Kyle Lee: From the Ring to the Cross

SPEAKER_02 0:00

My name is Crazy Kyle Lee. That's what people nickname me. I am from Nashville, Tennessee, was born Christmas Eve of 1986, so I'll be 40 this year, the big you know, biblical number of the 40-year trial that Moses went through three times. So uh before I tell my story, I'd like to share one verse. Before I share my testimony. Revelation 12, 11. They conquer him by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. For they did not love their lives to the point of death.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

My life was just spyrolling downhill. Depression, alcoholism, incarceration, death by despair. One guy who showed up is just Jesus. If you can give a man clarity and community, he can start to live out his purpose. You can break generational curses of alcoholism.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Welcome to Dudes Without Dads, the show that trains men how to become the dads they never had.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

So, being I was born on Christmas Eve, like I said, um, my parents split up when I was very young. One of my very first memories that I can remember is my dad coming home and just yelling at my mother and slamming doors and cabinet cupboards. When I was like two years old, I can remember that. I a lot of people think it's hard to even believe that I can remember, you know, all the way back to them, but as that, you know, traumatic experience, it it just always stuck with me. There's a story of my father, and I love him very much. He's a good father. Um, it was one of the first memories I remember is him of stories, is him throwing like an Atari through the door. And you know, I didn't know it takes two to tango, but my mom and him definitely tangoed a lot. And they split up when I was probably about two. And after that, my mom remarried to my stepfather, and she stayed with him until she passed. And he was a really good man, um more like a friend figure than I would say like a father figure. I had a brother pass away before I was born. He passed away two months as he was two months old. And I have an older sister as well. Um with that, after my mom remarried, they we lived in East Nashville. And my dad lived in Springfield, Tennessee. I was basically taken by my dad. He had full got full custody. My mom was just devastated over that after uh it seems like he didn't really. There was a little bit of a custody battle for a couple of years, it seemed like I was so young, it's kind of hard to tell what happened around that time. But uh after that, I you know I got into martial arts when I was about five or six. When I was about four years old, I would just come in the room and act like Bruce Lee and be like, waah, I'd come in shaking. And my mom would always make me, okay, come do the Bruce Lee impression. It's funny as I was so shy back then, but I would come in and do that. So I've always had a a gift in the the martial arts field. And it's I teach at Legion Jiu-Jitsu now and just received my black belt in jujitsu a month ago. Um I'm a black belt in taekwondo as well. I got that as an adult, going back to where I took it as a kid. So my mom saw that I had this gift for martial arts and I just loved Bruce Lee. He was like a god to me when I was a little kid, you know, a little small g god. Um and she got me into taekwondo at, I'd say, five years old. I started at Moss Taekwondo in Goodlitzville. And you know, even talking about God as a child, I still remember, as the Bible says, that faith is a gift. And my parents, like, they talked a lot about God. They were believers when I was growing up. And I remember just looking around when I was a little kid, about three or four out the window, and just looking at the grass and the trees and going, yeah, like somebody had to make this. This didn't come from anywhere, you know, like just random occurrence. Uh, as Paul says in Romans uh 1, 18 through 20, is that just looking around at the world, we can see God's divine nature and that we're without excuse. So I'm a little bullheaded for the Lord. And uh I I almost find it hard to even believe that there are any atheists. I hear them say that, and I go, they have some type of excuse, right? I believe everybody's an agnostic to a level, but that's my opinion. Um, and and I'd say it's Paul's opinion, so I I kind of stick with Paul on that. So I train uh martial arts until I was about eight or nine at that taekwondo gym. And then we had to move away. We lived in East Nashville, like I said, and our car got broken into multiple times. We lived on Stratford Avenue. Still remember the address, 1400 Stratford Avenue. And it was a really old farmhouse. It's super cool. It's like big brick, you can farm the whole land over there. And we moved out to Portland, Tennessee. So my mom didn't have me traveling down to Goodlistville to take martial arts anymore, so I was kind of forced to quit at that point. Always wanted to fill that void of um doing sports and always just loved like I was in the on the swim team when I was a little boy, like at four years old as well. So I've always just played like backyard baseball. So I got into football when I went up to Portland. If you know anything about Portland, Tennessee, it's like Texas. They're like crazy about their football. And when I um started playing football, I was just getting banged up and I remember just seeing guys getting hurt as I was playing through in middle school, and I started falling in love with baseball even more. My best friend at the