AMAZING STORIES
Eddie Vargas: When The Party Guy Finds Real Love
By Aaron Little
The 700 Club
Original Air Date: December 14, 2010
CBN.com
– Coming of age in southern California in the '80s was a good time for Eddie Vargas.
“I was having fun. There was weed, coke, beer, girls and it was this culture that had developed in Redondo Beach at this time,” Eddie tells The 700 Club.
Eddie’s first experience with drugs happened at age 13. He says, "I go to one of my friends’ house, and he and one of my other friends were smokin’ weed. I was like, ‘Hey, let me try that.’ I loved it.”
During Eddie's early teen years, his father abandoned the family. Without a positive male role model, he slid deeper into substance abuse.
“By the time I was 15 years old, I was already smoking weed almost every day. Then it went from weed to beer and then someone popped out with some coke and that just took me for a whole other spin."
Eddie’s unwillingness to stop partying and confront his addiction led to constant strife at home. So at age 15, he left.
“I had to do something to survive, so, of course, I started selling weed and then I started selling coke.”
For the rest of his teen years, he was the life of the party, but the glitz and glamour began to fade over time. Eddie was left alone and hurting.
“I was at the bottom of the barrel, at the end of the rope. I’ve tried to commit suicide. I’ve OD’d on more than one occasion. I’ve driven cars when I shouldn’t have driven them.”
The wheels were coming off of Eddie’s self-indulgent life, but he didn’t know a way out. Then one day a friend of a friend crossed his path.
“There’s this gorgeous girl that’s driving this car. I just saw her and was like, ‘Wow.’”
Roxanne says, “I kinda briefly met him and of course was instantly attracted to him.”
Eddie recalls, “I don’t know what, and I don’t know why, but in the back of my head I’m thinking, ‘I’m gonna marry this girl.’ I just fell, right there, for the very first time. I’d never experienced that before in my whole life, but I fell for this girl.”
Roxanne was a new Christian and even though she was attracted to Eddie, she knew she couldn’t get involved with someone so immersed in the drug and party scene.
Eddie says, “We’re just hanging out and I say, ‘I really want to get to know you.’”
“My heart sank and I was like, ‘No, I can’t.’ He asked why, and I said, ‘Because you’re not a Christian.’"
“And I said, ‘Well, what do I have to do to be born again? What do I have to do?’ Ahe said, ‘Look, why don’t you come to church with me on Sunday?'”
While Eddie’s motives in going to church were to get close to Roxanne, God was about to change his life in a big way.
Eddie says, “I’m sitting there and I hear a message of hope, salvation, restoration, healing and power, and then I’m hearing things like, 'You can be forgiven for everything you’ve ever done.' Mind you, I’ve done a lot of wrong in my life. I’ve been addicted. I’ve had sex. I’ve hurt people. I’ve hurt my family. I mean, you name it, I’ve done wrong. I’ve done dirt. I’m listening to all these things and I’m being drawn into it and I’ve never felt this before.”
For the first time in his life, Eddie felt he needed to make a change.
“I hear him say, ‘If you’re here this morning and you need to be forgiven and you want God to do a miracle in your life and you want a new life...’ Can I really have a new life? I remember going to that altar, getting on my knees and saying, ‘God, if You’re real, then You’ll take all of this away from me. God, forgive me for everything that I’d ever done.’ I felt like warm oil being poured over me. It was just like the presence of God came over me. I felt forgiven for everything I’d ever done.”
Finally Eddie knew what it was to be born again. He says, "It’s really a bonafide miracle, because when I got up from that altar, I did not want to be the person that I was when I walked in those front doors.”
With the help of his new church family, Eddie discovered the hope and peace of being a Christian, and he closed the door on his wild past.
“I was just amazed," Roxanne says. "Little by little I started seeing that transformation in him.”
Eventually the two began dating.
Roxanne says, “ Six months later he proposed, yeah. Six months after that we got married!”
“Here we are going on 20 years of marriage," Eddie says, "and God’s done some amazing things.”
Today Eddie tells everyone there’s hope in God if you’ll look to Him.
“You have to decide to allow God. God is a gentleman. He doesn’t force himself on anybody, but He will come into anybody who asks. If you allow God to come in, He’ll change your life for the better. I’m a living testimony of that.”
Can God change your life?
God has made it possible for you to know Him and experience an amazing change in your own life.
Discover how you can find peace with God.
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