Road To Redemption
Road To Redemption
Zach Kiley's Journey of Faith and Healing
Have you ever felt that your toughest moments could be the beginning of a powerful transformation? Join us as Zach Kiley bravely shares his candid journey from experiencing deep church hurt in his youth to overcoming addictions and finding his way back to faith. Raised in Spring, Texas, Zach's story is a testament to the transformative power of hitting rock bottom, which led to a spiritual awakening and a renewed relationship with God. His experience is an inspiring reminder that redemption and growth are possible, even in the darkest times.
We also tackle the challenging but crucial conversation around mental health, discussing depression, anxiety, and the struggles faced during manic episodes. This episode highlights the importance of open dialogue, community support, and the healing power of faith. We provide heartfelt prayers and practical advice for anyone grappling with mental health challenges, emphasizing the significance of maintaining connections and engaging with scripture. Tune in to find hope, encouragement, and the promise of redemption through God's love.
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Welcome to Road to Redemption, a show sharing powerful life testimonies, giving hope to those on their own road to redemption.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Road to Redemption. I'm John Martin, your host, and so excited to be here as we're in the beginning of 2025. We're excited We've got a great friend here, Zach Kiley.
Speaker 3:Zach hey, welcome. Thank you for having me. It's a blessing, it's an honor.
Speaker 2:It's great to call you a friend and been running into you for a while at our ROI group and other places, and I'm just thankful that the Lord put it on your heart to share your testimony, to share your story, right, and you've got a remarkable story that needs to be told and I just want to dive right into it, zach, to give us a little bit of background on you, how you got here.
Speaker 3:How I got here. It's a funny story. My name is Zachary Kiley. I grew up in Spring, texas, on the northwest side of Houston, over by Conroe and Woodlands for those that kind of know the area, and I was raised up in the Catholic faith in the Catholic church over there. That's kind of my foundation of my faith. And then I ended up having some church hurt and I left the church when I was 18. And my thought at that point was that, you know, I knew God existed. I still acknowledged God's existence. I didn't go complete atheist but I didn't want him in my life after that church hurt and so I stepped away and so at that point I was only going to church to please my mom and my dad and my relatives when I came into town. But it was never, my heart wasn't in it. I had completely separated that, that part of my life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which that happens. You know, we all have to experience our relationship with God on our own. You know, and we're growing up a lot of it. Probably a lot of us are probably doing things to please our parents.
Speaker 3:Well, what happened with you Cause I know you, like you said you left the church and I know you had some journeys Tell us what happened next, so I was distant from my faith and then, all till about 2020, my life kind of came crashing down and through that I think the best part is, through that I found who God is and I found a relationship with him through a very hard know hitting or hitting rock bottom for me. Um, I I found who he is and and it's been a blessing that I did.
Speaker 2:That was great. From what I remember about your story is you pretty much had a mental breakdown, right I did, I did tell us about that.
Speaker 3:How did that? So it was kind of geared up. I kind of knew it was coming. Um, well, I didn. So it was kind of geared up. I kind of knew it was coming. Well, I didn't know it was coming. But you can see, you know, looking back at it I can see the precursors to it. I had a crazy, crazy porn addiction to where I was watching, you know, six to eight hours a day on work days on the weekends. It was just a regular mix that with a lot of alcohol. On the weekends it was just a regular uh mix that with, uh, a lot of alcohol.
Speaker 3:Um, and I had a fascination with working out, uh, and trying to gain muscle and all that stuff, and so, um, I know people, people I have to kind of explain it a little bit because some people don't get the gratitude, uh, the magnitude of it, uh, but I was taking the equivalent of one gram of caffeine a day in a pre-workout.
Speaker 3:Now, for those that don't know, you need a thousand milligrams to hit one gram and your average energy drink is 200. So you do the math it was like five to six energy drinks in one go and I would do that repetitively and I did that for several months and finally it just lack of sleep, lack of things. But I think the mentality was do better. It was performance-based, it was perfectionism-based, it was do more, be more, be more, try harder. Um was watching a lot of health self-help videos back in the day, um, and it all came crashing down and so I had a manic episode that spanned over a couple of days and it revealed to me who jesus was and who god was. Um, through that mental breakdown, how did, did you?
