September 16, 2025 • 10 mins
In this episode of Unwritten, host Trevor Barecca sits down with Justin Victor to hear his powerful testimony of how God continually sent "lifeguards" to rescue him from "drowning" in various challenges throughout his life, from childhood peril to adult struggles with sin, career, and unforgiveness.
Whether you've faced overwhelming odds, felt lost in the depths of your own choices, or simply need a reminder of God's ever-present saving power and subtle promptings, this conversation will offer encouragement and a jolt of belief in God's call to pick up the pieces of our broken selves.
What You’ll Hear:
- Justin’s miraculous near-drowning experience at age six, when his godfather was divinely prompted to save him.• How he was saved from "drowning in sin from the inside" as a young adult through faithful friends, daily prayer, and the sacrament of confession.
- His journey from feeling "empty" and "mundane" in his dream career to finding deeper satisfaction and peace as a youth missionary with NET Ministries.• The powerful realization that God not only sends "lifeguards" but also calls us to be "lifeguards for others".
- Justin's experience of God providing his wife as a "lifeguard" in marriage, and finding "deep healing" from unforgiveness through God's "ocean of mercy" in confession.
Hit follow or subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Welcome to I've Written a podcast dedicated to sharing
stories of the movement of the Holy Spirit in the world today.
I'm your host, Trevor Baraka, and on today's episode, we are
getting to hear from Justin Victor.
This could be dangerous. So be careful with what I'm
about to ask you if you're able to stop this episode safely
right now or heck, even if you can keep it rolling.
But if you're able to hit that follow or subscribe button
without putting yourself or others in danger, that would be
(00:28):
so great. I want you to have an easy
reminder right away that there'ssome encouragement, some jolt of
belief, some conviction of God'spresence through a quick story
so you can can return to your life with great faith and
conviction of God's call to you.I'll tell anyone who will give
me the space to listen that I think the Batman trilogy by
(00:49):
Christopher Nolan is some of thebest storytelling of any movie
trilogy of all time, which I don't know if you know this, but
it can get you in a lot of hot water with movie enthusiasts if
you start ranking the top trilogies.
So you better be ready to back it up.
I just find Bruce Wayne's hero arc so gripping, and an old
friend of mine would be quick totell you that there are many,
many Christian themes you can find throughout those movies, so
(01:11):
maybe start looking for them. But there's one line you may
recall if you've ever watched the movies, and it's when Bruce
Wayne falls in the well as a boyin this flashback scene in
Batman Begins. It's iconic.
And then Alfred comes down the rope and he gives him this life
lesson via question, of which I'm not going to try to do the
impression of the accent, but hesays, why do you, why do we
fall, Master Wayne? So we can learn to pick
(01:31):
ourselves up. And what's interesting is that
the context for that being picked up is through someone
coming in to save him, to rescuehim, not just from the material
fall itself, but the shame and the fear he experienced as a
result. In today's episode, Justin
recounts how, beginning with thenear death experience, God
continued to send the people to help him experience rescue
(01:53):
throughout his whole life. Welcome to the show and
listening. God has done so many marvelous
life saving miracles in my life.When I was six years old, my
family visited my uncles over the holidays.
We were, we had some cousins come over that we typically like
to bond over sports like soccer and swimming.
(02:15):
And that afternoon it was a warmday and so I joined my uncle and
cousins for a swim in the apartment pool.
Being kids, we were playing all kinds of silly games in and
around the pool. At the time we were told to stay
away from the adult section of the pool and just be at the kids
section. After a lot of playing, that
warning slipped my mind as I hadbeen so involved with playing
(02:38):
games and doing silly things as a kid and living in my make
believe world. I imagine that if I ran fast
enough I could skip and jump over across the deep end of the
pool. I did skip and jump, but
realized that I ended up in the deep end of the water with a big
splash for about two seconds. My imaginative plan worked, but
(02:59):
after that, the loss of gravity took over.
I continued to imagine that if Ikicked my legs and swinged my
arms, I would be afloat again. However, I only got deeper into
the water. I opened my mouth to take a deep
breath but could only swallow water.
As strong as my imagination was,I now realize that I could not
create a reality to save my life.
(03:20):
I began to wonder in that momentif I would get any attention or
help. Sure enough, I felt someone pull
me out of the water. My uncle, who also happens to be
my godfather, saved my life. A few more seconds in the water
would have been a different outcome for me.
To this day, I'm pleased and thankful to God for sending me
my godfather as a prompting at that very moment that I needed
(03:42):
help. According to my godfather, he
was not looking in my direction when I jumped in the water, but
for some reason he turned aroundto check where everyone was and
realize he could not see me. And when he looked in the water,
he saw me and came to pull me out.
