One Thing that Matters (Part 1) - Ep. 196

A single story can hold a lifetime of pressure, and sometimes the most spiritual moment starts on a curb outside an ER. Jay shares his testimony with the kind of honesty that makes the room go quiet: growing up between homes, carrying the weight of divorce, witnessing abuse, and learning early how fear and anger can take root in a kid’s heart. Along the way, he shows how those experiences shaped his view of God, family, and identity, even when he did not yet understand what real conversion is. 

We also talk about the surprising impact of Christian school. Bible verses, chapel services, and constant exposure to Scripture built a foundation he did not recognize until later, giving him a deep reverence for the Word and a vivid awareness of heaven and hell. But he also names a hard contradiction: he prayed the sinner’s prayer, responded to altar calls, and still found himself unchanged. That tension leads to the episode’s most challenging claim: “inviting Jesus into your heart” is not the biblical foundation for salvation, and repeating a prayer is not the same as responding to the gospel the way the apostles preached it. 

The story tightens as loss piles up: fear for a father’s soul, a stepsister’s death during the AIDS epidemic, and a mother’s fatal heart attack that leaves him with guilt, rage, and questions he cannot dodge. We close by setting the stage for the next teaching and the promised answer to the question he leaves hanging: what is the one thing that matters? 

Subscribe, share the episode with someone who needs hope and truth, and leave a review. What part of this testimony hit closest to home for you?

Transcript

A Vision Of Life And Purpose

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 0:03

The vision received was that of blood cells traveling throughout the body, supplying the much-needed oxygen and other nutrients to the differing members of the body to fulfill their purpose. Once the blood cells are spent, they must return back to the heart to be refilled before being sent out again and fulfill their purpose. Good evening, brothers and sisters. Welcome to the meeting place. It's good to see your faces. Some new, some old. Some I've forgotten. I'm just like that. I'm nearly a half a century, and I don't know, my brain doesn't kind of retain all those faces and names altogether. So bear with me if I seem to have forgotten your name. Uh I kind of have an inkling for your face, but I have the same problem with my students that I teach in high school. I still mix up their names and they're getting all offended with me because it's been three months and I'm like, gosh, forgive me. Just forgive me, because it just doesn't come easy to me. Um but nevertheless, I I I wanna I wanna talk with you tonight. And I'm kind of in a I'm I'm kind of not as comfortable as I'd like to be. And God's got me on this uncomfortable place because uh what what he what he put on my heart to share is gonna be in two parts. The first part is gonna be tonight. And and that is as I guess is the kind of nervous part because uh, well, it's about me. I'm uncomfortable with that. It it's about me. Um but it if you've listened, if you listen to me teach in the past, or if you listen to any of my podcasts, one of the things that I firmly, firmly believe is that when we share the testimony of Jesus in our lives to others, it is a spirit of prophecy. There's something that God does with our testimonies as we testify of Jesus to others that He uses to be able to speak and reach to them in a way that you wouldn't be able to if you just gave a teaching. And it's not that I'm not gonna teach tonight, it's not it's not that I'm not gonna teach out of the word, but it's actually gonna be teach out of the living word of my life. So I'm not gonna apologize, but I'm gonna ask you to um trust the Lord that He's gonna speak to you through whatever I have to share with you tonight. And um for me, in my mind, as I thought about what I needed to share, and the Lord showed me what I needed to share, um, it's gonna be in two parts. So this first part, it's it's me kind of just using my life and my experiences to just lay a groundwork of what I really want to teach in the second part. Because that one I'm really, really confident about, I'm really secure in that, and yet I've got to go through this part that he has me in. Um we we've been in this uh fellowship for gosh, maybe since August. I guess it's been about six, seven months. Uh I don't count that, but uh um and we've got to meet a lot of you. Uh a lot of you in different uh fashions at your house, uh going out to eat at maybe uh Pastor Joe's house as we gather together as married couples and play our games and get to know each other's uh lives and and stories. And you know, after the six months, I uh it's not like I didn't know this, but he's just showing me again um that our families and our life experiences are very similar. There's nuances, you know, mine is particularly unique to me, but it doesn't mean the things that I've experienced can't be shared by other people, even bits and pieces, maybe not all of it, maybe not entirely, but um they're shared similar experiences. And um, you know, being in this fellowship and and from my experiences in the past and other fellowships, is I I realize that our families um we we share some experiences that are not they're they're hard, they're they were not good. Um, you know, I asked this in my previous fellowship, and you don't have to raise your hand, but I'll raise it. Anybody's families you've ever experienced that there was abuse in the family? Well, I can raise my hand and I I I can testify to that. I'm not ashamed of saying that. Um any experiences um and any families experience alcoholism in their house? Um any families here experience drugs in their house? Um thinking wow, I'm thinking of a of an experience I had that I wasn't really thinking about until this very moment. Any anybody ever had those uh moments of maybe almost psychotic breaks where there was threatening in the house of grabbing the gun and shooting everybody in the house? Yeah. It just came to me right now. I just remember that. Uh yeah. Um so like I said, it's kind of uncomfortable because I'm gonna share about me. Uh and I don't think a lot of you know me because every time I gather together with people, um I hear about everybody else. I think I'm a great listener. I'll listen to everybody and I'll listen to all the things, but I unless you ask me questions, I usually don't just step out and start sharing about them. You gotta ask me. If you ask me, I will tell you. But if you don't ask me, I'm probably gonna just be the one listening. My that's my wife's job. She's the one that just ask all the questions, finds out every detail, and it's it's not that I'm not interested, I'm just not wired that way. I'm not built that way. She is. And so I'll