time, Jesse Zimba, used to call him Simba, like from the Lion. He hated that. Had to throw that in there. Uh, you'll love that, Jesse. And I his dad was a baseball coach for the little league team in town. So I started, I gave up football because I didn't want to get hurt playing that into high school and started playing baseball for his team and just just loved it. Um, I wanted to be a major league baseball player one day, like you know, any kid with a ball and watch Sandlot growing up like I did. Wanted to, you know, just run the bases and get the inside the park home run, as Terrence would say, you know, knock it out of the park. Um that dream didn't come true. My friend and I and his older brother, we we thought we were gangsters, you know, wanted to uh just be like you know, boys in the hood, like a lot of people in that that time frame wanted to be. And even as I I believed in God, uh, you know, even the demons believe, but it doesn't mean that they're following or even know what that looks like. So uh I can say that my life took a dark road at that point. I I um started like smoking pot, um, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol around the age of you know 12 to 15, that that kind of took off in my life. As I had talked about my father having some some anger and arguing with my mom. Even my stepdad, I could remember like he was super calm, real chill, almost like a cool hippie guy, IT dude. And then every like year, he would get into like a big argument with my mom and leave. And it was just like once a year. So it wasn't too bad. But my dad and I, we really got into a big uh knockout fight argument when I was about 15. He found out I was smoking weed, he wanted to drug test me, and I was like, no, man, you're not gonna do that. So instantly he knew I would fail it, and he just got livid and was taking me to my mom's after, and he was real mad. My mom at that point, it was so bad that, like, with my dad, so even backtracked just a little, I was about 11 years old, he was remarried, and we were in counseling, and kind of my sister blew up and she ran off and in the middle of a session at a church, and he was we were looking for her in the church, and he said, basically the whole reason there's any issue in the house was all my sister's fault, and she overheard him. So that didn't work out very well. And he said, you know, if you guys really want to go live with your mom, you just can't. You just have to call her like today, right now. And my sister was scared and she wouldn't even do it. So so I was like, I'll do it. I was 11 years old, called my mom, left her a voicemail, still remember going, Dad said that we can come live with you. So I uh took the initiative and we moved in with her. And I was like I was saying, now about 15. It was 15 when me and my dad got in this argument when he found out that I couldn't pass a drug test. And we're driving back from Springfield, Tennessee, where he lived, to Portland. And he just, we were just arguing, and on the way, he was in the front seat and he said, Your mother is the reason your brother died. And he believed it because he knows that God could heal. And he thought if he could have came home and laid hands on my son, or my brother, his son, that he could have been restored to life. And I know God can do anything. He could have done it without my father even laying hands, and it just was my brother's time to go. And I flipped out. I started yelling, started cussing, just got like crazy mad, and he reached around and um grabbed me around my neck, not like choking me, but just like here and just put his hands on me, and I just lost it. I started hitting him. He kind of held me down in the car, and he was like bleeding on me, and we just got this huge argument. And we didn't talk for like a year and a half. We went to court, he kind of dropped all the charges and uh Robertson County and agreed that if we I went and saw a counselor, that he would just drop everything. So I went to counseling in Hendersonville, and after me just pouring out, you know, everything that happened in my life and how he raised us, and they they were like, Well, it's not even you, it's him. And that was pretty much it, even though I know it does take two to tango, like literally, like any fight. And I can remember just having a void in general for about that year and a half when my father and I just weren't talking, because I loved him deeply. He was a a man of God with you know issues, and his his mother was really hard on him, and just a um just a mean woman, to be honest. And I can only imagine, you know, the generational anger that was passed to him through that that, and even just in the you know, 1960s and 70s, it's a whole different world, the way that people treat each other and what was uh acceptable and considered normal, you know, and raising your kids and whatnot. So I was working at Chick-fil-A in Galton when it first grand opened, uh, during the grand opening. I remember I even was the cow guy out on the side of the road for a while. It was super hot in the middle of the summer. It's like had a little fan, and I was like, man, this is this is hell. It was burning up. But I I only say that because I remember that he had reached out to me and wanted to see me after about that year and a half of not talking. And he came there, and that was the first time I saw him again. And it was amazing. It just felt so good to see my father again and you know, just tell him I loved him. He cried, I cried, and you know, um, that reconciliation just to the man that you know um was