Being a kid, I did not realize how significant that moment was.
However, as an adult, I realizedhow significant God's prompting
(04:06):
was. So subtle, yet so significant.
Pivoting from this moment, I cansee parallel events in my life
where I was drowning in thanks to God's subtle yet consistent
promptings. I was saved by others that God
has sent as a lifeguard for me. As a teenager and young adult, I
struggle with the sins of the flesh.
(04:27):
I took for granted the life thatGod had blessed me with and used
it for selfish reasons. I imagine that if I kept my
sinful actions a secret, no one will be affected by it.
However, just like my imagination as a kid living in a
make believe world, my secrets started to drown me, but this
time from the inside. This affected my ability to
(04:49):
perform well in school and college and negatively affected
my relationships with my family and friends.
I did not think that hiding my sins was going to change
anything, but it did. I desperately needed someone to
step in and save me. Thankfully, my mom started
inviting me the Bible study group at church.
I began to comment to daily prayer and use my time better.
(05:13):
I had better friends who was also struggling.
However, this time not with sin,but with the pursuit of virtue.
I began to share with this groupmy struggles with sin while they
offered me friendship centered in Christ.
I started to frequent Sacrament of Confession regularly to seek
God's healing and consolation. Jesus rescued me as a young
(05:35):
adult from drowning in my sin. Fast forward a few years after
graduation and my first job, I fell empty from my pursuit of my
dream career. All the excitement of graduation
and my first job did not meet myexpectations as I had initially
imagined. I thought I would be hitting the
road running with my career, butwork life was mundane and
(05:58):
repetitious. As a new hire, this left me
feeling that I was not as effective as I wanted to be.
I continued to pray to God for new opportunities and God in His
mercy threw me a lifeline by providing me an opportunity to
serve as a youth missionary withNet Mysteries.
This meant that I would not be earning a steady income, but at
(06:18):
the same time it provided a chance for me to be more engaged
with others who needed to hear the gospel.
Living as a missionary showed methat living for temporal wealth
was not satisfying, but living for virtue and being challenged
in virtue provided a deeper sense of satisfaction and peace
in my soul. This helped me bring a new order
(06:39):
in my life and saved me from drowning in my career as a youth
missionary. We went to schools and parishes
to run retreats with young people.
On one occasion, we had a session on the theology of the
body. Even though I was trained to
give testimonies and group sharings, I was always nervous
when I had to do it myself. After everyone had left that
(07:02):
evening, I noticed a few of the guys had stayed back.
I approached them and saw joy inthem.
They told me how God had connected the dots with the
Church's teaching on the theology of the body and with my
sharing. At the time, I realized that God
was not only sending me lifeguards but also wanted me to
be a lifeguard for others. Year from the Youth Mission
(07:24):
program, I saw myself getting married to the love of my life.
We met at the Youth Mission program and knew that it was
God's way of deepening His mission for us by offering us
the Sacrament of Matrimony. Both of us were deeply in love
with God. However, we weren't perfect
ourselves. The first few years of marriage
proved to be a real test of our marriage vows.
(07:45):
What I had imagined marriage to be was sometimes not how things
ended up. Here again, I'm thankful to God
for coming to save me and my wife time and again from
drowning. He gave me my wife as a
lifeguard so that when I'm drowning there was someone next
to me to save me for 9 years of marriage.
I'm still struggling, this time with unforgiveness and
(08:07):
resentments from the past, just as before, as I thought if I
imagine myself keeping it a secret and no one knows about
it, He would not affect anyone. However, when I'm present with
my family, they notice things and they seem to get the
shorthand of stick. During the Feast of the Divine
Mercy this year, God revealed tome that I should no longer hide
(08:28):
my sins from Him, and He reminded me that He has infinite
justice as well as mercy. As I offered him this difficulty
of forgiving others, He remindedme that He was more patient with
me through the years of my slow conversion of heart.
As I mentioned this sin of unforgiveness to the priest at
confession on the Feast of Divine Mercy, I received a deep
(08:51):
healing from this wound. Jesus, through the sacrament of
Confession, saved me from drowning by by giving me his
ocean of mercy. As I end my testimony here, I
would like to leave you with this prayer.
O blood and water which gush farfrom the heart of Jesus, is the
fount of mercy for us. I trust in you, Jesus, I trust
in you. Go in peace.
That gave me a renewed sense of peace and hope that I can always
(09:14):
come back home to the Father. Thank you so much, Justin, for
sharing your story with us today.