Speaker 2:how did that happen? How did you find Jesus?
Speaker 3:during that. Well, a lot of people who have had in many episodes. It's crazy, they have a spiritual or a God component to them. So what happened to me is I was going through a lot of changes at my work at the time. What happened to me is I was going through a lot of changes at my work at the time and, uh, it just was was involved with a very weird Christian that was my boss, that kind of forced and kind of pulled things upon me so I left that um, work, um, but I was very, I was very, I was losing sleep. I was probably over that. Those that time I probably hadn't slept like two hours that day, from day to day, and it was very, very limited.
Speaker 3:And from there I ended up moving to a different warehouse and I was thrust into a position where I had to manage this whole warehouse. And this is the day that it just kind of all uh broke apart and so my in my brain I thought, hey, I can um, uh, ascend to heaven and and look down on people and consciously, and I could do that. Um, and so my brain was telling me like, hey, these people work for in my life, work for for God, these people who are Christian and everything. These people work for the devil, and I have to.
Speaker 3:It was really weird. I had to find in my in, in where I was working, there was a Matthew, mark, luke and John, and so my brain was telling me I have to find all these people and I could get them all together so that I could ascend to heaven and look down on all these people and kind of monitor them. It was really weird, so that was one thing. They fired me that day and so I ended up without a job and my brother was working construction nearby and he came and he got me and took me to a property that my parents had in there and that's kind of where it all kind of went wild In that property.
Speaker 3:I had, you know, it was still going through my head a lot of these Christian and biblical thoughts, even though I was in a mental breakdown. I ran through there naked, looking for the Garden of Eden. I was, you know, constantly. I remember I went and I laid down in the grass in my parents' yard and looking up at the sun and just going. You know, oh man, it's amazing, god, just take me now. So weird stuff like that that are based in the Bible, it is based in the Bible, it's based in Christianity, and stuff like that, but it's all through the lens of a mental breakdown and lack of sleep and over the course of those three days I probably only got four hours of sleep, and so Well, right, and then talk to us about you know, you went through that breakdown and you, I think you ended up going to a place for a little while and I actually.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's kind of a funny I ended up going to a one that was owned by by by Houston local mental hospital and I was supposed to be put on a 48 hour hold and, by the grace of God I don't even know how this happened, but I was able to walk out and in under 24. So I don't know I don't know how to say that that turned me into going to a Christian mental hospital, and that's where it all changed for me.
Speaker 2:Cool. Well, how did you surrender to God and get to where you are now? Because I know you're walking in a lot of freedom today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that actually happened in the, in the Christian.
Speaker 3:It was Christian based, they had Bibles all over the.
Speaker 3:They encouraged to read um in this mental hospital and I remember getting um befriending, befriending an older, older, older black lady, and as she was getting discharged from from the hospital, she handed me um a piece of paper and it was a like color they encouraged us to color coloring books and cast kind of a mental release um, and on the front of it was like a little childish scarecrow but on the back of it it was ecclesiastes.
Speaker 3:And I'm probably butchering the name I often do, but ecclesiastes um it Ecclesiastes 3, so you know, a time for this, a time for that um, and it was just so beautiful and so laid out that I I that night I I grabbed a bible and I just started reading and I read all the way through um, through Ecclesiastes, and my mind was just blown Um and through that I had this inner peace, you know, and I'd been struggling with the meds that they had put me on and I w I just had this inner peace, um, and and and I prayed for the first time in a long time and God moved and he touched my heart and ever since that day I haven't been the same.
Speaker 2:Wow, so you really saw radical transformation in your relationship with Jesus in that Christian mental hospital is where it occurs.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, and they had Christian books, john Brevere's books, stuff like that, and it just it was.
