I was a terrorist to my community—both in society and in prison—for 24 years. I caused destruction and was responsible for bringing pain to many families. Today, it brings me shame, guilt, and embarrassment to talk about the person I once was.

At the age of thirteen, I decided to join the local gang in the city I grew up in and I developed a false identity. I embraced this façade to cover up the low self-esteem I suffered from. I failed to appreciate how good of a life I had—how blessed I was to have both a mother and a father in my life, who are still married to this day. They spent their entire lives trying to prevent me from becoming the person I eventually became.

They worked a lot, which led me to seek attention in all the wrong places. They were raising me to be loving, caring, respectful, hard-working, and law-abiding. But where we lived, those principles only got you bullied, laughed at, and made fun of. I was made fun of for having both parents. Following my negative peers around, I was rejected because of it, which made me turn cold and rebellious toward my parents. I believed the way they were raising me was wrong. I began to question if they even knew what it took to survive in the environment we were in.

Slowly, I started drifting away from my innocent state of mind and began gravitating toward negativity, destruction, gangs, drug dealing, and eventually shooting. I adopted a moniker and abandoned my government name. For years, I hid my true self because I didn’t love who I was. I believed doing good wasn’t going to bring me anything good, so I ran as far away from that identity as I could.

At the age of eighteen, I was arrested for two counts of attempted murder and mayhem. I received a total sentence of 74 years to life, plus three 25-to-life terms for enhancements. I’ve been incarcerated for close to 20 years now because of this bad decision. I was stubborn and wanted status in my gang, so I took every opportunity to boost my reputation and cement my name as someone not to mess with. This mindset led me to prison, where it only grew worse. I participated in riots, dealt drugs, and even murdered another inmate in LA County Jail in 2007—all because I wanted acceptance from my gang. I had no clue what I was doing or how lost I truly was. I was a puppet on a string, moving at others’ command just to make myself feel good.

I inflicted pain on others to cover my own. I sold drugs to members of my community, enabling them in their addiction, to meet my own needs while taking hard-earned money from their families. Never once did I stop to think about the ripple effects my actions had on others. For many years, it was always about me. I would lie, manipulate, and hurt many of my loved ones to ensure things went my way. I was lost in the grips of evil.

My warped beliefs and low self-esteem trapped me in a life of despair. I didn’t care about anyone. I took advantage of people just to keep myself in a position of power in prison. This included my sister, my ex-wife, my friends, and my family members. My addiction to making money through drug dealing got so bad that I had my fourteen-year-old nephew smuggling narcotics for me. I lived like this for years, and it brings me great shame and guilt knowing how much pain I caused.

It wasn’t until June of 2020 that I decided to change my life and walk away from the criminal gang lifestyle entirely. It took two near-death experiences for this change to manifest. I was stabbed on two separate occasions, months apart, and suffered over forty stab wounds across my entire body. Today, I see these events as lifesavers, as blessings, because they literally helped me change my life.

What those stabbing incidents did was kill the old me—the fake me—and allowed the new me, the good me, to begin living. I feel extremely blessed to be here, writing this story, breathing, and alive, and it’s all thanks to God’s grace and mercy. He spared my life. Going through what I went through has allowed me to truly live and never take a day for granted. I had a punctured lung, yet I survived, and I knew it was because of God.

I thank God every night for allowing me to live and for using me as a vessel of His grace and love. I’ve been able to heal from all my wounds—internally and externally—and now I lead with my scars. Surviving those attacks propelled me to do better, to be better. Many people in prison have suffered far fewer stab wounds and have not survived. I know God left me here for a reason.

This realization has allowed me to embrace my hardships and use my pain as a purpose and motivation. I’ve made direct amends to my friends and family for all the pain I caused them. I’ve made indirect amends to all my victims and their families for victimizing them emotionally, mentally, physically, and financially. I robbed them of peace, security, and the safety they were entitled to as members of society and as God’s children. I’m ashamed of it all, but thanks to what I went through, I’ve gained firsthand insight into what it feels like to be victimized—what it does to a family and to mental health.

It took coming close to dying to even consider changing, but thanks to God revealing Himself to me through these experiences, I found the courage to walk away from the people, places, and things that contributed to the destruction I was causing. Getting stabbed was a blessing. It saved my life and propelled me to become better. Confronting my pain and my genuine desire to change has truly helped me find humanity within myself again.

I had to literally break myself down year by year and reconstruct myself from the ground up. My change didn’t happen overnight—it took hard work and dedication to finally get to where I am today. I have completed many self-help courses that I credit for my transformation. I have learned a lot in groups like CGA (Criminal Gang Members Anonymous), NA/AA, SILC (Social Insight Life Class), AVP (Alternatives to Violence Project), and most importantly, my LWOP (Life Without Parole) Alliance Group.

All these were crucial in my journey, but my LWOP Alliance Group was what truly did it for me. The brotherhood and activities we shared opened my mind to new perspectives. This group is what led me to write this story and dedicate it to JRJI, Father Mike, Arturo, Collin, Chepe, and Erik. My spiritual growth has been amazing, and my relationship with God is stronger than ever.

Today, I live my life with integrity—being selfless, caring, empathetic, kind, giving, and most importantly, being of service to my community. I’m a proud college student who has received an AA in General Business and am only a few credits away from earning multiple AA degrees. But what I’m most proud of is how God is using me to live in a vessel of His grace and show the world that He is real and that His mercy is for all of us.

Thanks to Him, I’ve been able to accomplish so much. I am also a trained and certified CAL MHSA Peer Support Recovery Specialist, a role that is in demand out in society. I facilitate groups Monday through Saturday, all day, and I love it. Giving back to my community has played a significant role in my healing. It gives me a purpose and helps me see how God is working through me and for me.

I’m an extremely blessed man who wakes up every day with a smile across his face, thanking God for the gift of life and His grace. I’m proud to no longer be a gang member or identified by a moniker but simply by my name: Saul Diaz. I love myself for who I am—a perfectly imperfect human being whom God created to be successful. I have learned from my bad decisions, and these past nineteen years of incarceration have truly served me well. I’m living in a blessed world, and that’s because God is with me.

This book’s title comes from Ezekiel 36:26: “I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.”

The prophet Ezekiel wrote during the Babylonian exile, a time when the Israelites were held captive as a result of their unfaithfulness to God’s covenant. They turned to false gods that promised prosperity and power, but those promises turned out empty. They lost everything, yet even in their exile, God remained faithful.

Though the Israelites lost their home and freedom, God did not abandon them. Through Ezekiel, God spoke to them of restoration: “You will do better than at your beginnings” (36:11). The Israelites did not earn God’s favor back through sacrifice or worship, but through His relentless love that drew them back to His heart.

The same God who restored them is at work today. Each of these men you’ve read about is a living example of God’s never-ending love and faithfulness. If you had met them in their “old ways,” you might have thought they were beyond repair. Broken, no doubt, but never beyond God’s repair.

God was with each of them at their darkest moment, breathing His life and love into their hardened hearts. Those hearts now beat with the steady joy of grace. God is still in the business of making hearts new. He did it for them, and He can do it for you.

AI Art by UF Team Member