And I'm listening and I just feel like I have to say what a
great explanation of the sacrament of confession in the
form of a story. How again and again this
lifeline, this accompaniment andpicking up the pieces of our
broken selves and giving them toGod really does take place each
(09:35):
and every time you and I go before God and allow him to do
what we can't do. I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
the Lord says. And I just like to invite you
listening today to make a returnto the sacrament of confession.
If you haven't been in a while in the midst of the chaos and
brokenness of your life, let Godrescue you.
Please share this episode with someone you think maybe needs a
(09:56):
reminder, just a quick little image or story of God saving
power in their own life. Thanks so much for listening and
we hope to see you next week.
Welcome to I've Written a podcast dedicated to sharing
stories of the movement of the Holy Spirit in the world today.
I'm your host, Trevor Baraka, and on today's episode, we are
getting to hear from Justin Victor.
This could be dangerous. So be careful with what I'm
about to ask you if you're able to stop this episode safely
right now or heck, even if you can keep it rolling.
But if you're able to hit that follow or subscribe button
without putting yourself or others in danger, that would be
(00:28):
so great. I want you to have an easy
reminder right away that there'ssome encouragement, some jolt of
belief, some conviction of God'spresence through a quick story
so you can can return to your life with great faith and
conviction of God's call to you.I'll tell anyone who will give
me the space to listen that I think the Batman trilogy by
(00:49):
Christopher Nolan is some of thebest storytelling of any movie
trilogy of all time, which I don't know if you know this, but
it can get you in a lot of hot water with movie enthusiasts if
you start ranking the top trilogies.
So you better be ready to back it up.
I just find Bruce Wayne's hero arc so gripping, and an old
friend of mine would be quick totell you that there are many,
many Christian themes you can find throughout those movies, so
(01:11):
maybe start looking for them. But there's one line you may
recall if you've ever watched the movies, and it's when Bruce
Wayne falls in the well as a boyin this flashback scene in
Batman Begins. It's iconic.
And then Alfred comes down the rope and he gives him this life
lesson via question, of which I'm not going to try to do the
impression of the accent, but hesays, why do you, why do we
fall, Master Wayne? So we can learn to pick
(01:31):
ourselves up. And what's interesting is that
the context for that being picked up is through someone
coming in to save him, to rescuehim, not just from the material
fall itself, but the shame and the fear he experienced as a
result. In today's episode, Justin
recounts how, beginning with thenear death experience, God
continued to send the people to help him experience rescue
(01:53):
throughout his whole life. Welcome to the show and
listening. God has done so many marvelous
life saving miracles in my life.When I was six years old, my
family visited my uncles over the holidays.
We were, we had some cousins come over that we typically like
to bond over sports like soccer and swimming.
(02:15):
And that afternoon it was a warmday and so I joined my uncle and
cousins for a swim in the apartment pool.
Being kids, we were playing all kinds of silly games in and
around the pool. At the time we were told to stay
away from the adult section of the pool and just be at the kids
section. After a lot of playing, that
warning slipped my mind as I hadbeen so involved with playing
(02:38):
games and doing silly things as a kid and living in my make
believe world. I imagine that if I ran fast
enough I could skip and jump over across the deep end of the
pool. I did skip and jump, but
realized that I ended up in the deep end of the water with a big
splash for about two seconds. My imaginative plan worked, but
(02:59):
after that, the loss of gravity took over.
I continued to imagine that if Ikicked my legs and swinged my
arms, I would be afloat again. However, I only got deeper into
the water. I opened my mouth to take a deep
breath but could only swallow water.
As strong as my imagination was,I now realize that I could not
create a reality to save my life.
(03:20):
I began to wonder in that momentif I would get any attention or
help. Sure enough, I felt someone pull
me out of the water. My uncle, who also happens to be
my godfather, saved my life. A few more seconds in the water
would have been a different outcome for me.
To this day, I'm pleased and thankful to God for sending me
my godfather as a prompting at that very moment that I needed
(03:42):
help. According to my godfather, he
was not looking in my direction when I jumped in the water, but
for some reason he turned aroundto check where everyone was and
realize he could not see me. And when he looked in the water,
he saw me and came to pull me out.
Being a kid, I did not realize how significant that moment was.
However, as an adult, I realizedhow significant God's prompting
(04:06):
was. So subtle, yet so significant.
Pivoting from this moment, I cansee parallel events in my life
where I was drowning in thanks to God's subtle yet consistent
promptings. I was saved by others that God
has sent as a lifeguard for me. As a teenager and young adult, I
struggle with the sins of the flesh.
(04:27):
I took for granted the life thatGod had blessed me with and used
it for selfish reasons. I imagine that if I kept my
sinful actions a secret, no one will be affected by it.
