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CBN.com – Diego Sedano lived a happy life being raised by his grandmother in Columbia, South America. But when the aging women had the opportunity to live in America, her family thought it was best to go.
However Diego’s application for a visa was denied. He was six years old.
“And I felt my whole world had crumbled,” says Diego. “I was sent to live with my uncles and grandfather. I cried every day for almost a year. Bad dreams. It was a torture almost.”
His uncles paid little attention to him and didn’t send him to school. As Diego reached his teen years, the deep-rooted grief escalated.
“I started to go with my friends to the bars and restaurants where I could buy liquor,” he says. “Anything to take that pain away! So by the time I’m 13 or 14 I’m totally an alcoholic. And then I just left home.”
Diego lived a life working in nightclubs. The drinking covered the pain caused by years of rejection.
“We just wanted to be comfortably numb, so we didn’t have what life really had to offer. We tried to make our own world.”
But Diego’s world abruptly changed when he met a pretty girl who fell in love with him. For the first time since his grandmother, someone cared! They married, and Diego immediately left the bar scene and joined the Navy, wanting to provide a stable life for his new wife. But Diego refused to get along with her family because he hated family.
Four months into the marriage, they discovered his wife had cancer. Her parents took her back to their home to care for her and refused to communicate with Diego.
“A month went by and no phone calls. No nothing! Two months went by and I had no contact,” Diego recalls. “No one would answer my phones. So I called her doctor and explained the situation. I said, ‘I’m not getting along with her family. What’s going on with my wife?’ And he said, ‘I don’t even know how to begin telling you this but your wife died 10 days ago.’
“I fell into the biggest depression anyone could ever fall into. I’d shut my self in my apartment and cry all day long. There were days I would not sleep for three or four days unless I got drunk and passed out. It progressively got worse and worse and worse.”
On Christmas Eve, Diego prayed a specific prayer to a God he wasn’t even sure existed.
“Take me from this earth, or show me where to go. Because I can not live like this anymore.”
A few days later an acquaintance stopped by to check on Diego. Alarmed at his state of despair, she invited him to a New Years Eve church service. With nothing to lose, he agreed to go.
“The pastor was saying things directly at my heart. I remember the call. He said, ‘Who’s tired? Who has tried it his own way and has had enough?’ I didn’t even think about it. I went down front with my hands up, and I said the prayer. ‘Lord, if You want to heal me, heal me. Here I am.’”
Diego finally found the love he’d desired all his life. He found it in Jesus Christ.
“I spent 33 years of my life of trying to find finding happiness, and in 30 seconds, I felt peace like I’ve never felt in my life. I lied there for 15 minutes thanking Him. I got up and walked outside. I had my hands on my car, and I said, ‘I will give you the rest of my life.’”
And every day Diego remembers just why his life is so radically different.
“There is not one day that I don’t remember. There is not one day that I don’t cry. When I get to that point, my whole body remembers it. It’s in my mouth, brain, and heart. I remember that specific day that He saved me."
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