Total Transformation After His Life Flashes Before Him
“And I was just like, 'God, I don't wanna die like this. Like I don't wanna go out like this, as a dope fiend in the street," recalls Anthony Vasquez.
During his teen years he went to church and loved what he was taught about God. But when his grandmother died of cancer, and his cousin committed suicide a short time after, Anthony felt betrayed.
“I felt like when I needed God most, He kinda let me down. I literally flipped off the sky, and was like, 'I don't need you. I don't need what you got. Obviously you don't care about me. You don't want nothing to do with me. So, I don't want nothing to do with you.'"
Anthony found escape and a new identity in drugs and gangster rap. He remembers, “I started getting high. And when I started smoking – smoking then, like all of a sudden, I felt free. I felt all these issues and problems in my life were gone. I loved the gangster gang, drug life. It was fun. You know, people hadn't got killed yet. People hadn't gone to prison yet. People hadn't, you know, overdosed yet.”
He married at 19 and started a family. Still the excitement of the streets always called him back.
“I didn't feel seen my whole life,” says Anthony. “And so, I wanted to be feared. And by the life that I lived, it made me both. I still got to play house, but then I also would get to go play gangster. It was cool to be a gangster. It was cool to be a womanizer. It was cool to be on drugs. And then to go from hanging around this really crazy environment of people, and then going back and sitting with a wife and kids, you know, at a table, it just seemed so small to me.”
Over the years he was in & out of jail several times and his wife filed for divorce. While Anthony was in rehab his brother became a Christian and invited him to church.
Anthony states, “I liked the people that were there. They seemed pretty genuine. Being real with God? I didn't even know what that meant, so I didn't really know how to get there. But I hadn't really experienced God. I'd just experienced church.”
Despite the good he was experiencing at church, Anthony still kept his foot in the gangster world. One night a robbery during a drug deal nearly cost him his life.
“We get on the ground, and I'm like telling the dude, 'Look man, we don't have anything. Take my cell phone. Take whatever you want, but we don't have anything on us. We don't have any drugs. We don't have any money.' He goes through our pockets, and then all the sudden we hear boom, boom. I mean, the impact of the shell firing...echoed in the little area we were in. And a bullet hit the concrete next to my head. And then I felt – it felt like someone hit me with a sledgehammer in my shoulder. I flashed to the police coming to my kids' mom telling them that I'm dead. My kids hearing that I'm dead. My mom hearing that I'm dead. I could visually see it all. I could see it all playing out. And I was just like, 'God, I don't wanna die like this. I don't wanna go out like this, as a dope fiend in the street,'” says Anthony.
He had been shot in the shoulder at close range. Though he was glad to be alive, he began to experience the emotional weight of his decisions and the double life he’d been leading.
“I literally felt my soul and my life were at stake. I felt this pressure, this fear, this condemnation, this conviction, and just this weight,” says Anthony.
“I'm fearful for my soul and my life. But I had no idea what to do. I fall on my knees, and I just start crying, and I'm like, 'God, I don't know how to change. I don't know how to change, so, either you help me or I'm done. All the sudden all this fear, all this darkness just went away from me. And I got up and I felt different inside. Like I didn't feel high. I didn't feel like I was coming down. I didn't feel anything. I just felt like my heart was beating and I had clarity of mind. And so, I called my brother and I'm like, 'Brother. Chris, I think I just met this Jesus dude, man. I need you to come tell me about Him because I think I just met Him.'"
Anthony was radically changed as he put his faith and his future in God’s hands.
“The one thing that God has been for me is faithful…the peace that I have in knowing that I'm His. I look forward to heaven...I wanna see my King. I really do. Because no matter how hard life's been here, He's always been good to me,” says Anthony.
He now works with youth at his church and is a Christian rap music producer. The years of longing for hope and purpose were finally satisfied in a relationship with Jesus.
He smiles and says, “I find my worth in opening up the Bible and seeing scripture that I've read a thousand times become brand new all over again. I find worth in hearing a worship song and it makes me feel like I'm touching heaven. I feel worth in praying to God and knowing that He hears my prayers. He may not answer them when I want, but He answers them when I need. Sometimes it's no. Sometimes it's yes. But like Paul said, 'I'm content in all things whether abase or abound.' And in my season in life right now, what I'm learning is, is to be content.”