Speaker 3:And this came through actually, a family friend had recommended this place and I'm so glad that he did, and after I got out of there, I definitely talked to him and had a conversation with him, talked to him and had a conversation with him, but, uh, I was in there for three months and, um, towards the tail end is where I, where I, where I met God and I met Jesus, and, um, I started writing in a journal and I, just when I'm going to get out, I'm going to, I'm going to love God's people more. When I get out, I'm going to pray all the time. When I get out, I'm going to read the Bible. I started journaling this types of stuff, um, and it just it, it blew me away, um, the love that he had for me, because I thought I was going to be in there forever mentally until I started encountered, uh, jesus and encountered God and read the Bible, and that gave me the hope that I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to do great things.
Speaker 2:So I mean you are, I mean I, I see you today and you're in a great mental place and you have a lot of freedom and joy and friends and you know good job and all these things so talk to us about how you gotten to where you are today and what you're doing.
Speaker 3:Um, I think you know it, it's, it's something that I always, I always stand by and this is something that, um, I think I came out of isolation and when I was back in houston and and living that life, I did not. I had, I had a friend, but apart from that I didn't have many um, and so I came out of isolation and into connection, and that's something that I often talk about with people and anyone that's going to come to me saying that they're struggling with this type of deal Connection. It really is important. So I met Daryl. A lot of us know who Daryl is. Rest in peace. He was a great man of God who brought me into a small group.
Speaker 3:I actually moved over here from Houston, had no job, had no place to live because I was in the mental hospital for three months. I lost my job, so I moved over here with my parents and started going to Church of Destiny and that's when I found a small group through Daryl, and he took me out to breakfast and, kind of, you know, made a joke about going to a small group and I did, and there I met people like Ricardo Freddie, a lot of these people in our church that have just become brothers to me and they have helped me, and Ryan Smith as well, and they have blessed me with mentorship. I would come to those early on. I came to them with boatloads of questions. They're like, okay, hold on, you know, but they helped me through it and they helped me give me a little bit of foundation to grow in my Christian walk, so that and me getting in the word, getting in the word and reading the.
Speaker 3:Bible, yeah, making it a foundation of my life. And I'm not, you know, I don't know everything that's in there, but I'm, I'm growing in it and I'm learning day by day. And, and how God sees us, how God sees the world, how it's. It's just been, uh, just a blessing. I can't say enough about it.
Speaker 2:It is. It's a great testimony and I just feel like it's an important one for our time, our, our, our days. Um, because a lot of folks are dealing with mental illness. Folks are dealing with mental illness people, mental breakdowns, depression, suicide um, it's, it's huge and it's often kind of put under the under the rug. You know, a lot of people go into isolation. They, they don't talk about it. It's um, it's, it's kind of swept under the rug a lot really out of embarrassment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the thing is that I think people don't understand it. More people are understanding it nowadays, but I think it's still a taboo. I often make the joke that when people are like well, what brought you over here and I was like manic episode, and they're like like wait what yes? They just don't know how to comprehend it.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, but but the zach, the, the testimony is you had a manic episode. It was a bad one and you've been completely redeemed now. I mean you're, I mean we're all got issues right. I know we're not, we're not, none of us are totally normal, but but you're living a fruitful life. I think you said you're off many of your meds.
Speaker 3:I was able to, yeah, and I want to state this I don't recommend coming off of meds without the help of a doctor without the meds. I don't recommend coming off of meds without the help of a doctor without the meds. But yeah, I was able to come off of three of the main meds that I struggled with when I first got here and that's been a blessing. That's through revelation, as well as is working with my doctor and it's been.
Speaker 2:It's been great, it's awesome and it's good to work with doctors because they're they can help us and the meds can help us. So it's not that the meds are bad, no but I'm just saying that to say that that your relationship, how you've grown with god and grown in your, your freedom. You've, through time, been able to get off some of those meds and just really be walking in true freedom. And it's a great testimony to say there's hope.
Speaker 2:I mean there's hope for people that go through these mental challenges and talk to us more about that. What else can you just share with the audience about what you've seen god do?
