Lupita’s small bare feet ran swiftly toward the sound of a church bell ringing loudly in the little village of Los Fresnos. The bell called the children to their catechism classes and she, for one, was not going to get to church late as other naughty boys and girls often did.
She arrived just as the last gong of the bell struck. She hurried into the room which contained rough wooden benches, a statue of their adored Mother Mary in the front with a crucifix off to one side, and various saints lining the walls to the right and left of the benches. At the entrance sat a small container filled with holy water. Artificial flowers surrounded the saints and the blessed Mother.
Lupita loved coming to mass and catechism and learning all she could about God and the Bible. If there was one thing her parents had taught her, it was that the Bible was the very Word of God, therefore, everything in it could be trusted. The problem was that few people took the time to find out what was in it.
As she sat on one of the hard benches in the back of the church, she started reviewing the ten commandments in her head, which they had to memorize as part of their training. Every time Lupita repeated each of these ten laws, which she believed God had put in the Bible to be obeyed, fear gripped her, and she could not help but examine her own life and realize she had already fallen short. She felt a terrible dread over the implications of not having kept the ten laws. Certainly, it was a well-known fact for all good Catholics that those who didn’t keep the ten commandments could expect nothing but Hell.
Before she knew it, the children had been dismissed from the class, and she found herself scurrying back to the small adobe house she had called home for the eight short years of her life. As she reached the door, she found her mother busy making tortillas on the comal (a large, flat, round pan which is used over the fire to cook tortillas). Ofelia, looked unusually tired today and had not noticed her daughter standing in the doorway. Lupita thought of all the work her young mother had to keep up with, caring for her seven children. She had married her stepbrother when she was only thirteen years old; he had been sixteen.
After a moment, Ofelia looked up and inquired, “How was class today?”
Lupita looked down sadly, for she had many doubts and questions about how to be sure she would go to Heaven when she died. Not that she didn’t believe the ten commandments were for her. But if she was honest with herself, she knew that because of her disobedience to the ten commandments, she was headed to Hell. And that thought was the one that made her bright little face turn sad that day. But she simply replied, “Fine, I guess.” Lupita rarely opened up with anyone, not even her parents, so the thoughts of that morning stayed tucked inside the timid young girl. Her mother hadn’t seemed to note the sadness in Lupita’s voice, so after hearing a satisfactory response from her, she turned back to take a beautifully puffed-up tortilla off the hot comal.
Lupita sighed, then ran outside and took a deep breath of fresh air. Her gaze ran to the beautiful range of Sierra Madre mountains before her, which stretched as far as the eye could see. It appeared as though a thousand mountain peaks were visible from that humble dwelling. Off to her right, a small grassy valley gave way to a lush forest.
“I must live in the most beautiful place in the whole world,” she thought proudly as she beheld the view. Her black curls bounced in the wind as she made her way down the steep hill to her father’s land, which had been planted with corn just a few weeks earlier. She loved going to that small parcel of land and watching her father work. The narrow, slippery path that led to the land was a tricky one to get down. Trying to descend too slowly, might result in a person’s feet slipping out from under him in the slick mud. The best strategy was to sprint down quickly and nimbly, if possible.
As she neared the cornfield, she could make out the figure of her father, his face shaded by a sombrero. He looked up, half startled by his daughter’s approach, but seemed in no way unhappy to see her. He had always been a good dad to all his children, and, unlike most men in Mexico, he took on the monotonous task of housework when his wife was recovering from childbirth. He knew how to make tortillas, as well as other traditional foods, and helped his young wife sweep and mop the house when he could.
Her father Isidro had come from a very hard background where love scarce. Lupita never once in her life heard her dad verbally say, ‘I love you!’ and yet she never doubted his love.
Isidro glanced down at his youngest, his eyes softening for just a moment, then he hastily gathered up some of his tools. He slung his machete over his shoulder and began walking in the direction of the village. Lupita looked timidly at her father and, without a word, followed him back up the steep hill toward home and the delicious meal that awaited them.
Lupita had good parents who had taught her what they thought was right, and part of what they taught her was to respect the Bible. The law of the Lord had been engrained upon her heart making her feel guilty every time she committed one of the sins the ten commandments prohibited. Perhaps her sins were not the “terrible” ones, but her bad thoughts condemned her, and every time one of them entered her mind, she felt as if her own soul was saying, “Now you’re going to Hell.”
