From Getting High to Living for the Most High | You Are Loved Podcast

stories in the hopes of encouraging you to keep going no matter how hard it is and to show you how loved you are by your Heavenly Father. You are about to hear Raffa's story. Raffa was born and raised in church where he learned the theory of who Jesus was, but he didn't know Jesus personally until much later. As the life of the party, drinking, drugs, and clubbing was where Raffa found joy. One night he took it too far and overdosed. He cried out to God saying, "Please don't let me die." Raffa had hit the lowest point of his life, but the Lord showed up and saved him. This is a powerful story that you don't want to miss. Watch now. Tell me a little bit about yourself. My name is Raffa. Well, Raphael, but Raffa makes it easier to everyone. I'm originally from Brazil. I'm 41 years old, so I lived my young life in Brazil. I moved here. I was 18 with my parents and never laughed. So today here feels more like home than Brazil ever was because I was just a kid in Brazil. So I've been living here married for 17 years with my life, Camilla d'Itheria, beautiful, beautiful Camilla. I'm a worship leader, feature, music producer, and I also own a studio here in Maryville, but we do a lot of online stuff as well. That's awesome, awesome. So tell me more about the old you. Your life before you came to know the Lord and had all these beautiful families and things. You see, that's an interesting question because I was born and raised in church. So I know people who came to know God later, but to me, I was born in it. But here's an interesting fact about it is that I was born and raised in church and lived my entire life in church, and I learned what theology is. I learned it in theory what Jesus is and what it's supposed to be. Like, it wasn't a too long, I think I was probably 20, 21 years old. It was when I found out that the David who killed Goliath was the same David who was the king. You know, so because you hear about David and Goliath when you're a kid in Bible school and then you grow up a little bit more, you've got to the other stories. So I didn't know it was the same person, you know. But I don't say this to criticize the church I grew up in. No, in the contrary, they gave me the foundation, right? They gave me the foundation that I needed. But I always learned how to have a

relationship with the theology. I never learned that I was able, not even supposed to, but able to have a relationship with Christ. The Christ was real. So I knew who he was. I didn't know him. And that's the difference. But again, don't get me wrong, that does give you a foundation. But it can only take you to a certain level. And the level of intimacy needs to go beyond that theology. The theology helps you to understand who he is, but you will never know who he is until you meet him. And this is what you need to look for. So I was born and raised in church. And I come from a family of musicians. My mom is a pianist and my dad sings, my grandfather gives our players. So my mom literally, she was pregnant with me and she was playing in the church choir. So so I grew up with music. And naturally, it was the route that I took. But then I developed, so I had a relationship with the theology before. Then after that, I developed a relationship with music. Okay. I was saying in church, we were recording, we were traveling, and it was awesome. It was all great until everything stopped because I moved here. So in Brazil, I had all of these like recording, studio and traveling. And then when I moved here, I got nothing. I didn't speak the language. I didn't know anybody. And I got here. And I was like, everything just disappeared. And it was when I realized I didn't have a relationship with God, because I didn't know who God was. I never had a conversation with him. I never felt who he was. I had a relationship with music, even though I did it for him. And of course, like while I was in Brazil, I was a kid. Yeah, I moved here was 18. So I was leading a double life. I don't like to buy double life. I mean church and singing and praising and then outside, going to clubs, doing all of that. I wouldn't call it a double life because I was a kid, you know? So, and I grew up really fast in Brazil. Things are a little different than in here. So when I was 16, I was already clubbing, drinking, smoking. And, and, and, and, but I never saw it as a double life.

Always when I did it, I felt really bad because church told me not to. So I knew I wasn't supposed to be doing those things, but and yet those things were fun. And I was doing it with my friends. But that was always a balance, a little bit of church, a little bit of party. But when I got here, church got out of the equation and the partying, just start getting more advanced because I had access to things here. I never had any result. And next thing I know, I'm hooked in cocaine. I'm hooked in XZ and I was always like the life of a party. I always liked to party. I was always a happy kid. So I love, right? Raves absolutely loved like the entire thing, the music, the vibe, the, the, the energy. Everything was cool, but I never saw it as in a way that was killing me. Um, and when you get hooked on this process, it's an, uh, it's an unending process. And especially in my case, I knew what I was doing wasn't right. But I knew wasn't right because I knew the law, but the law is just not enough. It's important, but it's not enough. I've been married for 17 years. The laws of marriage says that you cannot cheat on your wife. I don't cheat on my wife, not because I know the law. I don't cheat on, I don't cheat on her because I love her. That's the difference. But I couldn't transfer that to Jesus because I didn't know Jesus. I love him. I knew who he was. I knew what he did, but the impact of what he did did nothing to my life. Because what does that even mean? It died for me. Great.

