I have suffered with depression in the past but never of this severity and no treatment was helping this time. My wife had dragged me to the premiere of the film of the life of Pedro in London and I was feeling like an intruder in the middle of such demonstration of courage and faith.
I didn't have to ask him (I was feeling too hopeless to even be bothered) but he saw it all. In the audience, sharing with the crowd an immense admiration for young Pedro as we watched the film of his life, I continued ruminating those morbid wishes of death that had been torturing me for weeks.
In the gathering after the film, we saw our old friends, Esperanza and Pedro, his parents, who greeted us with sincere happiness. My colleague offered me a warm hug and with a massive smile he told me not to worry about anything because "Jesus is with you". That took me by surprise and, speechless, I could only nod, immersed in a twirl of feelings impossible to describe, while my wife and they exchanged some trivial comments, before our friends moved on to see many others who required their attention.
Some minutes later, as we were ready to leave, Pedro [Senior] approached me again and with another hug, he asked me to remember whom to trust: "Jesus is with you", he repeated, and he left the gathering with his wife.
I remember feeling very different on our way back home that night of 8 December 2022. Something small had changed and had put my feelings back into motion, a slow move in the right direction, away from darkness and death.
This subtle improvement continued during the following days and weeks until one morning of early February. I woke up ignited by a marvellous dream which I could not remember, but with an uncontrollable urge to looking for Jesus. I started searching the internet and found Him everywhere. In books, films and songs which became my best medicine, filling me with Him to a point I had never been.
I know now that this "re-encounter" with God has cured my depression and I have no doubt that it was only possible through the intersession of Pedro Jnr and the help of his father, my friend Pedro, to whom I have already expressed my gratitude.
To that gentle boy, who I had the privilege of meeting briefly in the past, I'll pray from now on, thanking him for re-planting Jesus' seed in my soul.
A simple miracle which brought me back to life.
MM (London, England)
19 March 2023

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