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Years went by. Lupita continued to hunger for the certainty that she would go to Heaven when she died.
Through her teen years she suffered with horrifying nightmares of the flames of the lake of fire approaching her. Terrified, she would run to her parents’ room where she would spend the rest of the night. Every now and then, she would have a vivid sensation of death crawling on top of her and pushing her down in bed. It was a feeling many of the villagers had while awake, but it happened to Lupita in her sleep.
She was a very good Catholic in the eyes of everyone who saw her. But one thought plagued Lupita: she was certain that because she had failed to keep the ten commandments, she was headed for Hell. Her terror over going to Hell led to a vicious cycle. It would lead her to periods of extra effort to be good, and then to despair over the realization of her failure, and then back to guilt and fear again. And the guilt Lupita felt left her empty and without hope. Many a time, the word “suicide” went through her mind. She wanted a way to forget her guilt and fear, and sometimes the solution seemed to be in taking her own life. Thankfully, the Lord kept her from taking this road, and He continued to gently lead her to the way of true freedom.
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Lupita had often heard the villagers talk about the “gringos” (Americans) who called themselves “missionaries”. This particular family had bought a piece of land about a mile away from the village and although they claimed to teach the Bible, the villagers were convinced they were part of one of those false religions who tried to steal converts from the Catholic church. Lupita grew up with a warning to beware of those gringos and what they believed.
One Sunday morning as she went about her chores, she saw Ramon and Eva’s car slowly making its way toward the gringos’ small church. In that moment, a fresh zeal consumed her, and she made a promise to God. She later reinforced it as she knelt before the crucifix in her church. She would NEVER change religions.
One day Lupita’s good friend, Celia, asked her if she wanted to learn to play the guitar with her. “Of course!” Lupita responded enthusiastically, for the guitar was one instrument to which she felt drawn.
Celia further explained that some of the “hallelujah girls,”(as the Christians were known) from the gringo’s church had offered to teach her guitar. Lupita approached her friend’s house nervously the next day as she pondered the wisdom of taking classes from the “hallelujah girls.” She mustered up enough courage to enter the small house and once inside, her nerves relaxed a bit as she was now with Celia.
The guitar class went well enough. Paulina, Abril and Bertha seemed like nice girls in spite of their religious beliefs. But as soon as the class ended, they brought out a little black book and began telling Celia and Lupita about the Bible. Both girls listened politely but were inwardly not paying the least bit of attention.
After the “hallelujah girls” left, Celia said, “Now they’re going to start with their religious talk. I don’t want to keep on learning from them anymore, do you?” Lupita quickly agreed that if Celia didn’t want to continue, then neither did she.
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“Don’t you think Juan is cute! I think he likes me,” whispered Celia to her group of friends who were having a chat. “The other day Lalo asked me to go out with him and he took me to the rodeo. We drank and partied until 2:00 a.m.,” another of the girls added excitedly. “I think José is wanting to ask you to be his girlfriend, Lupita. He asked me about you at school yesterday,” giggled a third.
All this talk seemed a bit silly to Lupita, who had never been very interested in boys and found the idea of dating very embarrassing, as she would have to talk to a boy if she had a boyfriend. She enjoyed spending time with her girlfriends, but more and more, these friends seemed preoccupied with boys. Her cousins were constantly pressuring her to have a boyfriend, and even her mother and oldest sister felt she was too shy and timid toward boys. “Perhaps she is depressed,” they thought, “and needs a boyfriend to make her happy.”
Although she really didn’t feel like having a boyfriend, she had to admit that she felt even more lonely now that her friends’ time was taken up, and Maybe, she thought, if I have a boyfriend, it will help me fill up some of the time when my friends aren’t around. And this was the reason Lupita finally gave in and consented to going out with José. She didn’t enjoy having a boyfriend and as for the boy himself, she didn’t even like him, but at least she could now join in on her friends’ conversations.
One day her mom and sister told her about a young man who had been asking about her. Soon after this, she was walking home alone from a government meeting for youth. Lupita was so shy and fearful that she hated having to go anywhere by herself and would most always ask her nephew, who was only a few years younger than her, to go with her to the store, or anywhere else for that matter. But on this particular trip home, her nephew was not able to be with her, so she set out for her house alone, walking as quickly as possible. Just as she was nearing the village, she stopped dead in her tracks and stiffened up. A car was slowly driving right behind her and began making a scandalous ruckus with its horn honking, hands waving out the windows, yells and whistles! “Please keep those marijuana drug dealers from stopping!” she prayed silently to the Blessed Mother.