always there. He he when I was a little kid, he would make us, he had us like memorize certain Bible verses for like, if we could do it, we could get like this amount of money and stuff like that. So he had like a whole list of them that we memorize, you know, John 3 16, for God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son that whosoever should believe in him shall never perish but have eternal life. So I've known that verse since I was like six. And so it was just really amazing to have that moment with him. And then as I was getting even older, like I said, I was still a gangster, 17, 18. I wanted to be more of a wannabe gangster, but if you had called me that then, I'd have been super mad over it. I had that anger too. Even though I love people and was, you know, kind to people, would have gave you a shirt off my back. I just I would have fought you in a moment too. I thought that was cool, you know. I thought street fights and getting in fights in school was cool. It shows you, you know, you were tough and you were down, you know, blood in, blood out, kind of stuff. If you've seen that movie, you you know the drift. Um it was dark. So when me and my mom got into a pretty decent argument around almost when I was 18, I kind of moved out for a while, moved in with one of my friends, and the friend I moved in with, even he um he ended up overdosing about 15 years after that or so. And uh he's no longer with us. I spoke his eulogy in Portland even after I hadn't seen him in like almost 12 years. So that gives you an idea that people that were, you know, in his life, and even he was a believer going to church, but uh addiction is is uh something gripping that even um child of God has issued with, as we know with the celebrate recovery program here. Um makes me even think of a recent thing that happened with Greg Locke's son when he just passed away last week. I watched his celebration of life the other day, and it it just it shook me. I was couldn't stop help but cry. And you know, Greg Locke is a deliverance pastor, and I firmly believe and know that that stuff's real. And something he said about the difference between like, you know, a lot of people use Paul's writings that, like, no drunkard's gonna inherit the kingdom of God and you're going to hell, and a lot of the things he he even um casts off before like deliverance is like, you know, saying these things are demonic, but he made him something that he said about his son and about the addiction versus a rebellious heart. He said it's different when people struggle with addiction and the people that have a rebellious heart.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

And he said his son didn't have a rebellious heart.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

It's just a dichotomy. There's a balance between having a relationship with God and seeing him navigate that where he we know where you know Greylock stands as a as a firm you know denouncer of evil things, and where that differs between us saying who can go to heaven or who can go to hell, because Paul himself said he's not the judge, and he's not the one that condemns. So um we shouldn't use Paul's writings to condemn people either, but to guide them to the Father. Uh kind of back to my story. Now I went down a pretty dark road into my early twenties and hung hanging out with guys that were doing all kinds of drugs, um, ecstasy, cocaine. Uh I got addicted to Xanaxes, I was drinking a lot, smoking a lot. I I still remember YouTube first came out. This is where I really like lost my faith and became an agnostic. Um I remember I was sitting there in front of my laptop drinking my Budweiser, smoking a cigarette, and I was looking up online, and if you Google it, you'll find it a certain way, too, that the Catholic Church had lied to us, and all this stuff was just a lie. I saw this uh demonic symbolism within the world we live in, and that stuff's true too, but I just lost my faith. I knew there was a God, but I just didn't know um who he was. And that made that road even darker when I started um me and the mother, I was already with the mother and my kids at this point, and we had um, I believe, two kids, which we can take a quick break and talk about even my my family now. So I'm I'm now married to a woman that has two children of her own with her husband. Her name's Ashley. Uh she's amazing, a gift from God. Um a really good woman, works for the state of Tennessee, and her two sons are um Cash, he's 17, and Roman. They uh he's 14. Um we have six kids total, so we call it the crazy bunch, not so much the Brady bunch. Um, those are her two, but and I have Amelia, she's 15, I think she's 32, and uh Wyatt, I named him after Wyatt, uh Wyatt, or that's one of my mom's favorite movies, was Tombstone. And he's 14, if I didn't say that. And then I have um Madeline, she's almost 12 years old. This month, it's like a week and a half away. And then Owen, he's nine. So I've tried to talk her into having one of our own together, and she's been no, no, no, since we got full custody of them for sure. No, and I'm I do like my morning prayer time nice and quiet. As I'm almost turning 40 this year, like I've already said, I'm like, nah, maybe not. I'm finally like, okay, I'm and uh unless God sees otherwise. So um, no more for me at stopping at six. If one more, though, it'd be the divine number seven, right? I can his completion. Um, so even just to kind of cut there and and talk about my family, and they're they're such a blessing I get from God. But back to when I had lost my faith, we