Why Testimony Speaks Prophecy

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 6:15

learn about everybody just because she's asking all the questions. And and that's just the way it is. Okay. So I'm gonna pretend as if you asked me questions as I share this. Um I was born in the 70s. Um, like I said, I'm almost a half a century. I'm almost a half a century young, if you will. Um, and uh, you know, I grew up in the 70s, and in the 70s you had the discos, staying alive, the bee gees, uh, Star Trek, Star Trek the Most in Picture came out in the late 70s, Star Wars came out in the late 70s, and so uh, you know, with my father and I, we we we grabbed on to the science fiction of of that day, and so that had a lot of influence on me. Um, I was born in New York. I was born uh my name is Jesus, Jesus Ruiz, and I was born in New York, and I was born. Anybody remember where the law was given to Moses? I'm trying to bring in some scriptures here. Anyone remember where the law was given to Moses? Uh-oh. Where's my Bible studies? God gave Moses the Ten Commandments on a particular mountain. What was it? Thank you. That's where I was born. I was born in Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Alright, so getting some feel. Anybody in New York? Come from New York? Anybody? Okay, a couple of you, a couple of you, all right. But I was raised in Florida. I I would say I was raised in Florida, even though I was born in New York. And I come from a family that was once married and then divorced. So I if you consider that broken home, well, maybe that maybe it just depends. That's relative. Um, but yeah, uh my my parents were were together for the first four years of my life. So I I kind of vaguely remember New York. I remember more New York because I would visit my dad every summer after they got divorced. So that's where I where where I get, you know, I'm kind of New Yorican because my ancestors are from Puerto Rico. So I I kind of refer to myself as a New Yorican. I'm not very patriotic with Puerto Rico. Uh it's a beautiful place, but I've probably been there maybe two or three times. You know, I I don't even remember the place. It's not something that it's like, oh, my isla de Puerto Rico. I I don't have that. My sister does. But I'll I'll get to my sister later. Um, so you know, I I consider myself a New Eurecan and and and and some people will, Hispanics, have come into this church and have said to my wife, or or maybe said to their wives, who then talk to my wife, the word gets around, oh, él es puertorriqueño, él es borricua. Like they knew that I was Puerto Rican. And I I don't see myself as Puerto Rican. I see myself as an American. I was born in America, I was born in New York, my dad was born in New York, my mom was born in New Jersey, they were American, but they were raised in Puerto Rico, and then they came back to America. So I I kind of don't consider myself a Puerto Rican, I consider myself American. But that's kind of beside the point. I'm just kind of just sharing with you my life. So um that they were married for about four years, and then my mom, I I I'll get to my mom later about why I don't know the specifics, but my mom ended up just leaving New York, divorcing my dad, and flying all the way to Tampa, Florida. I don't know why she did it. I I I never spoke to her about it. Um, and I never got to really sit down and talk with her and ask her why were some decisions made in the past, but you know, it was there was a divorce. From my dad's side, he was kind of surprised, he was shocked. Um, and they had, you know, their I guess battles back and forth. Um, because I don't think he was wanting that to happen. Um, so then I then I then I moved to Tampa. Um one of the things I know my mom fought about with my dad was my education. Even though he didn't want I guess that to happen, I guess he obviously had to accept it. There was a divorce. Um, but one of the things he she almost forced him to do was make sure you don't have to pay for his clothes, you don't have to pay for his food, you don't have to pay for anything but his education. So my dad, who stayed in New York, and in New York you get paid a lot more, uh depending on what jobs you do. Um so she I guess in her mind she considered, well, he's making some good amount of money, he's gonna pay for his education. What she wanted was that I attend private schools. She was not gonna have private schools. She said to my dad, you're gonna pay for his education, and and and and that was it. So I attended private schools all my life. From kindergarten, I remember see, I remember where where I was at, not because of my age, I never remember what my age was, but I do remember what school I was in. So I could tell you all my schools. My kindergarten school was Lucille. That was a private school, it was in Tampa, Florida. So I went there for kindergarten. I remember graduating, I think my dad came to visit to be part of that graduation, and then I moved to West Hillsboro Baptist School, which was also in Tampa. That's first and second grade. And then my mom then moved to Miami, Florida. And so in Miami, Florida, I was there for third, fourth, and fifth grade in Greater Miami Academy. And then after that, we went, we would then move to the southwest section of Miami, and we went to Westwood. I went to, not we. I went to Westwood Christian School, which was my sixth grade year. Told my mom at the end of that year, I you can't send me back there. I'm not going back to that school. I maybe get to that later. So then I moved to Miami Christian School. In Miami Christian School, I was there for 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grade. And