Little could Lupita have guessed that those “drug dealers” were…her future husband Fabian and his brother, Manuel!
The next time Lupita actually met Fabian’s family was at a wedding. Fabian’s parents exchanged pleasantries with her parents and inquired about the shy young girl standing behind them. Ofelia introduced her youngest daughter. “Good!” exclaimed Fabian’s mother, “I’ll send my boys over to your house soon.”
“Of course!” chimed in Ofelia. They all laughed, that is, everyone except Lupita.
Time went on and Fabian began trying to find excuses to see Lupita. With the help of his aunt, they finally became good friends, but as far as Lupita was concerned, that’s all they were. She liked his personality and his sense of humor, but at the time, she had a boyfriend, so she just saw Fabian as a good friend.
Fabian, who was despairing over whether anything was going to become of this, finally made up his mind to go to the United States to work, because she seemed in no hurry to marry him. However, through a plot on the part of Lupita’s nephew, the two got together once more, and that was when they finally got “hooked”. “Fabian wants to see you, Aunt,” the nephew said innocently.
Then he went to Fabian and said, “My aunt wants to see you.”
When the meeting took place, Fabian asked Lupita to be his girlfriend, to which she agreed. Four months later, he asked her to be his wife, and again, she agreed.
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“Have you been drinking?” Lupita asked her husband one night when he came home late. “Just one,” was always his reply.
It was not long after they were married that Lupita realized she had married an alcoholic, who had even been into drugs in the past. Many were the times that he would go out and return with red, blood-shot eyes. Soon she found out it was not “just one,” but that Fabian was a terrible drunk.
By now Lupita was pregnant with their first child. As time went on, Fabian and Lupita’s fights only increased. Things would go in a roller-coaster cycle with times of such despair over the other’s lack of concern or respect that blow-ups would ensue.
“All you do is think about yourself. You come home drunk more than you do sober and you’re not being the father your little girl needs!” Lupita sobbed.
Fabian exploded, “Well what more do you want me to do, woman! I work hard all day and rarely get any enjoyment. The little fun I manage to get, you want to take from me! Besides, you have food and clothes and shoes for Keyla and for yourself. What more do you want from me?”
From the beginning of their marriage, there had been problems over religion as well. Lupita was devotedly Catholic, and Fabian, whose parents were Seventh Day Adventists, had decided long ago he was neither one nor the other. He was just “neutral.” He would go with Lupita to Mass but hated every moment of it. It troubled him to see people kneel before the saints. During his brief contact with the Bible, he had heard the verse, “You shall not have other gods before Me,” and had understood that people who worshiped saints were not honoring God. From there on out, he cared nothing for religion. He teased Lupita by telling her what the Adventists thought about the Catholics which, of course, would make Lupita furious.
Things went on this way for some time. Lupita’s fear and longing to know the truth had not dissipated. Her nightmares continued as well, and the powers of darkness could clearly be seen working mercilessly to torment her. One night she opened her eyes and saw the silhouette of a man
. He was darker than the darkness of the night, and his hair looked wild and scruffy. Lupita screamed, and Fabian tried jumping up but felt instantly pushed back by an invisible force. These kinds of things happened frequently.
One day Fabian was telling his wife about his great-grandmother’s friendship with Satan. He explained that when his mom was little, she and her grandma would walk to a village far away on a road that was rugged and dangerous. On the way back the grandma would tell Satan, “Friend, come, go with me.” Then Fabian’s mom would see a huge black dog come out of the bushes and walk beside them the whole way back to their village. When they arrived home, Grandma would say, “Alright friend, thank you.” Then she would turn to her granddaughter and explain, “If ever you need a favor, ask him for it and he’ll give it to you. You don’t need to promise your soul to him, just as if you were friends.”
When Fabian finished telling Lupita about his great-grandmother, she felt as though she had finally found the solution to her problems. “Besides,” she thought, “It makes sense that if Satan is my friend, when I get to Hell, everyone will be burning except for me.” Her desire was no longer for a way to get to Heaven, but rather a way to avoid being so bad off in Hell.
Although she never actually got to the point of making a promise or a pact with Satan, the thought of how she could avoid getting burned in Hell stayed very near to her.