had two more kids, and things just got real bad. The mother of my kids was um always threatening to like take her own life and like uh saying she would jump out of the car while we were driving down the road, and it was just it was bad. I was very dependent on uh Xanaxes for a long time, as I've mentioned a few times. That was I would say even my drug of choice. I would um I was a cook and I would you know take a couple of those at night, like a couple bars and drink some beer, and it it just never almost seemed to be enough. It almost got to the point where I could even just function like that instead of it like uh knock me out like it should have. And she the mother of my kids had been molested by her stepfather for years in some manner. I'm still not hundred percent sure and don't you know care to know the the details. It just was a very uh eye-opening thing that I didn't know was even going on within our relationship. About five years in, uh I had my 10-year reunion, and I had taken um a bunch of Xanaxes that night or some, and we were out on some property, and she told me that even within our relationship, she had been showing her body off to like her stepdad for money for us to get pot. And I'm like, it just the relationship to me like ended then. I didn't I I was still in it, but I had checked out. Uh I had gone so low that I don't even want to mention, you know, certain things that I did. Um, but I'm not ashamed of it. I just don't want to glorify the evil that I've done over the father and the point of my testimony. So we had the night we had split up, it's probably one of the lowest I'd ever gotten. I went downtown and um came in just real late after she found a receipt from a hotel room, and I um I was more mad at myself than even her, and she had taken my keys and took my wallet, and I remember I just flipped out. She finally gave them back to me, and I was supposed to teach a class at Title Boxing Club at like 11 o'clock on like a Sunday, and I'd only had a couple hours of sleep. I was still very hungover, intoxicated, and I was so mad at myself, it was the only point I ever thought in my entire life of just ended it. Before that, I'd always thought anybody that wanted to end their life, they were just weak and sissies and took the easy way out. And then that that moment and I jumped in my my car and I started just driving like a madman towards downtown. I just thought, I just ran my car into the medium. I just end it all right now. And I didn't. I was thinking about those kids and I just knew I just couldn't end it. They needed me. I couldn't leave them in the situation they were in. Um, the just the house and the filth and the the situation they were in. They they needed me. They needed me to be better than I was. And mother of my kids knew I was I was off the deep end at that moment. And she had called my dad, and he had reached out to me, called me on the way, and talked to me a little bit, and I got to download. Town, and there was a couple guys there at the gym that were other trainers, and I called them and I was like, I'm just not in any condition to teach a class right now. It's just really mainly too hungover, not even the upset part. And they were like, We got you, like you take care of what you need to do, and and you handle that. And so like thank God I I didn't uh that I had some friends to you know step in there. Um at that point I actually got a domestic with her and ended up in jail over it. It looked like I was, it was literally our second domestic. The first one she had went to um all the classes with me in Sumner County, and I uh she by the end said it was all her fault. And the person teaching the cut classes said the woman like the never comes to all the classes. It's amazing that she did. And it takes two to tango, though. So I was definitely at fault as well. And I was a victim of my circumstances. If all you have is this material world around you, that's that's all you're gonna rely on, and the situation and the moment that you're in is gonna dictate everything that you see and do. Um so she came to court with me for this one. It was in downtown, and I thought they were gonna throw me in jail for like two years and the book at me and all that. And I was prepared for that. And she came to court with me and we had asked them, you know, just drop all charges. And I don't even I still to this day, I'm like, I don't even know how. Like they just dropped it completely. Like it never even happened. And I was like, awesome, like, great. Excuse me. And I remember we were gonna go celebrate that they had dropped everything. We were still trying to work it out because we've been split up in between the court date and this. I wasn't even supposed to be seeing her, and I did see her a few times, and and on the way to like go get some burgers to celebrate, she just literally for no reason, it doesn't always take two to take. She just starts yelling at me at the top of the top of her lungs in the car, and I'm like, this is the way to get a domestic, just yelling at someone. So if you don't know that, like just literally yelling at someone can get you locked up in jail. And I was like, I'm that's it. I just stopped a car with all four kids in it, and I just turned around a mile from where we were, drove back, calm as can be, and I went, I'm done. And she was begging me not to, and I said, Look, I'm not going to prison over this. I'm just not. And that was the very last day of our relationship, and I just closed that book. Um, it was probably about three months or so after I wanted to end