then I went to FIU, which was Florida International University, which is in Miami. I got my bachelor's there in psychology. Then I realized during my nearing the end of that, I realized, what am I gonna do with psychology? I can't do anything with psychology. And God was getting a hold of me at that time in my life, and I'll get to that why or how he was getting a hold of me. And I realized psychology is not the answer. There's another answer out there, and I know that's not the answer. So I didn't really know what I was gonna do when I got a psychology degree. And then I went to a postgraduate in Florida International University and got my master's degree in special education. So that was kind of my education. Uh, but there's a reason why I'm bringing up the education, because the education was important. My mom and my dad were not Christian, neither of them. My dad never laid a hand on me. Never laid a hand on me in discipline, never, never touched me. He was the type of person that would be able to talk to me and get me to regret whatever it is that I did or rethink whatever it is I did. And so he he was able to just talk with me about whatever it is. My mom very much the same way. She didn't lay a hand on me except once. And I don't mean lay a hand on me, I mean discipline me. She did once. It was in Tampa. I remember it. I was in Tampa. We had this Volkswagen bug, or she had a Volkswagen, you know, uh beetle bug. And I remember we had to drive up a hill from our house to get to some convenience store up at the top of the hill. And uh she then parked the car at the convenience store that was at the top of a hill, and she went inside to go get some some uh food, or I don't know what she was getting, and I started messing with the stick shift, just kind of moving it forward, moving it back. So you know if you have a stick shift car, if you're moving it, it's not in gear, it's in neutral. And I guess she didn't put the brake on it. I guess she was just kind of popping in there, leaving it. And so all of a sudden, that gear that I was messing with started going down the hill and going down the hill. And I'm in the passenger seat. And the only lucky thing that saved me, and wasn't lucky, because it was God watching over me, is that I hit the big, you know, garbage canisters that we have out back of our church, those big things, it just boom, and it stopped. So, anyway, she freaked out. And when we got home, she belted me. It's the only time I ever got touched by my mom in that discipline type of way. She belted me. And I guess because it freaked her out. Because I never I never got hit again. So I was one of those kids, I don't know if it was a Dr. Spock influence. Anybody know Dr. Spock from the 70s, 80s? Had this idea that you don't hit your children and you put them in a corner and you do timeouts and do all this other stuff, and we're paying the fruit of that today. All right, so I was one of those kids. Um but I I bring up my education because my mom wanted me, my mom again was not a Christian. Um we that that just wasn't for, but I don't know what caused her to want me to go to private schools. It must have been the hand of God. Amen. Must have been the hand of God to cause her to want me to go to Christian schools because she wasn't a Christian, and neither was my dad a Christian, but she wanted me to go to private schools. So I went to Christian schools, and and and you would think, wow, that that that's really great. What a great idea for him to go to Christian schools. And to me, it was a positive and a negative. And I and I'm really, really glad I did go to uh Christian schools, and I'm gonna tell you the positive. The positive is that when I went to Christian schools, they made you memorize Bible verses. That's just what they did. Psalm 23, I I know that. I I could recite that. Uh Galatians, chapter in Galatians, we could recite that. And so it was constant, every year, no matter what Christian school I went to, we were always having to memorize Bible verses. So the good thing about it was that even though I wasn't a Christian, my mom wasn't a Christian, my dad wasn't a Christian, by the time I finished all of my Christian school education, I knew the scriptures. And that's great. I I may not be able to, today, nearly half a century old, uh, be able to uh tell you exactly pinpoint where, you know, what chapter and verse. A lot of them I can, a lot of them I can't, but I can I can recite those scriptures. And it may be paraphrased, so you have to give me some latitude with that, but I know the content of what it was saying. Or I can find it, I can take you there. Um, so so that that laid in me a foundation that I didn't realize was gonna be a foundation for me when God really got a hold of me. What it also did was produce in me a healthy fear and reverence for the word. I don't know why, I don't know how, but I just developed a when when I read the word, it was like, this is God's word. And and I had a I had somewhat, I would say somewhat, a healthy fear of the Lord because yes, I I I believed that there was a Lord God Almighty. I I believed that that when I read the word that I was reading what actually happened to people in the past and what God did with them or what God did to them or what God did about them. I mean, I revered it. It was something that was be it was ingrained in me. You can call it indoctrination if you want, but I'd like to be indoctrinated into the word, yes. I'm glad I did I was. And then another thing that Christian schools brought in me, and it happened to every Christian school. Let me raise your hand. Anybody ever been to Christian schools?

