Stories of Grace - Noel Somoza

My wife Darlene and I initially attended Grace Rancho in the early months of 2023 as visitors who were looking for a home church. We were members of a local church in Pasadena, but during the pandemic, we moved to Fontana, had our daughter Elia, and fell out of fellowship with the body of believers from our previous church. As the leader of my family, this fell on me. I used to be someone who believed they could live a Christian life in isolation, outside of fellowship, and with an inconsistent pursuit of Christ devoid of prayer and God’s word. Within my early days of attending Grace, I was reluctant to make relationships, arriving at Sunday morning sermons and leaving shortly after. I made no effort to connect or grow. I was living in a manner that could hardly reflect a true response to Christ’s atonement of my sins.

I had been baptized at my previous church and I considered myself a Christian. However, I had an incomplete understanding of the gospel. I never quite had the transformation of the heart where I responded in humility and obedience to Christ. Rather, I used the gospel as a free pass to continue to live how I wanted. I was living in sin and allowing it to have power over me. Ultimately, the sin which I had tried so hard to keep hidden was exposed. The Lord in his kindness, exposed it in such a way that it overwhelmingly humbled me to seek repentance and forgiveness. I could have been one of the souls whom God allowed to be given up to their sins, but instead, he rescued me and called me back to Him.

Within the months that followed, the Lord saved me. Not only that, he has brought faithful shepherds into my life who have been intentional to disciple me and push me to grow. I’ve read more books in 8 months than I had in the previous 8 years prior, and all of them about how to grow as a Christian man. I am so thankful for the Lord’s grace in my life and for the community he surrounded us with during our most difficult trials. I pray the Lord may use this story to point back to His immense grace, love, and glory.