God is Never Late to Save Anyone: The Perspective of an Alcoholic’s Daughter

I was praying, asking God, what he wanted me to share first on this site that I felt he led me to create. He told me “Tell your father’s story”. My dad’s story of how he was saved is not this sort of radical encounter you hear of people having with God where they change their life 360 degrees. This story is about how even despite our stubbornness, God is eager to chase after us and save us from ourselves.

My dad, Octavio C. Saenz, was a hard working man with an amazing work ethic, integrity, and commitment. I have never nor will I ever meet anyone as hard working as him, as resilient as him, and persevering as him. Towards the end of his life, my dad had to live with a machine that kept him alive, and even then he faithfully went to work every morning at 5 a.m. with no complaints despite the fact he was dying slowly. The thing about my dad however, is that he was an alcoholic. He was a motorcyclist, he loved rock n roll, and living life on his own terms. No one could tell him what to do or how to do it. He was a man’s man and he made sure you knew it.

My dad was also abusive. My whole life the only real side I knew of him was fear and sometimes I would get glimpses of his “good side”. When I would see his “good side” I would start to think “he’s finally changed!” but then he would become violent again. He broke my heart over and over again stringing me along with false hope that he had changed and he never did. He was the first man in my life that gave me false hope and broke my heart repeatedly.

I grew up watching him get plastered with alcohol, then once he had enough to drink he would get violent. I have vivid childhood memories of the cops showing up at our house repeatedly. He was also faithfully unfaithful to my mom. I had no idea what a healthy marriage looked like (I thank God He led married couples with godly marriages into my life to show me what a real marriage should look like). There was never a time in my parents marriage that he was faifthful to her. I grew up watching my mom cry because of the constant betrayal and abuse.

When I first gave my life to Christ at 13, I pled and wept to the Lord for him to save my dad. I prayed faithfully for years that my dad would give up his addiction to alcohol and tobacco, that he would stop hurting and cheating on my mom, that he could finally be the dad our family needed, and that he would surrender his life to Christ. Fast forward to 2017 (I was 25 years old) my dad was diagnosed with End Stage Heart Failure. His heart was functioning at less than 10%. His lifestyle finally caught up to him. He had to undergo a major cardiac surgery to place a pump in his heart called an LVAD (left ventricular assist device) to keep him alive.

At this point in my dad’s health he was told he either had to quit alcohol and tobacco to get on the heart transplant list and live, or keep his destructive lifestyle and die soon…my dad chose the alcohol.

For two years from 2017 to 2019 my dad was in and out of the hospital every 3-5 months due to complications with his health. It burned my family and I out. What burned us out even more was that he didn’t want to change. He kept drinking alcohol, smoking, and being destructive towards himself and our family. I cried, and cried, and cried asking God “Where are you? Why don’t you change him? Why don’t you heal him? Why won’t you answer?”

In March of 2019 two weeks before my birthday his team of doctors told us there was nothing left they could do for him. He was being discharged from the hospital and sent home on hospice. At this point, I really didn't know where God was, but I still trusted in him.

My father passed away on March 4th, 2019 from the consequences of his lifestyle and failure to change.

The redemption story is this: Before my father passed away, he gave his life to Christ. He finally surrendered his will, his life, and his health. I watched as he took his last breath, as he held my hand, with peace on his face to meet his savior. The presence of the Holy Spirit was so thick in his room as he passed away that it moved his hospice nurse to tears. I knew the Lord was there with my family and I. I saw the peace that was left on my father’s face after he gave up his last breath.

God is never late to save anyone.

I was so thankful to the Lord that I was able to witness that miracle and to know my dad gave his life to Christ before he passed, but I also won’t lie that I questioned God why it had to happen this way, why my family and I had to endure so much pain all those years, why he never answered my prayers “soon enough” rather than “later”. My siblings and I have really suffered because of our upbringing. Even as adults we still struggle. I always asked God why it had to be that way, why he couldn’t have saved my dad sooner.

When my dad first passed I used to ask myself “Was I never good enough for my dad? Did he not love me enough to give up his addictions so he could be here for myself and my family? Did he not care about us enough? Did he love his lifestyle more than he loved us that he took it to the grave with him, rather than to fight to live for us?”

The thing to all of this is this: God gives us free will. He gave my father the free will to choose Jesus Christ or choose his own life. Unfortunately in choosing his own life, he hurt himself and his family in the process. Despite his stubbornness however, God still answered my long suffering prayers and the many tears I shed, and saved my father from himself and his destructive ways. I have peace knowing my dad is saved, his body IS healed, and I’ll get to see him again some day. And when I’m hurting because of the pain he caused me, I choose to forgive him again and again and seek comfort in my Heavenly Father.

If you are a father, mother, sister, brother, who is reading this, and you are suffering from your own addiction, please heed to the call of Jesus Christ on your life to heal you and set you free. You have people that love you and depend on you, please fight for them and fight for yourself. Don’t let my dad’s story be your own, choose life today!

If you are someone who can identify with my own story, my comfort to you is this: Keep fighting, praying, and believing in the best for that person. Don’t give up, it is never too late, and even when it feels like it is, there is still hope even on a death bed, even with a death prognosis, even with a death pronouncement. Please remember to have grace and mercy for that person; that could look like so many things. Maybe you have to set boundaries and love them from afar but continue to pray for them, maybe that means you’re elbow deep in the gutter with them helping them find their way out. My heart goes out to you. I hope my story helps you reflect and heal.

Love,

Dread Champion

A portrait of my dad and I

My family and I took turns caring for my dad while he was home on hospice. I was the one who stayed with him the last two nights before he passed.

I knew in advance the night he would pass because the Lord prepared me. I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in the room with us as he passed.

I learned to forgive my dad for the pain he caused. I know deep down he was just a child wanting to be loved and accepted but he struggled with his addictions. He fought his demons till the very end. I know in heaven he has a young man’s body with a new heart.

I love you dad.