my life, so kind of backtracking that one of my best friends from high school that played left field, I played center field, he hung himself off the bowling green bleachers of their high school. He had been in and out of jail and had um a wife and an eight-year-old boy at the time. I just remember being so devastated, and it just rocked me, and I understood like how someone could get that low because I had just gotten that low. And I was just so devastated for a year. I went right to another relationship, and I mean, if a certain struggle jenny song or just any song came out, I would just bawl and bawl over him, and the mother of my kids just wouldn't let me see my kids for months, and then finally I was able to, and I lived in Clarksville, she lived in like Lewisburg, so it was like two and a half hour drive one way, and she wouldn't meet me. I remember I was just so angry that the first time I was able to see him, I went and picked him up, or the second time, because I dropped them off and I came back like two weeks later, and all I was gonna do is just pick them up and I I believe even just take them to Walmart or have them for the weekend, I'm not sure. But I remember looking at their teeth, and that you could just see the plaque built up all over their teeth. And I asked them, I said, When was the last time you guys brushed your teeth? And they said, Well, when we were with you, two weeks before I flipped out. I picked up the phone, I called her up with Custard every which way, and rightfully so to be mad. But I mean, I no grace, no mercy then. I was so mad that she was trying to like justify, and she eventually like just came in and knew that she was in the wrong. Uh that's just straight neglect. And I just I just I mean, I remember the rage in my body, it's just feel it, this built up in me. Um like just boiling anger. All these things uh had just built over the years. And fast forward uh about a year after my friend had taken his life, I I had quit fighting MMA and doing quick kickboxing for about two, two and a half years. And I got a fight offer. I think it was two weeks before the fight, they were they were asking Jonathan Ivey's fighting championship. Jonathan Ivey reached out to me and he goes, Hey man, you know anybody that'd like to fight this guy at 185? And I looked at my body weight and I thought about all this stuff going on in my life, and I thought, I'll fight that guy at 185. Like I thought if I just go in this ring and just beat the crap out of this guy, then everything would change. I thought that would just make everything better. You know, just let it out. That's kind of why I got into fighting in the first place, was because the mother of my kids was toxic and I went back to the same martial arts gym where I had started years before as a kid. And they were like, You're good at this, you should do kickboxing. And then next thing you know, I'm in MMA, and I'm like, man, this stuff is crazy. Like, scary. I almost like gotta just open that door to have a good outlet instead of just giving up. I think if it wasn't for martial arts, I probably would have gave up. But um so I go in there and I beat this guy up at Fight of the Night. Um, it was a great fight. Nausea, I love him to death now. We wanted to kill each other then. We both were going through some stuff in life. And it changed nothing. I was just still broken. I I knew then it was I knew that I would have to change, that I would have to put in some work. I started like reading articles like how people get over trauma and stuff like that. And they said, you know, it can take even a toxic relationship, it can take a year of being alone. And even the relationship I jumped right back into, she was just even more toxic in different ways. We'd get in arguments and she was very controlling. Always thought I was like trying to see a girl at Title Boxing Club and this and that. It was bad. Like she would want to talk to me all the way from Nashville to Clarksville back to her house on the phone the whole way, just to know I was not talking to somebody else. And um, I was codependent, didn't even know it. So I had another fight with Najee coming up about three three months later for a rematch. He um they they were making it for the 185 title, the first title is because that was the very first fight that Jonathan Ivey ever put on, was the one that I accepted for him. It was the very first event. So the second event was three months out. We were fighting for the 185 belt, and there was a girl at Title Boxing Club that I thought was really, I mean, there are all kinds of supermodels that train there at downtown. And I thought she's a gorgeous girl. I thought uh she was married, and one of my buddies there, one of the guys that helped cover my class that day, he he went up to her at one party and he goes, Hey, uh, you you you want to go out sometime? And he she's like, Well, I'm unhappily married. And I'm like, Unhappily married. So you're telling me there's a chance, is what I thought. And and she kind of blew him off. And next thing you know, we I start training her one-on-one, and then we started a relationship. And she was still with her husband, and she ended up leaving her husband, and she had been um raped in downtown Nashville the year before. And she told me, and she thought I would be terribly like just not even interested in her anymore. And because he had thought that she was kind of lying over it, and he just treated her terrible. And I I didn't, I think anything less of her because of that. I was more just enraged at every person