unknown 18:21

Wow.

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 18:21

Oh, a couple back there. Okay. So I don't know if you share some of these experiences, but we always had assemblies, chapels. In the

Growing Up Between Homes And Schools

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 18:30

middle of the week, maybe Wednesday, or maybe there was a special week where we were every day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. We had this special service where we were there every week, and there were assemblies and chapels. So that was good. There was a lot of quote-unquote, I'm gonna say quote-unquote, ministry, because I mean they had the right idea, they wanted to minister to the kids, they wanted to minister into the word and give them a message that hopefully would powerfully impact them so that they can, you know, follow after the Lord. But one of the negatives was, and it was a very, very important negative, and so I say this, and and I don't say this hesitantly, but I say this as one of those reasons why I'm like, oh gosh, you really want me to say this. So one of the negatives was they taught me the sinner's prayer and inviting Jesus into my heart. I don't know how that sits well with some of you. I don't know if it offends you, but I remember a couple months ago, Pastor Joe said from this pulpit, he said, Hey, you know what? God sometimes offends the mind to expose the heart. So I'm not afraid to say that. Yes, that was a negative. Because years later I came to realize that that had no bearing on my salvation. Praying a sinner's prayer and inviting Jesus into your heart had no biblical basis whatsoever. I don't know how you're gonna take that, but I'll get into that. I'll get into that this this teaching, and in two weeks when I teach again, I'm gonna show you in the scriptures while I know that that's no biblical basis for that. There's something else that's a biblical basis. So, one of the other things that happened as I went to these Christian schools is because I had a healthy fear of the Lord. I I had an understanding there's a heaven, there's a hell. There's a heaven I want to get to, there's a heaven I want hopefully everybody else to get to, and then there's a hell that we don't want to get to, and we don't want any of us to share there. Is that it? It's a place you don't want to be. It's torment, it's without Jesus for the rest of your life, and you're burning, and you never disintegrate. You're just constantly burning in flames, and you're never consumed. That's a scary place. I'm not interested in that, but but that's what I gathered out of the word that the heaven and hell is a real place, and it's significant to you. Now, because of that, for whatever reason, I can't remember in my childhood, I remembered envisioning okay, so so now let me get back to my family so that this makes sense. Because my parents were separated, um, I didn't get to see my dad often. I was with my mom. I was raised by my mom. She was a s well, hold on. I'm about to say a single mother. Actually, she wasn't a single mother because by the time it was all said and done, she was married four times. My dad, her second husband, which I'll talk to you in a little bit about, another one, which is I'll tell you about that too, and then and then the last one, which is a fourth one. Okay, so they they they got separated, and because I was living with my mom, raised by my mom, I always had a longing naturally because I wanted to be with my dad. I missed my dad. I never got to see my dad. For age five, age six, and then my mom decided, I guess after talking with my dad, and they're wrestling and raggling about, I'll let him go take a plane, which she did not want because he was going to be alone, seven years old, on a plane going from Miami or Tampa to New York. She I guess she was fearful of that. So the first time I got to actually see my dad after they got divorced, that I actually went to him because I did see him, I think he came to visit in Tampa and he drove down, uh, was when I was seven years old. But then I only got to stay two weeks. That's it, two weeks. So imagine I'm going at seven years old to see my dad, and with my dad, I'm never disciplined. Uh he makes sure that when I go visit him, it's special. You know, we're going to the movies, we're watching Star Wars, we're, I mean, we're just, you know, he's just enjoying me, and I'm enjoying him. Um, you know, over those years, my dad was the type of dad that um this is I I think it's cute and it's a very fond memory of mine. But he would record on a cassette tape, and he would just record himself talking with me and sharing his life. And then he'd send it to me by mail, I would listen to it, and then I would record right after that, I would press record, and then I would start talking to him. So we weren't writing letters back and forth or emails or texts because none of that was there. It was a cassette tape. And so I would record a response to him, send it back to him, and that's how we were talking with one another. You know, not that he didn't call me once a week, he did do that, and you know, he would give me five words that I had to find the definition for, make a sentence for, and and and so he was trying to increase my vocabulary and help me out with academically. But that was that was a fond memory that we would you know send these tapes back and forth. I think he has them or I still have them. Um so because of that relationship that I was developing with my dad and what I was going through in Christian schools, I began to envision what would life be like if my dad died. And it it bothered me. It didn't leave me. So, okay, so seven was the first time I went to see him, right, for only two weeks. And then eight, I went back and maybe I stayed a month, and then nine, maybe I went back and stayed a whole summer. During that period of time, he then got married to a second to his second wife, which became my first stepmother, and I had a stepsister because she had a daughter. The first time I went back when I had a stepmom and a stepsister was a nightmare. I was older than the sister, and we it I just imagine two young kids fighting for the attention of their parents. We would sit in the backseat of the car, and you know, be