But what does that even mean? People don't die for others. Now, the haze is just before it was too much theology entangled on what I needed. But the emptiness, the hole in your heart, I don't care what you say. I've been to parties that I don't need to describe because it's not worth it. Because those are things that we think they're amazing. Do we think that takes us well? We wanted to go that will fuel our emptiness, but nothing ever does. It doesn't matter how popular I was, how much money I had, what kind of parties and DJs played and what kind of access to VIP parties I had, it doesn't matter. At the end of the party, going back home, there was always that hole in my heart. And it was funny because I had a back then, I know some of the younger people won't even know what that is, but I had CDs in my car. So I remember you put it on like on top. I was a young advisor. I just grabbed the CDs and I had those. And it was the funniest thing because all I had in my car was gospel and Christian music. And every time I came back to my party, I would just put on and just go all the way back home crying because there was that emptiness. But I just didn't know where to go because I've been to church before. And I went back and forth because every time I felt bad, I said, I don't want to do this anymore. And then I would just stop doing it and go back to church because it was the only place I knew. But it wouldn't last. It was losing the sparkle. Something was not right. I just didn't know what it was. I never prayed to God. I mean, I prayed, but I never I prayed to God. I never talked to God. I didn't know I could.

I didn't know I was supposed to, right? And see, one day these things are shifting. And then this one day I went to this party and there was like 35 people in the apartment and all of the VIP friends. So I'm there with all of these friends who have always called me family. We're all family to each other. No matter it doesn't matter what happened, we're family, right? And and and we were there. I felt I was having an overdose. It's funny because I didn't know I was supposed to have a love relationship with God, but in the end I would hate him, right? Because why did he bring me here? Now I understand. I wasn't. I was doing his work, but nothing was changing in me. And he's not worried about doing his work. He's worried about my relationship with him. If I understand him, he's saved so I can do his work for love, not because I have to. So I felt that that moment I was losing it. And and and my heart started to to to God's lower. My head got really heavy. I saw sweating and I felt blood coming down my nose. And and I just felt closing my eyes and it was the weirdest sensation ever. And I remember just saying this, God, don't let me die. And then I was gone. I woke up later. There was nobody at the apartment empty. Nobody called the ambulance. Nobody called the cops. No people just left. I woke up in the middle of a room, an empty room filled with drugs, no friends that I thought I had. And I said, God, I I don't know what to do anymore. I don't know who to talk to. I I'd be in church. It's always the same. And then I heard the an almost audible voice. There are some places you're going to meet me, but you need to meet me. And at that moment, things started to change. At that moment, I realized the one who died for me. I realized that true love doesn't mean that you are out of trouble. No, true love does not mean that everything is going to be perfect. No, I love my wife, but sometimes we argue, sometimes we don't agree. But my wife always has the best at heart for me. And once you realize that a relationship with Jesus is real, that you don't, you might not even see him, but you even could if he chooses to. But it's amazing how you audibly can hear him if you let it. Now, what hurts? I've tried everything. People would call me crazy and say, now you're talking to ghosts. I was like, if it's holy,