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…BUT THEN CAME JESUS
One day during Lupita’s second pregnancy, the Christian missionary came to the door of her house and inquired after her husband. She informed him he was out and asked if she could pass on a message. “Tell your husband that we would love to have him work for us at our cappuccino factory, if he is interested,” said the gringo. “We are in bad need of workers right now,” he added with a smile.
Fabian greatly enjoyed working at the cappuccino factory. At work, he was impressed in particular by the kindness of one of the young girls toward the workers. Paulina, who had been one of the “hallelujah girls” trying to teach Lupita guitar, was in charge of telling the workers what shift they were to work for that hour, and her thoughtfulness was not lost on Fabian. Also, the prayers they prayed before beginning work each day touched and softened something down deep in the man who had once been the tough guy at school. These people pray sincere prayers–not like the Catholics or the Adventists, he thought. Something was different here.
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Sometime later, in September, a fellow worker invited Fabian to come to an Independence Day celebration they were going to have at the camp where the gringos lived. This was the location of their church, as well as the factory where Fabian worked. There would be a presentation with a delectable Mexican supper, followed by traditional folk dances and singing.
On the night of the fifteenth, Fabian arrived with his family, and they sat at one of the colorfully decorated tables. As the man in charge of the presentation began to speak about freedom from sin and slavery to Satan, something else began to move inside Fabian’s heart, and he realized that all are slaves to sin.
After the presentation was over, Fabian asked his brother Manuel, who was also present, if he would be interested in joining him to ask someone to teach them a Bible study. His brother agreed. Neither one asked their wives about the study. In fact, the truth of the matter was that Fabian didn’t even want the study for himself, he wanted it for Lupita!
Afraid of what her response might be, Fabian delayed telling her about it until Miguel and Abril were walking toward their house the night of the study. It was then that he nonchalantly said, “Honey, Miguel and his wife are coming to give us a Bible study right now.”
She stared at her husband. But she didn’t have much time to stare, or even get angry, because Miguel and Abril were almost to the door by then. She quickly tried to clean some things up around the house before there was a knock.
Lupita shook hands with Miguel and his family and courteously asked them to sit down. She felt no inclination to study the Bible, and her apathy was evident to Miguel and especially to Abril. She remembered all too well the shy, uninterested girl, sitting on the edge of her friend’s bed, trying to learn guitar while avoiding any contact with the Bible. Now, more than ten years later, married, and each the mother of three children, the two girls once again sat side by side, Abril trying yet once more to tell Lupita about the Bible.
This time Lupita listened. Although skeptical at the beginning, she soon became enthralled with the Bible and could hardly wait for the day when Miguel and Abril would come to teach the next lesson.
During one such study, Miguel explained John 1:29 where John says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
Lupita knew that Jesus had died on the cross. In fact, she even remembered hearing this very same verse in Mass. But when Miguel explained that Jesus had died for each of us, a light turned on in her heart, and she thought, “Wow! I knew that Jesus had died, but I never knew that it was for me!” She marveled, “This is true!” She later commented, “That Jesus had died for me, was the best news I had ever heard!”
But it wasn’t until later that she actually believed it for herself.
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One day Lupita informed her husband with much excitement that she was expecting their fourth child. Her hopes ran high at the prospect of being a mother once again, for in her eyes, nothing could compare with the bearing and rearing of children. And she had to admit that even Fabian seemed pleased.
Her third birth had been somewhat traumatic, going into labor at six months. In spite of the hardships of the last pregnancy, Lupita was so excited about having another baby that her fear of possible complications was forgotten…
…Forgotten until one night five months later, when Lupita woke her husband with sobs and cries. She was experiencing terrible contractions. He quickly helped his wife into their beat-up little car and drove even faster than he normally did.
The night passed like a nightmare, and by the next morning, Fabian was completely exhausted. He sobbed inconsolably as he and another man gently lowered his baby daughter’s coffin into the small grave which had been dug in the village cemetery. His heart was totally broken, and he felt as though his life was not worth living any more. Never had he felt such a great emptiness–an emptiness it seemed nothing could fill. Seeing his wife’s pain and suffering through the death of their little Light, for that was what they had named her, caused him so much anguish that he could scarcely bear it.