in downtown that could have possibly been the one that done it. Um, I could go deeper in that, but I don't want to. And when I had this fight coming up, I'll be honest, I had more time to think about it. And he kind of clipped me with a head kick. I don't think I've ever really told him that at the end of the first fight, and I was dazed and confused, you know, not from the good stuff or bad stuff. And I was thinking, you know, I could break an arm, I could break a leg. Like, I want to keep being able to provide for my family. You know, some people even die in MMA. It's a very brutal sport. So I'm sitting around watching Rocky two weeks before the fight, Rocky won. And he goes to the Catholic Church at night, right before the fight. And he's like, yo, yo, Father Carmike, Father Carmike, you know, I want a blessing. I'm fighting Apollo, he's a real tough guy, you know, I don't want to get too punch drunk. He was basically asking just to make it through it and be able to keep, you know, going and providing and not be like brain dead. And I saw that scene and I was like, you know, I know there's a God. Why not ask for a blessing before the fight? You know, get pray for. So I reach out to my coaches. One of them's a grappling coach, it was like an agnostic, maybe, and uh Chris White from Extreme Martial Arts. There's just a shout out, Chris White. Uh, he owns in White House. He he does tons of work with churches and he served prison time back in like the 90s for selling ecstasy, like in the skating rink in Madison with Jelly Roll. And I just would have sworn he would have been the one to give me advice on what church to go to. He didn't say nothing. I don't know if he knew just how dark my life was or whatever, but he, my other coach of all people, he's like, Hey, where are you used to train at where I got my black belt? Yeah, my cousin goes to this church, Epostolic Church in East Nashville, first epistolic church. He's like, Oh, go with him. So I link up with him one week before my fight. And I he's sitting on the very back row. So I sit on the back row with him, and I mean, I'm still just in shambles. This girl that I was just telling you about, she left me because another church told her two broken people didn't make a hole. And they were right, but it wasn't what I wanted to hear. I was mad at God. God didn't have this girl leave me, and I was alone. I had moved out from the girl I was living with and had a place in Antioch, and I was living like renting a room out of my buddy's room, and I hadn't been alone in a decade. From my kids to the mother of my kids, then from the bad relationship to a terrible, you know, um woman leaving her husband for me, obviously not good. And I was being alone for the first time. I didn't even know what codependent was, but I I was a and I was just devastated that she left me. And she was my it's like the the the sin of Adam and Eve. Like he put Eve above God, like women were way like they were definitely on the pedestal. And so I was just crushed. So I went in the back row and I'm listening to the sermon, and it was just crazy. He was preaching about David dying on his deathbed. It was all about fighting. He said David was thanking God for the battles that he got him through. Not the battles that he won, but the battles he got him through. That's what Rocky was wanting prayer for. Then he quotes Mike Tyson. He said, Everybody's got a plan until you get punched in the face. He said, I don't know who this is for, but it's for somebody in here. And I knew God had just punched me. I call it the God punch. I mean, it was like God spoke directly to me, but I didn't hear his voice. I knew that God was speaking and cared about me directly to me. I didn't know why. But I I went down there for prayer. The pastor was super interested that I was an MMA fighter. He was the first one he ever met, and he was blown away, even I could tell, because he's preaching that sermon, and then some fighter comes up a week out, you know, to get prayer. And as he's praying for me, I said, you know, really my life is just all messed up. I I need prayer for much more than just this fight and protection for it. And he said, All right, well, how about we have um breakfast later this week on Thursday, which I'm cutting weight, so I barely eat anything. But I said, okay, I'll do it, even though I eat like one egg. And I tell my dad that what happened at the church, and I was like, this just blows me away. And he had left Cornerstone because he had married a girl that had been married, and they were some religiosity and judgment there. And he was like, you know, it's good you you're going back to church and all, but make sure they're not about religion, but about relationship. I mean, I'm some dumb pothead fighter. I'm like, what does this even mean? Like, religion, not really, okay, whatever. Sure. And I sit down and I was thinking, you know, I'm gonna tell this pastor everything bad about me, all kinds of bad stuff. And if he judges me, I'm out. I tell him all these women I've been with, the drugs I've done, and all these things, and he didn't judge me at all. He showed me the father's love. And I didn't know it then, but he treated me like his own son, and it blew me away. Like, man, this this guy didn't judge me a bit. So I go, I I get in the the next fight, I'm in nausea, and I'm still just so emotionally messed up. And I took his back in the first round, man. I was gonna choke him, and he was holding my glove. I he was cheating. He did, he did cheat. He kept hitting me with his thumb, like right here. I had