Six Bullets, One Savior: A Pulse Nightclub Survivor Finds New Life in Christ

“They had called last call.” Angel remembers, “So I went ahead, to the bar and got my last drink, came back into the floor where they were dancing, quickly, I just started hearing pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. It was so fast that there was chaos I remember hearing the screams, hearing the shots, I looked up and I just see the body's falling down. And I thought to myself, Angel, I think this is the moment the Lord's giving you to make peace with him. Cause you're about to die.”

Angel Colon wanted to make peace with God for a long time. He had grown up in singing in church and had a sincere love for God. But even as a young boy he struggled with his sexuality. He says, “At the age of five, I already knew that I was attracted to boys, and I didn't know why, but I knew that it wasn't right. So I always would talk to Jesus and always say, please just take this away from me. I know it's not right.”

He continued to wrestle with his faith and sexuality through his teens. Then, after he graduated high school, his parents divorced. Angry at God, Angel abandoned his faith and dove fully into the gay lifestyle. “Just being in the lifestyle, the alcohol, the drugs - that I said I would never do, it just all came.” He says, “You don't think that you're gonna do a lot of these things where you start to lose the fear of it after a, after a bit, and you do more. You do more, and you do more. I had the lifestyle that I wanted but yet there was still something inside of me that just felt empty, felt voided. I wasn't happy. There was no joy.”

He says it was then that he prayed a dangerous prayer. “And I said, ‘Lord, allow me to go through whatever I need to go through for me to come back to you. I don't care what it is, but I need to come back to you.’ I knew that that was not at the lifestyle that he called me to be in. I knew that I wasn't the man that he has called me to be.”

Just months after praying that prayer, in June of 2016 Angel was at the Pulse Night Club in Orlando with his friends when a gunman entered the club and began shooting. Angel was shot several times and lay on the floor playing dead. He says, “I just prayed and I said, ‘Lord, please forgive me for turning away from you. You were always by my side. I was the one that has left your side. But please forgive me.’ And at that moment in my head, I said, ‘Lord, no, I'm not leaving here to dead tonight. You promised my mom that her son had a calling in his life that hasn't been fulfilled. So I'm gonna leave here alive today.’ And I said, ‘Lord, and I promise you, when I leave here alive, I'm gonna worship you for the rest of my life. I'm gonna testify of what you're gonna do in my life.’ And I just kept on prophesying over my life. I kept on praying in my head over my life. And at that moment I understood that there was spiritual warfare going on right on top of me. And I was changing the plans of the enemy. I was changing the atmosphere in that moment when I was prophesying and speaking to the Lord at that moment. ‘Amen.’ Pop. And I remember, I felt my body jump up and down.”

Angel had been shot a sixth time. Then, while the gunman was distracted, a police officer entered the club and pulled angel to safety. Angel says, “By the grace of God, he got me out of the building, across the street, and I just kept on thanking the Lord that I was able to make it out of there alive.”

As he healed, he gave God thanks and was celebrated in the media for being a gay Christian. But Angel says, God told him to choose which path he would take. “You're living in both the world and church. You have to choose.” Angel recalls, “You choose me or the world. I said, ‘Lord, I I choose you. I choose you’, and I told him, ‘but I, I, I need help. I need help.’ And he said, ‘Angel, don't worry about all that stuff. I'll and take care of the baggage.  You need to focus on knowing who I am. Love me, know who I am, and I'm the one that can transform you. Because the moment that you know the truth and the truth lives in you, the truth will set you free.’ And from there I started to feel the transformation in my, my life. Freedom is when temptation and the enemy confronts you. And you can look at it in the eye and say, ‘I don't want you. I want Jesus.’ That's true freedom.”  

Angel says he’s thankful to be walking in that freedom and living his life fully surrendered to Jesus. “It's amazing that we have a father. We have a God, who knows what we're feeling and is so compassionate over us.” Says Angel, “I am grateful every single day I wake up and I say, ‘Lord, thank you for another day. Thank you that your mercies are new every morning.’”

Angel leads worship at his church and shares his story with those who need the same freedom and love he has received. “It does not matter how dirty you are. It does not matter how far you are. You are never too far gone.” Says Angel, “Just because you are in this lifestyle, just because you've done all these things, doesn't mean that the Lord is not going to pursue you wherever you are. Again, he will go into the deepest, darkest places to find you. If he did it with me, he will do it for you.”