Christian School Gifts And A Trap

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 25:10

she'd be sitting there, and I'd be sitting here, and she would like hit me, and I'd be like, get over there, and then she'd hit me, and then I'm pushing her over there, and we're just having this little back and forth and driving them too crazy in front of us, and they're looking back and trying to, you know, address the situation. It was just, it was very childish. I I was never this mature. Uh no, I had my moments of much immaturity, but you know, I was, I think she was jealous. I was jealous because who is this woman? And now she's got a daughter. It was a nightmare first summer. But then I went back the second summer. And then I went, I maybe went back the third summer. And then I found out, um, because I'm telling you that I was envisioning my my dad dying. And the the reason why I bring that up, and the reason why I bring the mother up is because the mother, the second, my my stepmother, who happened to be the same name as my actual mother, Lillian, it was very odd. So um I she was a Christian, supposedly. I'm not sure, but but but when I would go to New York, I think I was having a problem at night going to sleep or something. I think she noticed it. And she just sat down next to me and she just started talking with me and she started asking me the question. Because she said she felt, I guess she sensed that there was that kind of a cloud hanging over me. There was something bothering me. And so I ended up telling her, I'm afraid that my dad is gonna go to hell. And so she kind of also had the same, you know, concern. And so uh I guess she prayed for me or prayed with me, and and it became something that that I don't know if it bonded us, but we shared that. Um and so now I can get back to what I found out later about my stepsister and and and my stepmom. I found out maybe the year I came back, the second year I came back, or the second summer I came back, that my stepsister had AIDS. This was during the AIDS epidemic. I didn't know what AIDS was. I I didn't know what HIV was, it didn't didn't make any sense to me. But when I went back the second summer, um there was something different going on, and I think she was getting sicker. And um I I didn't know it at the time. I she was just my sister, whatever, um, or a stepsister, and um my dad took me for a walk out in uh out on the streets in New York, and he tried to explain to me. This is what I recollect. I can't remember if it was the second summer or the third summer, so don't hold me to that. But he had a talk with me, he had a walk with me, and he said, Well, she's got HIV, she's got AIDS, and she's dying. Or she's getting sicker. I don't know, I don't know if he said he's dying, but she's getting sicker, and I'm like, what's that? What AIDS? What's HIV? And he tried to explain it to me. And explaining something to a young kid like me, I was probably eight or nine, maybe eight or nine or ten, I can't remember, somewhere in there. Um that's hard for me to accept. I I I just hard for me to grasp. I don't understand what that means. Um, but I saw her belly getting bigger, it was getting swollen. And this girl, I I in the 80s, I don't know if you remember, if you were watching TV in the 80s, you see advertisements of um them trying to raise money for the the children in Africa, and you saw how stick-boned they were, that's what she was. No exaggeration. I mean, she was just skinny, skinny, skinny, couldn't walk with her anywhere because she just didn't have the strength. Um so they they carried her about, or maybe they were it was in a stroller. Um but but she was getting worse, and I remember one time um she bled from her finger or something. And when they found that she was bleeding, I think I went to help, not really understanding anything about HIV or anything like that, to kind of you know clean it up. And they freaked, and the mother said, no, and then she went and she and she kind of grabbed me, she kind of got me away to cut to protect me. I didn't realize it at the time, and I it just freaked me out, and I think that's why he then went and had a walk with me to tell me what was going on because I was like, What in the world? What why she just cut herself, she was just bleeding on her finger. What's the big deal? I didn't get it. So obviously, after every summer I went back home. And uh I now I'm recollecting that it was in seventh grade, I was in Miami Christian school. I was called into the principal's office. I I wasn't a bad kid. I was I was like, why am I getting called in? What did I do? I didn't do anything. Um and the principal sat there, talked with me, asked me about um I can't even remember. I I don't even remember the details. The bottom line is she told me that my sister died. I was uh it just caught me totally aware. I just so I I my first my first internal reaction was, why didn't my mom tell me? Why didn't my dad tell me? What what's going on here? Why is she telling me this? And uh I remember going home that same day, and I think I was kind of upset at my mom because she didn't say anything, and then when I got home, she then said, Well, do you want to talk about it? I'm like, No. There's nothing to say.

