Carlos Santana Talks about How Christian Faith Saved Him After Seven Suicide Attempts

Rock legend Carlos Santana revealed that it was his faith in Jesus Christ that helped him from committing suicide after a chain of depressing events. One of these events include the time when his wife Deborah left him after 34 years of marriage. Suicidal thoughts did cross Santana's mind.

On October 19, 2007, Deborah Santana, his wife of 34 years, filed for divorce citing "irreconcilable differences." In an interview with Rolling Stone, Santana admitted he attempted suicide seven times. It was only through God's grace that his life was spared.  He explained going to a local church had also helped him. It was Jesus' voice that gave him hope to live and brought him renewed joy that he never found in music.

Santana first became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered a fusion of rock and Latin American music. The band's sound featured his melodic, blues-based guitar lines set against Latin and African rhythms featuring percussion instruments such as timbales and congas not generally heard in rock music. Santana continued to work in these forms over the following decades. He experienced a resurgence of popularity and critical acclaim in the late 1990s. In 2003 Rolling Stone magazine listed Santana at number 20 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. He has won 10 Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammy Awards.

Aside from the breakdown of his marriage life, Santana openly talked about growing up in a dysfunctional family where his father abandoned him. At the age of ten, he was repeatedly molested by a friend's father who bribed him into silence. The pedophile's actions instilled guilt and fear in the boy. It had taken years before Santana forgave his molester. With the help of God's grace, the burden of his past was finally lifted.

"I was able to remove the anger by forgiving that man.... Forgiveness, man, forgiveness is incredibly liberating. And I'm here to tell you, with all my heart and spirit, that it can be done. You can be freed," Santana said in an interview with Rolling Stone in October 2008.

Santana came to a point where he realized that his life is in the hands of God, not his own. His dark past helped him to trust in God's plan for his life. His father's abandonment of their family, the family friend who molested him and his tumultuous marriage life made him realize that it is only through God's grace that a man can survive. "You have to go through the darkest night of the soul to get to the brightest light of the day," the 69-year-old guitarist pointed out in an article in Plain Truth.

Santana had a plan to retire as a musician in 2015 to become a pastor. He said he want to help people who are undergoing troubles in their life.  He still doesn't know how the plan is going to unfold, but he said: "God is not done with me."

 

 

 

 

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