(Frank Santoriello, world champion bodybuilder.)
Life has a way of beating us down. You can wake up with the best intentions, full of hope and a positive attitude, and life will be there waiting to punch you in the mouth.
The question is….will you keep getting back up?
Frank Santoriellio, once known as the “Italian Stallion” for becoming a world-famous body builder, knows something about getting back up no matter how many times life knocks you down.
Life’s first hit came when he was 15, and his father left. With no reference point to deal with this abandonment, Frank turned to drugs to numb the pain.
What started out as a vice, though, soon became a full-fledged addiction. However, because of his success early on as a body builder Frank was able to not only hide his addiction from the outside world, but convince himself that he was in control of his drug habit.
Frank first realized he had a natural gift for this sport after a gym buddy suggested he try out for a bodybuilding competition. On a whim Frank decided to try out, and to everyone’s surprise, he won second place despite being the youngest out of 21 competitors.
Having won his competition in his teens was a great ego booster, and Frank quickly shot up in the ranks. Within a few years he was traveling the world winning national championships, gracing the cover of magazines and living the fast life.
By the age of 24, Frank got his pro card and was in the top 20 bodybuilders in the world, soon to be on his way to Mr. Olympia; the Super Bowl of bodybuilding.
Frank felt he was at the top of his game, but cocktails of drugs including opioids, cocaine, heroin, crack and crystal meth would bring Frank face-to-face with death twice.
For years Frank was able to totter between two extreme worlds, but soon those worlds would collide. That collision came when he was told his father had committed suicide.
With this devastating news, Frank lost the will to live, and he soon found himself in a downward spiral causing him to lose his bodybuilding physique, ballooning to over 300 lbs., becoming homeless and going to prison on drug charges.
(Frank's mugshot when he went to prison.)
Sitting on his prison bunk, unable to walk a flight of stairs without getting out of breath, Frank was in despair at how his life had come to this and he wanted to end it all; but one day he was prompted to open his bible.
That day changed his life.
Nine months later, not only was he back in top shape running a fitness program throughout the whole prison for the very inmates who had mocked his downfall, but he was being transported to high schools to share his story.
Upon release, Frank was determined to use his life lessons to help others avoid his pitfalls. He started a prison ministry, Jack’dUp4Jesus, wrote a book, Before & After, and began traveling around the country preaching in prisons and speaking on national television letting others knows that redemption is possible.
(Frank sharing his story on Christian Broadcast Network.)
One of those areas he wanted to personally find redemption in was his family life. Having been in the throes of addiction and sentenced to prison, with two failed marriages and a strained relationship with his grown son, Frank desperately wanted a redo at being a father and a husband.
So, when one day Frank met a beautiful woman at the gym, his hopes of redemption began to get lifted.
Despite being many years younger than him, their commitment to physical fitness and love of God soon drew them closer and closer. Until one day, he popped the question and she said yes. Before long they were happy newlyweds, and a few years later they welcomed their beautiful son, Pauly.
Life was going well.
He had a beautiful, God-fearing wife. They’d started a successful cleaning business together. Frank was getting a chance to be a good father to his son. Everything seemed perfect.
And then…. life punched him in the mouth.
After eight years of marriage, Frank’s wife said she wanted a divorce. “I felt like she died when she asked me for a divorce,” says Frank.
Having lived recklessly in the past and out of God’s will, it was easy for Frank to see the pitfalls of where his previous marriages failed. But this time around he was living clean, working hard, being a good father and a loving husband.
Why now Lord?
“I was angry,” says Frank. “And in that brokenness, I fell.”
His wife filed for divorce and from there Frank started falling back into his old reckless ways.
“I said to myself, ‘You know what…screw this.’ I started chasing women. I started drinking again. I started looking at porn again,” Frank says, “but being a believer, every time I would fall into this sin, I got convicted…and as a result the enemy wreaked some havoc in my life.”
Finally, Frank had enough.
“I was like, ‘What are you doing? You’ve come so far, but you’re gonna wind up dead and lose everything’. I knew this wasn’t who I was,” he says. But even in the midst of everything he says the Lord had his hand on him. God never left him.
Frank got on his knees and repented.
“I told the Lord all I want to do is chase you. I asked Him to give me my fire again. I got back to the basics…tithing, attending church, reading my bible…not chasing women, not looking at porn…,” says Frank.
He says he also began to do some self-reflection about his divorce. “I asked myself, ‘How did I let this happen?’“ And while he clearly states there was no infidelity on his part, God began to show him where he had become complacent.
“I got complacent with God, so my marriage got complacent. I didn’t put in the energy and effort that it needed to thrive. I didn’t give God my best and I didn’t give my wife the best,” Frank states.
“The minute you get complacent it just shows the devil that he can get in there…all he’s looking for is a crack,” he says.
But even though Frank fell, he wants people to know that God never leaves us. "God told me, ‘I’ve been here all the time. Take your blinders off. I want to love you. I want to love on you.’”
Frank says that God took his mess and used it for his good. “The whole experience made me so much stronger. In a moment’s notice he took me right out of the trenches.”
And Frank wants to let others know that no matter how many times you’ve fallen, it’s never too late to get back up. All God is waiting for you to do is to repent and come back home, so he can create a message out of your mess so you can help somebody else who is in the trenches.
Whatever you do, don’t stay down. Get back up.
(To hear more about Frank and his ministry or to order his book, "Before & After" please visit his site: www.jackdup4jesus.com)
- Written by Julie Nicole; Dayton, OH
Comments