebuild my life. I returned to my wife and to my daughter, and most importantly, I returned to the arms of Jesus, and He accepted me.

Today I have overcome and I’m back to where I should never have left: as a pastor, on the ALTAR.

BE STRONG! BECAUSE THERE IS STILL AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THOSE WHO FELL AWAY ONE DAY, BUT WANT TO RESTORE THEIR LIFE WITH GOD.

Reginaldo Ferreira Nabuco