yeah, I've tried everything. I've tried drugs. Don't work. I've tried the so-called friends. They don't work in the contrary. They just take you deeper and deeper and deeper and makes it all worse. But then people ask me, how do you know you met Jesus if you didn't see him? And I will tell people, you know, when you mean Jesus, everything changes. Everything changes. It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter what you try to accomplish. It doesn't matter where you are. All that matters is God. Am I doing your will? Am I in your direction? Do you guide me? Because if you're guiding me, David said, even if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. The reason why we fear no evil is because it doesn't matter what's going to happen. It doesn't matter what you do to the body. You cannot touch my soul. It's his. And until you meet that, anything that you think it's not even possible, I never thought not for a minute that I would be able to just give everything up like that. The life of party, the drugs, it's too hard. It's too hard to do that. How am I ever going to do that? I've been to the clinics, but it doesn't really change if you don't want to change. But you know how I was able to change, I was able to overcome those addictions when I realized I couldn't. I can't do it. There's absolutely nothing I can do, but I can take some steps. And sometimes the steps are they seem small, but they make a big difference. I remember the first thing I did when I said, you know what? I don't want this anymore. I want this. I want this relationship here. I want this feeling. I want Jesus. Jesus, I want you. What do I need to do? The first thing that came to my to my heart, the first thing I did was I pull up my phone. And you know, nowadays we don't know people's number by heart. We just, well, what's your number? We just put it and just put their name. I deleted every single number in my phone that would connect me to any kind of party or drugs. Just deleted all of them. And whenever my phone rang or I got a text that were from people that I didn't know, for numbers that were not saving my phone, I wouldn't answer. I wouldn't look at it because I knew what it was. Because you see, that was always trying to take your life because you can have what he can't. What just happened to me, you see, I went to the lowest of the lowest. I've done things that I'm not proud of that I, even if you asked me, I wouldn't be able to talk on video. That's how ashamed I was for these things that I did. But it doesn't matter all of these things. Even in the middle of dying because of something I was doing to myself, all I had to say was, God, don't let me die. And everything is forgotten. You see,

we don't understand that because we don't know what that is. We can do that. We take forever to forgive others. We take forever to forgive people. But that's not how it is with God. That's what it means to die for you. Because he dies for you. Now he has the key to do that. And the devil cannot have that. They have any idea. Sometimes I, whenever I'm going through something, I just say, you know what, devil is just upset. Because in your heart, you want to do that. You want Jesus, but you can't have him anymore. Because it's too proud to have him. We tend to be ashamed of what we do. Even if like we haven't done it in a while, right? So then we just slip. Man, I can take it. Something happened. Everything happened at once. You know, all is clean for three months, but then this happened. One of the worst things that happens when that situations like that occur is that we hide ourselves because we are ashamed of what we did. You might be ashamed of your family or loved ones, but God will never be ashamed of you. You can come to God. It doesn't matter how many times you do it. You can come to God. And I promise you, one day there's this switch. You don't see it now, but one day you will see that switch, the switch where I remember I hadn't done it for for a few months, like five months. And yeah, I fell. I went to a party. I was feeling lonely. I went to a party. When I got to my car, I invited God to go in with me. I said, God, I'm here. I'm not going to lie to myself. If anybody offers me anything, I'm going to take it. I'm not, I'm not going to lie. I'm not here just to see people, but I'll, I won't ask you to come with me. And I went inside the party and I was there. And I was there the party having fun. So a guy used to know came in and was like, Hey, you want to go to that special room? I was like, yeah, let's go. So I'll go to the room. He opens the door and I see everything. I see all of those lines on the table and all these people sitting around it. And I realized that God was with me. And it's not that because he was with me, that I was afraid, but I realized that I didn't want that. It wasn't going to bring me anything. It was just going to bring me heartache. So I was like, you know what? I think it was a mistake, man, and an act. And that's when the whole process started. So if I can tell the one thing is, the relationship with God is real. I was born and raised in church, went away. And I came back, not to church. I came back to God. But God has a church. God is not just one church, churches that will do programs like CR, churches that will help you understand this relationship. So church is important. Theology is important. They're the foundation. It's where you meet, it's where you get stronger. But your focus needs to always says to Jesus,

