A Life Transformed: Isaac’s Story

A powerful story of a young man who was going the wrong way fast.

Transcript

Isaac Gutierrez: My name is Isaac Gutierrez and I was introduced to Harvest by my wife and my mother-in-law. I didn’t really have my parents home with me as much as I’d like because they both work. So a lot of the time growing up with my siblings, we always spent alone. For us, we had to keep everything bottled up inside. That’s a reason why I feel like I didn’t have anyone to talk to or get any kind of guidance from. Growing up, I got introduced to alcohol and I got introduced to marijuana and cannabis and cigarettes and methamphetamine. I felt like doing these things or leaving home would fulfill me or make me feel better about my situation.

I wasn’t living at home, was moving from room to room. I got with my girlfriend, who is my wife. She came here to Harvest Riverside and her mom came here and they brought me for the first time and I came, sat outside like a crazy person, but when it started I fell in love with the music. It was more my style. I kept coming back here because of the music. A few years later, in 2017 at the Crusade at Angels Stadium, Greg Laurie had a message. He pretty much said that if your parents were not always there for you, God is there for you. So that’s what got me out of my seat and then I went down to the field. My wife, she was pregnant with my kid and I figured it was time to make a change.

What changed my life in 2017? My whole attitude, I would say. Like, I stopped, I guess, holding myself back. I stopped feeling like the mistakes in my life were going to define the rest of my life. I was like, I’m forgiven. You know what I mean? Like I can start over. I can make a change. Instead of continuing and making the same mistakes for generations in my family, I can start something new with my small family. Whatever I try to do it’s for showing my girls what a Christian man should be so that when they grow up, they don’t have what I had. That they can’t come to their parent with their feelings or their thoughts or emotions. They don’t have to keep it bottled up.

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