A Changed Life
By Mario Persichetti
This is the story of a life that was changed: mine!
It all started in 1973. My name is Mario and at that time I was 35 years
old. I enjoyed good health, I had an attractive wife, two precious daughters –
one seven years old and the other just one - a beautiful home, and a pretty good
job.
My religious life? In my opinion, it was a good one. I considered myself to
be a good Christian: I didn’t hurt anybody, never stole anything, I would make
the sign of the cross with my hand every time a funeral procession went by, I
went to Church every Sunday… in other words, I sincerely thought I was a good
Christian. However, it didn’t occur to me that I knew the Lord only by
hearsay; I had no personal relation or intimate communion with Him.
Then something very painful happened. My father died. His departure from
this life had been an agonizing and heart-rending one. A malignant tumor in his
lungs had confined him for a very long time in an hospital bed, where he
suffered horrendously. Being very attached to him, his death had such a painful
effect in me that I thought I would never be able to overcome.
Some time later, unexpectedly , something very unpleasant happened at my
workplace. I endured many unjust dealings from the hands of my superiors.
This was perhaps the drop that made me fall into a deep depression (a that time
diagnosed as a “severe nervous breakdown”). Insomnia weighted me down; I would
wake up every night at one o’clock and couldn’t go back to sleep. The doctor
prescribed sedatives that soon had to become stronger because my sleep pattern
did not change. In addition, exams of radiology revealed the presence of a
small ulcer in my stomach.
I started to be absent at work and I would spend my days sitting in my
arm-chair, doing nothing. My worse enemy was my head: I felt like being trapped
in a maze with no way out. I remember that my wife, to shake me out of my daze,
would remind me that we had two little daughters and I needed to move and that
we could not go on like that.
I wanted to, but I couldn’t (I’m certain that those who experience or have
experienced depression know very well what I am talking about).
My visits to the specialists followed one another in regular succession:
there was the neurologist, then the psychologist and so forth, all without
substantial results. During the night I slept very little and during the day,
for one whole month, I remained sitting in the chair, having totally lost the
will power to do anything else.
Ah, I almost forgot! During that time, my sister who lives in America, would
write to me regularly, encouraging me to turn to God because He loved me and
had given the life of His own Son Jesus Christ for me. She would tell me that
Jesus shed His blood on the Cross, where He took my place, and gave His Life to
forgive me for all my sins. She said that nothing is impossible to Him and that
He would heal me…that I should repent of my sins and accept His forgiveness
because of His completed work of the Cross. In short, she told me that I needed
to invite Him in my heart as my personal Lord and Savior!
Logically, at that time I didn’t understand very well everything she was
telling me, so my prideful answer was always the same: ‘my God is the same as
yours, I don’t see how doing what you tell me can change anything’.
At the same time, though, a Bible verse that I had read kept coming into my
mind. It quoted the words of Jesus who said: “ Come to Me, all who are weary
and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest…” Matt. 11:28.
I couldn’t put those words out of my mind.
One night, after I came home from a psychiatric session, that hadn’t solved
anything (I must say, without offense, that the doctor looked more empty-headed
than me), I decided to try the Lord. Behind the closed doors of my room, while
crying bitterly, I knelt before Him and called on His name with all of my
heart.
“Lord, I can’t stand it any more. I ask forgiveness for my sins and I ask
You to help me as only You can”. These may have not been the exact words I
spoke, nevertheless that was the cry of my being.
That night, for the first time after such a long period, I fell asleep
without taking pills. After a week, I threw out all the medicines I had
depended on until then. When the doctor re-examined me, the little ulcer in my
stomach was no longer there: it vanished! Two weeks later I went back to work
and – to my surprise – I had been transferred in another office, with leadership
capacities and ensuing increase in salary.
My home now is filled with a wonderful peace, not like the peace we used to
know; it’s the peace that only God can give, a peace that doesn’t depend upon
circumstances but comes from knowing Him and from knowing that He loves us and
that He lives in us, through His Holy Spirit!
Thirty years have come and gone but His love never left and never will.
Every day we enjoy His protection and His guidance because He is faithful to His
Word that says:
"Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I
am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold
you with My righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10
It is God that helps and sustains. It is God that says: “NOTHING IS
IMPOSSIBLE WITH ME!”
At this point I want to say something fundamental, primarily to the young
people that today live a life without hope, full of heart wounds perhaps
because they didn’t receive the appropriate love from their parents or they have
been mistreated, abused or treated with indifference: God loves you!
Maybe today you are reading this testimony by chance, I want to be personal
with you. You must know that every person is born with a deep desire in the
spirit to love and be loved. Sadly, many fill this kind of emptiness with the
wrong things or by going in the wrong places. Our Lord and Savior however
continues to love us and He tells us, “I have redeemed you, I have called you by
name; you are mine. You are precious in my eyes and I love you!”
Yes, this is the truth, God loves you and He wants not only to forgive you of
your sins but He wants to heal you (physically and emotionally). He gave the
person most precious to Him, His very own Son Jesus Christ, the “perfect
sacrifice”, the only One without sin, to redeem you not only from your sins, but
from your sickness as well. He is waiting for you with arms wide open. He is
waiting for you to accept His forgiveness and His love and to give to Him your
heart. Invite Him to come and live in you. I and my family did so one day and
we never regretted it. So I tell you: don’t wait…do it now and your life too
will be changed by His marvelous Presence. God bless you!
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave
His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not
perish, but have eternal life.
Mario Persichetti
Translated from Italian
by Laura Pedota | 