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Around this time a co-worker of Fabian’s gave him a Bible which Lupita kept on top of her dresser. She was almost never interested in the beginning of a book but would rather skip to the very end to see the final outcome. So one day she gingerly opened the black Book to one of the last pages. And there she found a simple plan, which had as a title, written in bold letters: ‘The Plan of Salvation’. Printed below it was the following:
Realize your sinful state before God, and the payment for it, which is death. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23)
“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.” (Rom. 10:9)
As Lupita read the plan over and over again, she finally understood. The first part about everyone having fallen short of the glory of God because of their sin reaffirmed in her mind that she was headed in the direction of Hell. But the second part! She had never understood how great the love and grace of God was until that moment when she read that she could be saved by simply believing!
Though she was now sure she had found the truth, she hesitated in believing just then for fear that she wouldn’t do it right. She came back again and again to the plan, but kept putting it off until she felt more ready.
One night roughly ten months after the baby’s death, Lupita received the unwelcome news that her brother-in-law was once again being aggressive and threatening her sister Trinidad. Her father, Isidro, and Chucho, (one of Lupita’s brothers) quickly started over to Trinidad’s house to see how they could help calm her ferocious husband. Lupita wanted desperately to help her sister in her time of need, but Fabian had ordered her to stay in the house. Her desperation grew as the minutes ticked slowly by. Finally, she reached up on top of the dresser and grabbed the Bible. She once more flipped to the well-known page in the back and carefully read the plan again.
Realize your sinful state before God, and the payment for it, which is death. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23)
“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.” (Rom. 10:9)
In that moment she prayed the simple prayer at the end of the page asking Jesus to forgive her and to come into her life. She understood what she was praying, and yet the doubts continued. What if she hadn’t done it right, and then she lost her salvation. One day she finally realized that it didn’t matter whether she did it right; what mattered was that Jesus had done it right for her. Her heart flooded with joy as she fell on her knees and said, “I believe in Jesus’ death for me! Thank you, Lord, for saving me!”
As she rose, a new Lupita shone forth. A peace had come into her which she never even knew was possible. All the fear which had made her a slave for years was washed away in the love of Jesus and, unbeknown to her, her face was radiant with joy and beauty. Lupita was naturally a beautiful woman, but now with Jesus in her heart, one could noticeably perceive the difference in her eyes. They sparkled! Her joy was immeasurable because of what she was learning from the Bible. She was thrilled by what she read and it thrilled her even more to realize that the Lord was helping her understand it.
This change was not lost upon Fabian, who began to observe a difference between the Lupita he had married and the Lupita who now stood before him. It frustrated him that he could not pin-point where the change was coming from, and he tried various means to assure himself that his wife was the same old Lupita. He would try his best to do things that normally made her mad, just to prove that she was the same. But try as he might, he could not fail to see the fruit of Jesus in her life. She radiated joy; she had peace; she loved him more than she had ever loved him before, and this had nothing to do with his treatment of her. When she no longer wanted to attend daily mass, he knew something big was going on.
One night, a few months later, Fabian and Lupita were in their room when suddenly Fabian said, “Lupita, what’s happened to you? You’re not the same person.” She didn’t hesitate for an instant but joyfully replied, “I have trusted in Jesus as my Savior!”
He looked at his beautiful wife and the tears started streaming down his face as he said, “Well, whatever it is that you have, I want too!” Lupita looked tenderly at her broken husband and said softly “I have Jesus in my heart.”
“Then that’s what I want too.” Fabian said with determination. “I want Jesus!”
“Well He’s waiting for you to come!” Lupita exclaimed.
In spite of Fabian’s desire to have what Lupita had, he too postponed coming until several months later when he finally received Christ. At that moment another soul came to the Savior and rested his weary self on Jesus who invites all who are weary and heavy-laden to come to Him with this promise: “…the one who comes to Me, I will certainly not cast out.” (John 6:37)
And so it was that a devout Catholic girl, who was certain that she was headed to Hell, and a drug-addict boy, who was plunged deep into the muck and filth of sin, found the way to be forgiven and the way to know that they were going to Heaven. Both husband and wife would often marvel over the love of God which had reached down to them.
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But this is not the end of the story. Now Fabian and Lupita were a new creation, with a new nature—one that wanted to honor, follow, and serve God foremost. They soon found out that honoring and following God sometimes meant walking upstream and against the flow.