Speaker 3:what I've seen god do um is is I still struggle with depression at times um but I know it's, it's not a, a, uh.
Speaker 3:I think when you're in that you think it it's going to last forever and forever, and I don't believe that anymore. I believe that I can come out of this. As far as anxiety, though, I think we've got to keep in mind that scripture casts all your cares on him, and I'll pray that. I'll often pray that inside with 2 Timothy, but I'll often pray that inside with you, know, 2 Timothy, for God does not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind.
Speaker 3:Or self-control in some translations, but I pray those often and what's interesting is the faith that I have now is I can stand on that and know that as I pray those scriptures and I may pray them over and, over and over again but that he's going to work in my life to remove that anxiety, to remove that depression and standing firm in that belief, anyone that's listening, that maybe it's themselves, or maybe even a family member that's going through mental illness, mental challenges.
Speaker 2:What advice do you have for them at this moment?
Speaker 3:I think we've talked about this Um, it's a hard one, um, I I would definitely say connection, um, yeah, um, as far as, as the, as the, the, the anxiety and the depression go is, which is very, very, very common, I think and I know this is this, and I hope this helps. This is something that has helped me is knowing, especially with the anxiety, it's not going to kill you. I think a lot of times it becomes so unbearable that it becomes a tightness in the chest and everything. It's not going to kill you. You can get through this. And as far as the depression goes, a lot of people think that they're going to be in it for a long time. Oh man, how long is this going to last? That I'm going to feel like this, that I'm not going to be motivated, that I'm going to be in bed, and I just want to let you know it might last a while, but it's not a thing, that's an indefinite. So that would be my best advice, but definitely lean on on connection.
Speaker 2:I can't stress that enough yeah, and that's what we talked to folks about in this show. That's our. Our core principles is to get connected to God and first we tell folks to open the word of God and just start reading the Bible reading, yeah, and I think that it helps to say that you don't need to immediately feel like you got to understand.
Speaker 3:I know a lot of people that's that was me. I was felt like I had to understand everything, um, but God will work on your heart and and you'll come to understanding, and that's the that's the beautiful thing about the Bible.
Speaker 2:And then getting in a small group, that was huge for you.
Speaker 3:That was huge for me. That was, uh, I came over here with no friends, um, and I, uh, through small groups, I have friends, and these are brothers that I that I walk with, that I hang out on with on the on the weekend as well as during the week, and, um, yeah, I wouldn't trade that for nothing.
Speaker 2:And then getting into a Christ-centered Bible. Teaching church is very important, and we tell people just go, just show up and just start going to church and we promise you, your life will be transformed Transformed for sure and you will receive true peace. Zach, this has been great. I mean, it's just such a powerful message because this subject is real.
Speaker 2:Mental illness, mental breakdowns these things happen and to see someone like you that's bold enough to come in and say I went through this, but I'm on the other side of it now and there's hope. I think that's our overall message there's great hope for people going through this, of course. Is there anything else you'd want to add before we close out? No, okay. Well, folks, this has been a great talk with Zach and we just want to close in prayer.
Speaker 2:Father God, we just love you. We thank you, lord, for your son Jesus and what he did for us. And, lord, we want to lift up anyone family member or any individual that's going through mental challenges of depression, manic episodes or anxiety. Lord, we lift them all up to you right now and we just ask that you give them great hope up to you right now and we just, we just ask that you give them great hope, give them a future hope. Lord, let them feel your presence right now, let them just feel you calling out to them and saying I have a great plan for your life, to do good things for your life. And just, lord, we pray for these folks that they hear your, your call and and and just that they take some steps towards growing to come to know you. And we, just, we just declare and decree that you are going to bring great healing to, to these individuals and to their family members, and and this year, in 2025, and the years to come, and we, just, we, pray this all in Jesus' mighty name, amen.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Road to Redemption, sharing powerful life testimonies, giving hope to those on their own road to redemption. If you have any comments or questions, we would love to connect with you. You can reach out to us at destinyradiolive. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next week on Road to Redemption.