Fear For A Father And Loss

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 31:20

I don't I don't know. I mean, I was nine. What do I know? Um so that was a traumatic experience for me. I had a stepsister out of nowhere, and I lose a stepsister. And then I'm thinking, later on, I'm thinking, how in the world did she get AIDS? She was a young girl, she was like five. How in the world did she get AIDS? It was the drug dealers, it was the people that were sharing needles. That I, you know, when I realized and we got more older, I was like, How in the world did she get AIDS? So, about a year or two later, my stepmom died. My dad's second wife. And then my relationship with my dad was kind of strained for a while. I almost didn't hear from him. He was trying to deal with it, trying to cope with it. I remember he tried talking with me, and then I just didn't hear from him for maybe a couple weeks, and then all of a sudden he tried to talk with me again, and we talked and spoke. And you know, so I so I lost um my stepmom and my sister, and all the while I was worried about my dad's salvation. I was worried that he was not gonna go to heaven. With my dad, never went to church. That just, like I said, he wasn't a Christian. He wasn't into any kind of religion, any kind of church. Um, so I didn't get any of that spiritual nourishment from the experiences with my dad. Now, my mom, like I said, she raised me most of my life. She raised me all my life. And most of the time that I spent with uh my mom was 10 months of the year, and then I'd go in the summer to my dad. 10 months of the year with my mom. So church going was on and off. Um I remember going to a seven-day Adventist church. Uh I remember going to, as a matter of fact, in Miami, and I and I looked at the church, the name of the church is still there, La Catedral del Pueblo, the town's cathedral, I think is how it's translated in Spanish. Well, that church is still there. And I remember going to that church, and but I also remember my mom telling me something that was just so odd to me about that church. She said something like, there was a preacher at that church, and and the preacher was preaching, and she was having like a mental conversation with either that preacher or a spirit. I I didn't quite understand. And she was just resisting. She's just resisting whatever was being preached, whatever was being taught. And that, I don't know why, it just made an impact on me. I number one, it's spiritual things. What? I what do you mean you're talking to some somebody or something? And she was just resisting and resisting and resisting. So in the midst of my dad having a marriage, my mom also had her second marriage. She she was I had a stepdad. Every time I went back home, I had a stepdad. He was a Panamanian. I remember his name. I remembered vividly his name. Uh and we when we went from Tampa, we lived in an apartment that almost burned down. Uh they left something on the stove burning. And they were asleep. There was smoke all over in the house. And I was the one that woke up. And I was the one with and then I had to shake my mom and wake them up and realize that they had left something on the stove and it was like smoking up the whole place. I don't know if it was gonna burn it down, but it was pretty bad. And we had to open up the windows. I think the fire people came or whatever, whatnot. Um, so God saved me from that. And that was an experience I remember in Tampa. But, anyways, we moved to Miami, and this person that she was with in Tampa, I I guess they got married at some point. So I had a stepdad, and then we lived in a trailer park in Miami. Trailer park full of French people. Why French people? I don't know. They were from Canada, but they were full of French people. And uh he was the manager, so we didn't live in a trailer, we lived in the brick housing of that area that that where he managed all the trailers and he was taking care of all the things that were going on there. But he had, and this is where that physical abuse was going on. Um there was things going on in the house that I was privy to, that I saw. There were things in Tampa that I saw that I should have never seen. I was exposed to things of a sexual nature that I should have never seen in Tampa, and then here we are in Miami, and and and there's this uh uh verbal fights and disagreements. And I remember there was one big fight where I think he bruised her forearm or something, and while they were fighting, I was outside the little brick building with the where there was a window, and I'm hearing all of these fighting. Um and so wait a second, I'm in Miami, that was third or fourth grade. Okay, so it's about third or fourth grade. How old was I in third or fourth grade? You add five years to the to those grades, so you're about eight or nine. I remember standing outside that window, and all I wanted to do was get inside and deck him. I just wanted to knock his lights out and say, Mom, let's go. Let's get out of here. Obviously, I couldn't do that. I wanted to do that so badly, but I I never did that. So I developed a an animosity, I guess would be a word, toward him. I couldn't stand him. Uh he wasn't the nicest person with me. He'd play with me, he introduced me to soccer, which I never really got into until my kids got into soccer in 2010, but that's another story. Um, so we left the trailer park a few years later. So that was third, fourth, fifth grade. Yeah, then we moved to Kendall. So he's either in fifth or sixth grade. We were living in a new house, brand new house, had a nice yard, nice area, but very different from the trailer park. And I come back home one day, and my mom's wearing glasses. It's nighttime. She takes me from the house that we're living in to her friend's house, another nice area. And I find out that she's got a black eye. Uh find out that she's got bruises, and as she's telling her friend, I'm hearing what happened. He was a I guess he was a jealous man because he was in the house and she came walking across the street from the local pantry pride, maybe was the supermarket. Anyways, she comes over and he thinks that she's jealous. He's jealous of that she was with someone at the pantry pride right across the street. And so, anyways, she got beat. And she got abused in ways that I'm not gonna mention. And I overheard these things, and so that developed me an anger that if I ever saw him in the street, I was just gonna, I was gonna take him out. Ten-year-old kid, I don't know, having all these thoughts. But hey, develop things in your heart that that you really don't want there. They're going to become obstacles to your growth. Not that I had a spiritual life at the time, but they just become obstacles. Your experiences can be good and bad and ugly, and and depending on how you respond to them, depending on how you respond to them, they can make or break you. So they got divorced after that. Now, my my mom had boyfriends during the time. From from that time point on forward, boyfriends on and off. Um one of them tried to do stuff with me in our new house that we moved into. I was in seventh or eighth grade. No, hold on. I was in sixth, seventh, or eighth grade. One of those tried to do something with me, and and I didn't like the way he was trying to play with me. So if you get my understanding, and as he played with me or as he

