Daniel's Story
Hi, I'm Daniel and I'm 16 years old.
Many times, we have to go through difficult situations in life. That’s been my case.
Since I was little, I lived with my mother and 3 siblings, I never had a father, and that was the most difficult part because in moments when I wanted a father to correct me so that I didn't go down the wrong path, my dad was never there. When I needed a fatherly hug, he was never there. I was taught by my mother, she taught me good values. And my brother taught me how to earn a living by working hard. I had the mindset that money was everything, and that if there was no money, there would be no food, and therefore we couldn’t live.
As I learned to work and earn money, I also learned to respect people. But I always had a void inside of me… I tried to show my friends that I was the "happiest," but it was just a coverup. When I went home, everything changed, the problems continued, the lack of money, the lack of a father affected me very much, and it also affected my family. My brothers made poor decisions and went down bad paths. I was always afraid of falling into the same thing.
I started going to the Catholic Church when I was 11 years old. Being there helped me in a certain way, since I could run away from my problems and they always told me that everything would be fine. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so. My family separated to the point of me being alone with my mother because my brothers left the house. I just wanted to run away from it all so I kept going to church to avoid being at home.
Now, thanks to Estuardo (I met him 3 months ago), I have understood the Word of God better, I have realized that all this time I had never truly understood the love of God. Now I know that following God does not simply mean being in a youth group and saying that we are saved. Following Jesus Christ means more than that: It means being willing to leave everything, sometimes even going against what our family wants or even leaving our family. In Christianity there are going to be problems, but we have to be strong and continue. Following Christ is loving everyone even though they hurt us, forgiving them and also asking for forgiveness from those we have offended. We must change our lives and follow Christ with our whole heart.
Now I know that even though I never had an earthly father, God was always the Father who never abandoned me. When my brothers abandoned me, when my mother treated me badly, God was always there to help me, he never left me alone and I know that he was the one who protected me from going down a bad path. He allowed me to know his love and mercy.
Now all I want is to follow him and love him with all my strength, I want God to choose me to preach his word and to continue changing my life. I want to be willing to die for Jesus!