Keep singing

Arlene Roman heard screaming. Her 7-year-old son, Roberto, was in bed, too tired and in too much pain to get out. He was in the last few months of his life, stricken with leukemia, his throat covered in blood blisters that had rendered him unable to speak.

Arlene raced to Roberto’s bedroom to comfort her boy. When she got there, she couldn’t believe what she heard. Roberto wasn’t screaming in pain. He was singing in worship.

“The only way for him to be able to sing was by screaming,” said Ricky Ruiz, Roberto’s younger brother. “He just wanted to keep singing. And it was at that moment my mom asked herself, ‘What makes this child going through so much pain keep doing this?’ She didn’t know what it was, but she wanted that. It pushed my mom into finding out about the Lord. That was a game changer.”

One of Arlene’s coworkers had begun taking Roberto to church not long before that, and he had become the first person in his family to accept Jesus as his Savior. Leukemia would take his life when he was just 7 years old, but his legacy has continued, first in Arlene and later in Ricky and many of his family members.

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Not long after Roberto’s death, Ricky’s parents split up, and Arlene was forced into dual roles of mother and father to her youngest son.

“Even though she wasn’t meant to be a father figure, she showed me what a father figure was, because she didn’t teach me things according to her point of view. She taught me things according to the Word of God.”

Arlene became Ricky’s best friend and his spiritual counselor. “It’s us against the world,” they would say.

Arlene and Ricky left Puerto Rico, settling closer to Arlene’s family in New Jersey. They began attending the famed Brooklyn Tabernacle, where Ricky’s aunt sang in the choir.

“I would sit in the back pews and listen to them practice, and then I’d go home and listen to them on my little Sony Walkman. Those rehearsals at Brooklyn Tab are my first memories of being subjected to praise and worship. God used a church in the ‘hood in Brooklyn that at the time was barely on its feet, and put together a music team and a choir that was composed of people who had been victims of addictions, abuse, poverty, homelessness and broken homes. A desire was born in me, just like them, to learn music and play it for God.”

Ricky gave his life to Jesus at Brooklyn Tabernacle, but he and Arlene moved back to Puerto Rico when he was 12. Still, they continued to spend several months in New Jersey every year. After finishing high school, Ricky stayed in Puerto Rico, taking pre-engineering courses. Eventually, he would move to East Texas to attend LeTourneau University and later go on to work in the engineering and aviation fields in Longview.

While he was attending LeTourneau, his parents reconciled.

“After 17 years of being separated, my dad stepped up to the plate,” Ricky said. “He realized the mistakes he had made and he wanted to be a husband. I look back on this, and I see how God planned for them to be together again, and for my dad to make amends and apologize.”

Ricky’s voice trailed off. 

“Before…you know.”

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It was the evening of Feb. 9, 2014. Ricky had returned from Mobberly Baptist Church after hearing Pastor Glynn Stone share his vision for the church that year. That was the night that Ricky’s mom – his best friend, his role model – told him she was dying.  She had cancer, and doctors said she had about six months to live.

“My world was spinning,” Ricky said. “At the same time, I was seeking God and asking, ‘How do I take this?’ And immediately, I fell into a place where I said that God is my strength, and that this is not going to happen. I felt that this was going to be another trial and was going to be an amazing testimony in the future.”

But the testimony that came wasn’t the one Ricky had prayed for. Just two months after her diagnosis, Arlene passed away.

Ricky prayed that God would bring back his mother, just like He did with Lazarus. When that never happened, depression set in.

“I just wanted the world to leave me alone,” he said. “I remember sitting in my car at a light and saying, ‘God, I don’t want to live here. I’m done. Just take me.’ I wasn’t trying to take my life, but I had nothing to look forward to.”

That fall, Ricky told God he was done with Him, too. It was a Sunday morning, and he was heading to The Crossing on Mobberly’s Longview campus for the final time.

“I woke up and got on my knees next to my bed and told Him I couldn’t take it anymore. I said, ‘I don’t know what You are going to do, but I don’t think I’m going to last past this day. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t open the Bible or pray anymore. This is my last prayer to You.’

“I told Him, ‘I don’t need a fortune cookie message to pop out of somewhere, I need to hear Your voice. I need something drastic, because after today, I don’t know if I have the strength to seek You anymore.’ After more than 20 years in the faith, my faith was shattered.”

That morning, people flooded the altar in prayer. Ricky thought about joining them, but the small opening he saw in the sea of people quickly closed. Another spot opened and Ricky prayed, “Lord, I’m going to give you one more chance. I’ll do this because I have nothing to lose.”

He knelt at the altar, but he had no prayers left in him. “I had nothing; I was just waiting for God to do something.”

And at that moment, God did.

“A guy leans over, puts his hand on my shoulder and leans down to my ear. He said, ‘Brother, I don’t know who you are. I have never seen you before. I have never experienced this in my life with the Holy Spirit, but in my heart, God told me to come up here and just stand here. And I had no idea why until you came and stood next to me. I have never felt so much pain in my heart as I did the moment you came to this spot next to me. It’s like I felt what you are going through. And I am just drained of my strength.

“God wants me to tell you that everything is going to be OK and that He is holding you in His arms, that you are precious to Him, that He has not abandoned you, that when you thought you have been alone, He had been holding you in His arms and by the hand. Just know that He is taking care of everything; that He is guiding you and that He is going to make you stronger. Know that He is with you today. Today is not the last day for you.’

“And just like that, he gets up and walks away. Almost three years later, I still don’t know who he is.”

Ricky stood up, still with a heavy heart but with renewed strength.

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The next day, he received a phone call. Calixto Arce, who serves as Associate Minister of Hispanic Ministries at Mobberly, was on the other end of the line. He wanted Ricky to become the worship leader at Mobberly en Español, the church’s Spanish-language worship gathering and ministry.

“From the prior relationship I’ve had with Ricky, I saw in him the giftings and talents that we were looking for in our ministry,” Calixto said.

Calixto was one of the first people Ricky had told about his mom being sick, and he was aware of the pain Ricky was feeling. What he didn’t know about was Ricky’s experience the previous day.

“He painted a picture of the ministry, and I was overwhelmed,” Ricky said of that meeting. “He asked me to pray about it and get back to him when I was ready. I said, ‘Brother, I don’t need to pray about it. I don’t need to seek God about it, because He is the one who sought me about it. I know that this is where God wants me.’”

Most Sundays, Ricky can be found leading Mobberly en Español in worship. Often, he is on the platform, helping to lead worship in English-language worship gatherings.

He said he has confidence issues, and can feel intimidated by the powerful voices that join his on the platform. He manages to fight through those feelings by remembering that he is where God wants him to be.

“I have to remind myself that it’s not about me, but about Christ in me,” he said. “When I least feel that I am adequate to lead worship or do the other responsibilites of ministry, God is perfected in me. There are a lot of days I wish I had that guy’s voice or I sounded like that other person. God keeps reminding me, ‘You’re not that guy, so let Me keep using what you have, even though you don’t think you’re adequate. It’s OK.’”

It’s a message Ricky first learned from his mom, who told him to let God be the one that moves him and uses him to influence the people in his life.

“I pray and hope that she would be proud of me if she were alive,” he said. “Because more than honoring her memory, it honors God above all. Even to this day, her words continue to direct me toward God first.”

“My mom used to ask me, ‘If you had no limits, what would you be doing right now? What would you be devoting your time to?’

“I don’t believe I would be anywhere else right now. Because you can’t put a price on God’s peace.”

Just like his big brother, no matter what the situation looks like, Ricky’s going to keep singing.

Originally appeared in Mobberly Magazine in 2017