Abuse Memories And Hidden Damage

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 40:10

looked at me, I sensed there was something off wrong, and I went to the back, you know, sliding glass window, and I just went out the back and just I'm out. So I had those kind of experiences as well. I forgot to tell you about the trailer park. The trailer park was full of Frenchmen, right? So here I am playing in the trailer park. I can't remember what I was playing, who I was playing. I remember being next to a car. I think we were playing hide and seek or something, and some guy out of nowhere comes behind me and starts doing something to me while I'm hiding, and he's telling me how this is good and da-da-da-da-da. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. All of these experiences they they influence you, they push you in a direction. And so I look back on all of these experiences and I'm like, my God, how did I end up where I am right now? If not for God. If not for God. And the thing is, you know, as we listen to others of you, as we gather together with you and hear of your experiences, I can't help but think, my God, He's so good because look at what they went through. So she ended up, my mom, my mom ended up um getting married for the fourth time. I didn't talk about the third one because the third one I didn't know until after she died. I didn't know there was a third one. I remember the man, I just never know they got married. So I happened to think it had to do with some of the papers. I I don't know for sure. Can't can't tell you honestly, but that would be my best guess after I realized, what? You were married? I saw these marriage papers and divorce papers. I was like, I know him, but what when did they get married? Anyways, um, so she got married to her fourth husband, and uh that was later on uh in my life in my teenage years, and over those years that I was living with my mom, who had now this new uh husband, they ended up having a baby. So at 15 years old, I had a sister. Well, a half-sister. My first one was my stepsister, and then this one was my half-sister. Um so around 15 years old, I I had a sister. But my relationship between myself and my mom became strained. The older I got, the worse it got. Um, for multiple reasons. Not all of it her fault, some of it was, not all of it my fault, but a lot of it was mine. Um and then she was having problems with her husband, and I was witness to these things again, witnessed the things that I should not have seen, that should have not been exposed to, but yet I was having to witness it and deal with it in a certain way. And I remember there was an altercation that happened in the house, and then the police came and and uh he wouldn't leave the house because obviously it was his house and he was living there with us, and you know, uh, anyways, they they kind of arrested him to take him out for the night. And so eventually, after that situation, I told my mom, if he doesn't go, I'm going. That's it. I I've had I've I felt like I've had enough of him, I've had enough of his shenanigans, I've had enough of the things that he's been doing in our house or whatever, but it's not like she was an angel, because trust me, she wasn't, and you'll find you'll understand why in a few moments. Um and I don't mean any disrespect toward my mom, I'm just trying to be real. None of us are perfect. And some of the stuff that happens in our lives, we brought it upon ourselves. So, anyways, I was with my sister until she was four years old. Why? Okay, so around December of 1994, I was in my second year of college. Let me before I get to that, let's revert back to November. Okay, so November happens. Um my sister had a video tape. We still had VHSs. Everybody remember that? Okay, so uh she was in ballet, recorded her ballet, it was on a VHS test VHS tape, and it was in my room. Why it was in my room, I don't know. Well, I do know, I found that afterward. But, anyways, it was in my room, and I was the kid that I would go out, I'm I was into football, I was into basketball, I was into baseball, and sometimes I would leave a tape inside my recorder and I would record something since I wasn't gonna be home. So I would timer it, I'd set it to record, and there was a VHS tape in my recorder. I ended up recording over her ballet. Now I didn't know that. I just thought I was using one of my tapes to record something that I wanted to see. So when it was found out, I think she wanted to play the ballet tape for for my sister. She was incredibly mad at me. Just incredibly mad at me. I'm like, I didn't know that was in there. That's not supposed to be in there. That wasn't my tape. I was recording something. Why did you leave it there? That shouldn't have never been there. And so we had a fight back and forth, and so she said out in the other, that's it, I've had it. I want you out of the house in six months. I can't, I can't bear to live with you anymore. So then I called my dad. I said, Dad, this is too much. I still had a great relationship with my dad. We called each other once a week at least, and I said, I I we we can't live each other anymore. Just can't do it. You know, she wanted me to get a car, I finally got a car. She said she would help with the gas, now she's not helping with the gas. She's, you know, I there were things that she was saying she was gonna do, and now she's not doing, and now I have to do it. So now I have to get a job because I have to pay for gas. And none of this was said at the beginning, and blah, blah, blah, we're going back and forth. That happened in November. So December rolls around. It's right after Christmas time. I get home, and uh my mom is having uh issues with her back. Okay, so she had two slip discs in her back. That caused her a lot of pain. So I get home one night and she's trying to put my sister to bed, but she's having some problems with slip discs in her back, and she's in a whole lot of pain. She was also asthmatic. She was she had asthma. Um, she also probably had high blood, no, she had high blood pressure, and she was very near diabetic, like her mother. So I'm thinking, okay, let me take my sister so you don't have to worry about her. I took her in my room, she went to sleep in my room, and then I just went to sleep. But all night, my mom was moaning and groaning, and I thought it was just her back pain. And I wake up the next morning and she's still moaning and groaning. So I go in and check on her. And she she can't get up. She seemed like she was out of it, like drug-wise, you know, like she took medication, she was just out of it. And and I was trying to make some sense out of her as she's in this state, and I'm talking to her, and it's like, do you need me to take you to a hospital? And so I can't remember all the details, but I had to get her dressed, had to get my sister dressed, and then we had to drive to the hospital. I I didn't call the ambulance. Don't ask me why. I I we just did it. We just thought she's in severe back pain. That's really what I thought. But then as we're driving in the car and we're driving toward a hospital, I passed one particular hospital because I even forgot the reason why. And I went to another one that was just a little bit farther down. So I passed one, but as we were on the way, she says to me, while she's sitting in the passenger seat, leaning back, trying to breathe, she's saying, I can't feel my arm. Now, for whatever reason, when I was in school, I learned that sometimes when you have a heart attack, you start losing the feelings in your limbs. So when she said that, I was like, Whoa, I I I I didn't that didn't occur to me. So I'm driving her down, I'm getting her to the