all these bruises on top of my head. And I I I squeak away the victory with a split decision. I just knew I had to go back to that church the very next day. So I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna go back to this church right away. And it was drawing to me, like I just could not see not going there. And the sermon was all about how it's not about religion, but it's about relationship. That pastor said in that pulpit, he said, I hate religion. And I was just like, What? That's what my dad literally just told me this week. I was baffled. Like, once again, he's speaking right to me in my situation. No, every everyone else in there needed to hear that message for sure, but it was just undeniable. And I kept going. I kept going every week, showing up to this church, and the pastor walked up to me one day. He said, Kyle, I can see that you're placing your happiness in all the things of this world and not in God. And I thought, okay, like I hear you, like, but I don't know how or even see how to put my happiness anywhere else, other than my circumstance at that time. I had spoken to my parents and asked them if I had been baptized or not. I don't even remember being baptized. They told me as a child I had been baptized, and like I don't remember it. So I had asked them if they would baptize me, and they had kind of an intro class to, you know, being a follower, and then three months later they baptized me. And they were like, you should come up speaking in tongues and be transformed in a moment. And I was like, okay, sure. I got baptized and nothing happened. I wasn't gonna fake that. I wasn't gonna lie to myself or them, and nothing changed. You know, I had kept showing up to church, kept listening to the sermons, and it, you know, he and it obviously keeps talking to everybody if you sit and listen to the word of God. And I was still just dating girls in and out of title, one at a time, but throughout like another year, year and a half, and there had just been me dating one that had a boyfriend, ex-boyfriend there, and it created a little conflict, then another girl, and then they let me go over those circumstances and other things and management that one of them just wanted me gone, I could tell. But I was just devastated. Still devastated over my friend and you know, losing my dream job. I was full-time at that time, uh, at Title Boxing Club at two locations. At East Nashville, I had helped build it for years and been at Title Boxing Club for like four years at the downtown location. Worked at the one in Clarksville even when I was up there. So, I mean, I was the bottom of the barrel. I was, you know, had nobody still living in that apartment. And I remember sitting there thinking, I can't even like pass a drug test to get a job. Like, I don't even know what I'm gonna do. I'm at like Wits End, I'm driving a borrowed wreck car, like just terrible. I'm sitting around moping, feeling sorry for myself like all week. And I remembered at church they had said there was a mission conference coming up on Thursday at like 10 a.m. when I normally would have been clean in the gym. And I thought, well, at least I can go there and have some good, like something positive. And so I show up to this mission conference, listen to these different people talk about their missionary work, asking for money and you know, help and stuff like that. And there's this one story this girl tells that's about her father had opened a missionary in Haiti when she was a kid. He's had it there for a long time. She told the story of one of the first times going, and just she thought it would be you know sunshine, rainbows going, you know, pray for people, be nice. And she said, just getting off the the airport, off the airplane, that the smell of that place just hit her in the face and it was just terrible. And she ended up telling this story about a five-year-old girl that had been raped and died from AIDS. And just with my mother being taking advantage of it around the same age, I just knew I had to go there. They were asking for help to build a construction on an orphanage. That or money, and I didn't have any money and have a job. But I had done solar construction, electrical construction for years, uh commercial electric. And I thought, well, man, if I can get there, I can I can do this. Like I can help. And think by the grace of God, um, Sean Patton had rehired me at Legion Jiu-Jitsu for their striking coach in between. And I had uh in between losing my job at title because it was kind of conflicting. I I worked at both and just wasn't in a low place when I worked for him before at uh UFC Jim and Hendersonville. And I had some people help sponsor me to get to the money up to go to Haiti. And I found a construction job like the next day was like Good Friday, and met a guy that knew me in a bar like Thursday night, and he's like, You're crazy, Kyle, which I got that nickname at when I did my application at Title Boxing Club after I got my black belt in Taekwondo and they shut their gym down. Uh, they're like, Well, you come on back tonight and you take one class and we'll see if we'll give you the job. So it's like a workout for a job interview. I was like, Oh, no pressure. So I stuck around and I did two classes and I was like flying back kicks and blah, blah, blah, blah. I loved it. It was awesome. And they're like, Well, you got the job, man. We're gonna call you. You're like, you're crazy, Kyle. They said that. And they put it on the first post about me getting the job. Crazy con. I thought, that'll stick. I changed the K