This is a testimony shared by Otniel Salvador Hernández, Director of La Cosecha in Mexico.
There are days in which we can’t understand anything at all, much less what God desires for us. It is in those days that doubt accumulates and joins with external influences, making the moment more difficult. One of those days took place some years ago while I was living at El Refugio and being rehabilitated. Some months had gone by and the anxiousness to return home was not as intense, but it was there from time to time. Also during that time all of the people who were admitted with me were leaving and I was left alone in the rehab center, and that made me emotional.
Around that time, a man arrived who had serious problems relating to cocaine addiction, and he stayed to begin rehabilitation. He would talk to me about the many problems he had and how he had wasted a small inheritance that his mother had left him. We started to get along well and in the beginning he had a desire to change, but like all addicts, he also unexpectedly changed his mind and decided to leave.
That day he came up to me in the morning and said, “I am leaving now. I don’t want to be here.” And then he added, “Let’s go, Oti. Let’s go right now.”
I listened to him, and it wasn’t that the idea astonished me because I had thought of it and desired it many times, but my response was, “No.” And I tried to convince him to stay, to hang in there a little longer, but he didn’t want to.
He continued insisting that we leave, for me to give up on rehab and continue on with life as always. And not only did he tell me that we should go, but since he had already put his things in his backpack, he suddenly took my backpack and began packing my things and telling me, “Let’s go right now, brother!”
That bothered me, and I told him to leave my things and that if he wanted to he should go, but that I was going to stay. I saw him leave on the road that led to the main highway. I saw him get lost amongst the pine trees in the forest and from far away he motioned with his hand, “Let’s go, come, let’s go.”
When he disappeared I went into the cabin and immediately began to weep and desperately cry out, “Why can’t I go?! Why do I have to be here?”
And from the deepest part of my heart I said, “Why don’t you let me go?”
Yes, that day I began to understand and perceive a strength in me that was much stronger than my will, which restrained me and with authority but indescribable love told me, “You cannot go.”
I didn’t understand why it stopped me, nor to what end; what I did understand is that it was God Himself restraining me to be in this time and this place.
A few years passed and I was working in La Cosecha with some young men. We had inaugurated the rehab center approximately two years before that, and it was about five years after that day in El Refugio. I was in the office when I was informed that some women wanted to talk to me and had brought a man to admit him. These women were not his relatives; they only wanted to help him. They came in with a man completely destroyed by addiction. When he saw me he asked the women to leave him alone with me. They agreed and he entered by himself. I was sitting and he sat down in front of me, lifted his head, looked at me and said nothing except, “Do you remember?”
“Yes, I remember,” I answered.
“I left and you stayed.”
“Yes, I stayed and you left, “ I answered, and he began to cry.
I was moved by his weeping, and in that moment I heard in my heart the unmistakable voice of my Savior telling me, “Now you see why I didn’t let you go.”
Oh friends, how marvelous is the love of God. How great is His mercy. Christ’s sacrifice is the price of every blessing that we receive day after day.
There are, indeed, days in which we don’t understand why we are here and why things are this way, but in those days I assure you that God is watching over your life and even more, He is preparing you for the best. He is preparing you so that Christ may be glorified in you. Not one step back friends and brethren; we are more than conquerors!
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
isaiah 55:8-11
La Cosecha is a recovery house in Oaxaca, Mexico, which focuses on helping people overcome their addictions through the power of the Holy Spirit. Click here to learn more about La Cosecha.