However, just like my imagination as a kid living in a
make believe world, my secrets started to drown me, but this
time from the inside. This affected my ability to
(04:49):
perform well in school and college and negatively affected
my relationships with my family and friends.
I did not think that hiding my sins was going to change
anything, but it did. I desperately needed someone to
step in and save me. Thankfully, my mom started
inviting me the Bible study group at church.
I began to comment to daily prayer and use my time better.
(05:13):
I had better friends who was also struggling.
However, this time not with sin,but with the pursuit of virtue.
I began to share with this groupmy struggles with sin while they
offered me friendship centered in Christ.
I started to frequent Sacrament of Confession regularly to seek
God's healing and consolation. Jesus rescued me as a young
(05:35):
adult from drowning in my sin. Fast forward a few years after
graduation and my first job, I fell empty from my pursuit of my
dream career. All the excitement of graduation
and my first job did not meet myexpectations as I had initially
imagined. I thought I would be hitting the
road running with my career, butwork life was mundane and
(05:58):
repetitious. As a new hire, this left me
feeling that I was not as effective as I wanted to be.
I continued to pray to God for new opportunities and God in His
mercy threw me a lifeline by providing me an opportunity to
serve as a youth missionary withNet Mysteries.
This meant that I would not be earning a steady income, but at
(06:18):
the same time it provided a chance for me to be more engaged
with others who needed to hear the gospel.
Living as a missionary showed methat living for temporal wealth
was not satisfying, but living for virtue and being challenged
in virtue provided a deeper sense of satisfaction and peace
in my soul. This helped me bring a new order
(06:39):
in my life and saved me from drowning in my career as a youth
missionary. We went to schools and parishes
to run retreats with young people.
On one occasion, we had a session on the theology of the
body. Even though I was trained to
give testimonies and group sharings, I was always nervous
when I had to do it myself. After everyone had left that
(07:02):
evening, I noticed a few of the guys had stayed back.
I approached them and saw joy inthem.
They told me how God had connected the dots with the
Church's teaching on the theology of the body and with my
sharing. At the time, I realized that God
was not only sending me lifeguards but also wanted me to
be a lifeguard for others. Year from the Youth Mission
(07:24):
program, I saw myself getting married to the love of my life.
We met at the Youth Mission program and knew that it was
God's way of deepening His mission for us by offering us
the Sacrament of Matrimony. Both of us were deeply in love
with God. However, we weren't perfect
ourselves. The first few years of marriage
proved to be a real test of our marriage vows.
(07:45):
What I had imagined marriage to be was sometimes not how things
ended up. Here again, I'm thankful to God
for coming to save me and my wife time and again from
drowning. He gave me my wife as a
lifeguard so that when I'm drowning there was someone next
to me to save me for 9 years of marriage.
I'm still struggling, this time with unforgiveness and
(08:07):
resentments from the past, just as before, as I thought if I
imagine myself keeping it a secret and no one knows about
it, He would not affect anyone. However, when I'm present with
my family, they notice things and they seem to get the
shorthand of stick. During the Feast of the Divine
Mercy this year, God revealed tome that I should no longer hide
(08:28):
my sins from Him, and He reminded me that He has infinite
justice as well as mercy. As I offered him this difficulty
of forgiving others, He remindedme that He was more patient with
me through the years of my slow conversion of heart.
As I mentioned this sin of unforgiveness to the priest at
confession on the Feast of Divine Mercy, I received a deep
(08:51):
healing from this wound. Jesus, through the sacrament of
Confession, saved me from drowning by by giving me his
ocean of mercy. As I end my testimony here, I
would like to leave you with this prayer.
O blood and water which gush farfrom the heart of Jesus, is the
fount of mercy for us. I trust in you, Jesus, I trust
in you. Go in peace.
That gave me a renewed sense of peace and hope that I can always
(09:14):
come back home to the Father. Thank you so much, Justin, for
sharing your story with us today.
And I'm listening and I just feel like I have to say what a
great explanation of the sacrament of confession in the
form of a story. How again and again this
lifeline, this accompaniment andpicking up the pieces of our
broken selves and giving them toGod really does take place each
(09:35):
and every time you and I go before God and allow him to do
what we can't do. I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
the Lord says. And I just like to invite you
listening today to make a returnto the sacrament of confession.
If you haven't been in a while in the midst of the chaos and
brokenness of your life, let Godrescue you.
Please share this episode with someone you think maybe needs a
(09:56):
reminder, just a quick little image or story of God saving
power in their own life. Thanks so much for listening and
we hope to see you next week.
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