Mom’s Heart Attack And Anger At God

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 49:00

hospital, we get to the emergency room, I'm with my sister, and uh we get her in there, they they get her in and they just start working on her. She's having a heart attack. Didn't know that. She suffered all night, 12 hours at least, with a heart attack. And then I happen to pass the local, or not the local one, but the nearest hospital to go to another hospital. I can't even remember why. I just did. So they're working on her. I'm still underage. Uh well, actually, no, uh, yes, I was 20. I wasn't 21. I think they needed an adult that was 21. Um, so they said, Do you have anybody that can kind of make a decision about what's going on here? And I said, Well, I got my uncle, but then we had to drive down the palmetto, so I had to leave the hospital, the emergency room, with my sister, drive about half an hour, an hour through midday, mid-morning traffic to get to pick up my my my uncle, who's like, what's going on? I said, they need somebody that's 21 or older because something's wrong with your sister. You know, your my mom, your sister. He was the he was probably the youngest, I think he's the youngest uh in her siblings. So we're driving all the way back, and then we get to the emergency room. And they're working on her and they're working on her, and they can't revive her. And they want to know what they want to do. My uncle, who's just a few years older than me at the time, I was 20, he was just a few years older than me. He can't make the decision. He's sitting with his head in his in his lap, and he's and my sister, I think, is off on the side, and he can't make a decision. So I go into the emergency room where they're working on her, hospitals, I mean doctors and nurses, all pumping on her, pumping on her, working on her, and they're all looking at me, and I'm looking at them, and I'm like, stop. Just stop. And then they weren't sure if they should listen to me, but they did, and so they stopped working on her. So she died of a heart attack in that emergency room. Could have gotten toward a closer hospital, but I didn't, so I had to deal with the guilt of that. And I remember leaving that emergency room and there was a Coke machine there, and I remember taking my fist and going and smacking it, punching it as hard as I could. It didn't smack. I wanted to shatter, and it didn't. And I walk outside and I'm crying, I'm cursing, screaming with the loudest voice at God. Because I was so angry and taking it out on him, it wasn't his fault. I was just crying there, sat down on the curb, and all of that Christian upbringing that I had just came to me. And then I said, Father, I'm sorry. Right in that moment, after all that anger, all the crying, just right in that moment, I'm sorry. Just forgive me, I'm I'm sorry. And then I stopped crying. I just stopped crying. I just stopped crying. And I'm thinking, what am I gonna tell my sister? What am I gonna tell my sister? She's only four years old. So I get her out there and I'm trying to explain to her what happened to mom. I said, she's she's in the clouds, she's in heaven. I didn't know what I was saying, I didn't know what to say to her. Within three months of that moment, my stepfather, who they were about to get a divorce, takes my sister and moves back to Puerto Rico. And so I lose my mother, I lose my sister, and I'm living in a house with a mortgage on my hands, and I'm trying to go to school full-time. And I don't have a I have a part-time job. Yeah, I had a part-time job, and uh we had to, I had to make ends meet, and it was difficult. Um and I say all that, I didn't I don't want to end on a sorrowful note, but I I needed I Lord impress upon my heart that I needed to share that with you because we have all of these shared experiences. You may have not had all my experiences, but I'm sure there's something that I've said tonight that you can identify with and that you can understand, man. Yeah, I've been there too. I I don't know if you've ever gotten so angry with God that you cursed at him. I did. But that isn't the message because there's one thing that matters. There's one thing that matters. And I'm not gonna share it tonight. I'm gonna share it in two weeks. What is the one thing that matters? Because I told you, even though I went to Christian schools, even though I went to chapel, even though I learned all the Bible verses, I remember, and this is the part I missed, but I'm gonna go back to it now. In seventh and eighth grade, at that chapel service, they were inviting people to come, come, you know, the altar calls, right? Altar calls, come and let's pray the sinner's prayer. Let's invite Jesus into our hearts so that we can be saved. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so sixth grade, uh seventh grade, I went up, I did it. Eighth grade comes around, they're doing it again. Do I need to do it again? Okay, okay, I gotta do it again. And then ninth grade, I was like, that's it, I'm done. I did it already. I don't need to do this again. But what I didn't realize is that I was wanting to go back to do things that were, they were unbiblical. They were unbiblical. There is a way to be saved. And and I have to tell you, it's not just it's not inviting Jesus into your heart. It's not biblical. Praying a sinner's prayer is not biblical. This is not what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom he chose himself, told them to go and commanded them to go out and preach this gospel. He didn't he didn't say that to them, he didn't tell them to do that. And that's what I want to get into next week. So that's kind of my life. That's kind of where I'm at. I mean, I gotta share with you a whole lot more. There's a whole lot of different things that happened in my life. Um, but because the music is playing, that's my cue that I gotta end this soon. So I don't know if he got a text from Pastor Joe and said, hey, he's gotta cut it down now because it's time. You know, you can't keep them past nine. You can't keep them past nine. These people gotta go to work. And I understand

The One Thing That Matters Next

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 56:10

that I gotta go to work too. So um, if you just stand with me in prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this evening. I thank you for these beloved souls that are here today that listened to a portion, just a small portion, of my testimony. And I just pray, Father, that as I was speaking those words to them and sharing with them about my life that you were speaking to them, that there's something about their life experiences that they need to measure against the word of God. Because our life experiences do not legitimize us as righteous before God. It doesn't matter. Everybody has experiences, but it is your word that if we take your word and we mix it with our faith and we do things as you have said according to the scriptures, that then legitimizes us. And I thank you for giving me the opportunity to share a little bit about that today, and we'll go real in depth in two weeks. So I pray, Father, that you will bring these very hearts and souls that have listened here tonight back so that they can hear the biblical portion of this message, and so that they can be grounded in truth, and not just in what this person said or that person said, or what this is what I experienced, or you know, my sister experienced this, or my dad experienced this, or my mother, because none of that matters. What matters is how we respond to your word. There's one thing that matters, and I pray and hope that they will come back again to hear what is that one thing that matters. If you were blessed and appreciate listening to this podcast and you would like to support us in our efforts, consider lifting us up in prayer first. Then remember these four social media buzzwords. Share, like, subscribe, or follow. Share this podcast link with someone else by text, email, or word of mouth in the hopes that they might be uplifted as you work. Like by leaving a positive radio review with whoever you listen to our podcast with. Subscribe to support the show monetarily with the link in our podcast description. Follow us on all our social media platforms. May God bless you and make you prosperous as you listen and obey his voice.