wants to meet him. You made the relationship. I love that. That's good. Wow. Yeah, I love that you've discovered that through this journey too. And that you can appreciate the foundation, even though you didn't understand the relationship, but you do now. Yeah, I can tell. It's amazing the transformation that just, I love your vulnerability about doing those things with Jesus because it's better than doing them alone. Yeah. Right. And the more that you did that, the more you realized how empty it was. And that the joy and satisfaction that he was. partying brought you. Yeah. But it did. It took that. It took some time. We all want those stories where God meets us and in an instant, we're cured of everything and free from everything. And there are those stories and God can do that. And they're amazing. But most of us, it's a journey. Yeah. But knowing he's walking that journey with you is really important. Yeah. So I love that. Thank you. Thank you. And you kind of gave some great advice about not isolating, not running and hiding. We know even Adam and Eve hid when they sin. What do you have any other advice for someone that was maybe stuck in that lifestyle or hasn't built that relationship with the Lord? What would have been the greatest piece of advice that someone could have given you that maybe could have sped your journey up a little? I would say focus in the process. There is power in the process. Obviously, we want to be free of this bondage, right? Because it brings so much suffer with it. For the little tiny bit amount of joy, we think there is, because there isn't any joy in it. But we just want to be free from it. So because we are free from it, we see the ending. This is why I wanted to be. There's nothing wrong with that, but got to remember that you need to go through the steps. There is power in the steps. God is making stronger in the process. Be dependable on them in the process. So focus on today. Focus on what you're doing right now. And also, you need to realize you need it and you're weak. That is a good thing. I can't by myself. I cannot do it. I'm not sure enough. That's great. And that's what you need to realize it, because if you don't think you need help, how can it be helped?

But that's not all. It's part of it. You also need to realize that you can't, but there is one who can't. And you need to combine that because Paul says in my weakness, God makes my weakness strong. He shows his strength in my weakness. So he is realizing you're weak. And that's a good thing. But now here's the second half. God is strong. You need to combine this together. And the third thing I'm going to say is you need to celebrate a small victories as if they were your ultimate goal. If you're really struggling today and you got to the end of the day and you overcame that with God, celebrate that. What do you do to celebrate when you get a one-month chip or the six-month chip or whatever that is, what kind of process do you have to celebrate? Do you get together with your family? Do you call a friend that you love? Do you call your sponsor? Do you come to see out? What do you do to celebrate that? Do you go to a restaurant and order your special food? Whatever that is, do that daily if you need to. Don't wait until you've got the six-month chip. Do it now. If today was hard and you overcame today, do it now. Because the strength you had today is not going to be the same strength tomorrow. You have to constantly renew that in Christ. It's a different story, but 2014, I had cancer. And I did a year of treatment, 12 rounds of chemo, 24 rounds of radiation, and everything was double. The cancer was 80 percent of my chest. It was this big. I'm 5'9 and my regular rate is 190, 200 pounds. I dropped down to 135. So I didn't die of process. And as I was doing it, this was already years after I had already come to Christ. And as I was doing it, I saw with my own eyes people in church getting healed from cancer. And I was like, God, you can heal me. I'm watching people get healed. Why am I doing all of this treatment?

It's horrible. This treatment is horrible. I can't do it anymore. But then I realized that with every person is different. What I can tell you, I don't know why God didn't heal me right then. But I know he healed me after a year. And I know those 12 months developed me to the person that I am today. So I don't know God's plan for your life. But there is a process and there is a reason why you're going through this. And then that sometimes he takes us out of the fire, but sometimes he walks refines us and reminds us of where our strength comes from. And yeah, awesome. Yeah. Wow, he's had quite quite the life, quite the amazing things that God has done. And so what a blessing. Thank you for sharing all of that with us today and just holding up and just being honest with everyone and just excellent advice. And I'm excited for people to hear your story because I know it's so much of what you said. There's part of what you said that not everyone relates to right not everyone party, not everyone dealt with cancer, but there's so much of what you said that regardless of what trial you went through those feelings you felt that way. And so that that your story is going to reach so many people. And so just thank you for sharing that and then for hosting us today. Yes, of course. Thank you so much for watching. Wasn't that incredible? I love when Rafa described how true love doesn't mean everything is perfect, but it does mean you won't walk through your trials alone. He said that even though he may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, he will fear no evil because he knows God is with him. Friends, God is with you too. Like Rafa said, don't hide because of shame. Seek God. If you want to seek God together with Rafa and I and the

others at our church, I encourage you to come visit us at Rio Revolution Church in Maribel, Tennessee. Also join us next week to hear another incredible story and be sure to subscribe or follow so you never miss an episode. Most importantly, I pray that you know, no matter how far you have run from God, it is never too late. There is always hope because you are loved. [Music]