As soon as Lupita’s parents found out about her new-found faith, they were devastated. She, a devout Catholic, now a Christian? What a blotch on their good name. Ofelia would sit down with Lupita and begin sobbing, begging her to return to the Catholic church. She would ask the Catholic priest what she should do to make her daughter come back. But Lupita was firm. She had decided to follow Jesus, and there was no turning back. One day many years later, she found out that on one such occasion when her mother had talked to the priest about her, the priest had said, “Have you seen a change in her?”
“Yes…” Ofelia had to admit she had.
“Well then, don’t worry. That’s what we want, spiritual change!”
And change there was, which neither set of parents could fail to see in their son’s and daughter’s lives. Lupita used to have nightmares and be frightened all the time. Now she slept normally and had peace and true joy. The only other time she had a nightmare such as she used to have, was one night not long after she had trusted in Jesus. That same demon of death came to her as if to smash her into the bed as he used to. But this time, when Lupita saw him coming, she bravely yelled, “You can’t come into me anymore because now Jesus lives in me!” And that was the last time this apparition of death ever tried to come near her.
The change was just as apparent in Fabian’s life. When he was fifteen, he had gotten a beating from his dad and, with hate spewing from his eyes, he had defiantly yelled, “That’s the last time you’ll ever hit me!” He had never had a good relationship with his father who had often beaten him, and a root of bitterness was planted somewhere deep inside Fabian’s heart. But when Jesus came into his heart, there wasn’t room for bitterness anymore. That’s when Fabian did something he thought he would never do. He went to his parents’ house and said, “I forgive you, Dad.”
On another occasion, Lupita had been sick for several weeks with low blood pressure. Her worried mother announced, “I’m going to take you to the witch doctor!” Lupita began to tremble as she thought about what saying “No” to her mother could mean. She knew going to a witch doctor would not honor the Lord but saying “No” to her parents was something Lupita had never done before, and she feared their anger. But in that moment, the Lord gave her strength to look calmly at her mom and say, “I’m not going to go to the witch doctor. That is an abomination to the Lord.” She was surprised that her mom didn’t explode or argue. That was the last she heard of it.
Many years passed, and both Fabian and Lupita were thriving in their faith. Lupita was thinking about hardships, and how they draw us closer to Jesus. “Lord, bring us hardships so that You may test us and bring us closer to You,” she prayed, “Oh, and Lord, please help us face the hardships with joy and without recoiling,” she added.
And so it was that Lupita remembered her prayer when the Lord allowed her twelve-year-old daughter, Zaira, to begin having frightening symptoms of what turned out to be a rare disease called Channelopathy. This was a sickness of which most doctors had never even heard. It started with the little girl complaining that her hands and feet had “fainted,” and she couldn’t move them. This would happen occasionally, but only to her hands and feet. But then the spasms of paralysis began to increase, and now it was her whole body that would become paralyzed. Her parents took her to a hospital where a doctor finally declared that Zaira had Channelopathy, which could paralyze her muscles for unknown periods of time. The danger was that her heart, which is a muscle, might suddenly become paralyzed, possibly bringing on sudden death for Zaira.
Through all these trials, the Lord never left Fabian, Lupita, Keyla, Zaira or Juanito. He proved faithful and gave them peace through the hardship. Lupita described it as an amazing, inexplicable peace which came only through this hardship.
In the end, after over a year of doctor’s appointments, medications, and special diets, the Lord seemed to say, “That’s enough. It’s time to take you out of this trial.” They found a specialist who appeared to understand the disease and get her medications right. After that, the sickness seemed to disappear. Through it all, Lupita’s prayer was answered, and not only her own faith, but the faith of many others grew as well.
Yes, God has done a great work in Fabian and Lupita’s lives, and He is not through with them yet. The family continues to serve the Lord in Los Fresnos. The true longing of their heart is for Jesus to come for them, but until then, they desire to serve Him with all that they have.
Lupita once said that her story could be summed up as follows: “Before I knew Jesus, I was filled with fear, and was sure that I was going to Hell. After I trusted Jesus, I was filled with joy, and I knew I was going to Heaven.”
If anyone ever doubts the validity of the Bible, or if anyone ever says, “Jesus doesn’t really change lives, it’s just a spiritual revival that happens inside of you,” they need not doubt any longer. Fabian and Lupita are living proof that Jesus changes lives.
Note from the Author:
This family is very dear to my heart for many reasons. Lupita spent hours encouraging and discipling me as a young girl. She taught me how to make tortillas and many different Mexican meals. She even taught me how to kill a chicken! Her oldest daughter, Keyla, became my sister-in-law in 2023!