to or the C to a K. And I was like, uh, it's always been like his continuous nickname for me, Crazy Kyle, ever since. And so I thought it was crazy that he knew me from like Instagram, like post stuff on like me and that I'm doing this fitness and that. And he's like, buys me a shot of tequila. I'll never forget it. And I'm like, cool, great, free. I don't have no money. Like, I'm just downtown, like on no job, no money, shouldn't have been down there. But I was. And he was uh, I said, Well, what do you do for work? And he said, I own a carpenter company. So he's like, I said, Well, you need any help? And he's like, Yeah, you can start tomorrow. So I started for working for a carpenter on Good Friday. And I thought, that's pretty funny. The Lord will provide, even when we're blind, if there's certain things. Still, it's uh sanctification is a process that's lifelong and it's never, you're never done. You've never arrived. Paul said, I have not arrived, but I push towards the mark. So I go to Haiti, and it was like nothing but other pastors and elderly men that were down there helping, and I show up after jumping through all these loopholes again. My passport and only get to spend like three days down there. And I get there, and instantly they're like, Hey, are you afraid to get on a roof? Because they're hanging this metal roof, and only like two older men are up there that are even, you know, not scared to get up off the ladder and do it. And I said, I'm fine. I've done solar electric carrying panels up on ladders that are six feet, you know, long and four feet wide and 50-pound panels. So I jump up right away and I start helping them lay metal panels and I thought, uh, metal sheet, sheet metal. I thought, man, I'm like literally prepared for this moment just to help them. And I did all their electrical work, didn't all their um their outlets and switches. I did all the finished electrical work there, hung up all their lights. I really felt like I did some good, and um it was amazing. There was a pastor there that said something to me that's always stuck with me. I thought he was crazy. He he said, Kyle, there's 48 hours in the day. I was like, No, they're not. There's there's 24, you know. And then he said, There's 24 hours in the spiritual world, and there's 24 hours in our world. He said, I don't want to spend so much time in the spiritual world that I don't make an impact in our world. And I know he was telling me that because I was spending too much time in our world. He didn't say it, but I look back and I see exactly what he meant now. Um still just uh uh satisfying my flesh, even after I came back, I was well, even jump back and make it not look so bad. Um when I first got back, I was just devastated. I was crying for like two weeks straight. Because all these like kids, I I wanted to take one of them with me and just sh even a homeless person here is like lives like a king compared to anybody there. There there was uh only air conditioning in one building in the whole town. And it was literally where I was sleeping on the floor with two other pastors, was our little building that we were in. The orphanage didn't have one. The new orphanage didn't even have air conditioning. They had like special fans that were like three fans that spun that were designed for places like that with like vents like all through the house and you know, uh opening it. I just let it breathe. And I asked them, I was like, why is there this that they can't have electricity like us? Why can't they have air conditioning? And they told us it's not that we can't buy it, it's that the government can't supply the power for us to get it. Like they had other power, but they just couldn't have the large amount of power that the AC units would push. And it was just crazy to me to think that. And even as I was about to go there, I was trying to wrap my head around like loving on these people that were like a lot of voodoo magic there. And there was a friend of mine I did electrical work with that he was a uh Freemason. I remember we always bumped heads over that. Um I was like, yo, the one percenters and all that stuff, a whole nother rabbit hole. And I was talking to him about like, you know, how can I be the hands and feet of Jesus to these people if they hate me, if there's so much hate down there and they he was like, Kyle, think about it this way. Think about a kid that's raised as a cannibal doesn't know any better. Like that's all he knows. And that really helped me. It always has stuck with me to think that way. Like, he's right. Like they don't even know that it's wrong if that's what they're they've been their whole life. So as I was leaving Haiti, there was a man driving me back to the airport that he was from Haiti, and he was like one of the main people in their mission that spoke English, and great man. And I asked them, I said, How did this like voodoo magic come here? Because there were people there, like just walking the streets when we went around. We didn't go anywhere without armed guards. Um, they looked at us like with hate, and like what they would have done to me is drink my blood if they could have, and they would have think they were casting out you know demons doing this stuff. Um they look at like a fat person and they think you're rich, like just automatically just because you're fat. It's kind of funny. But he told me that in the 1800s they had a really corrupt government and they used this voodoo magic to overthrow the government. That's the same kind of thing as the cannibals, like that they're just raised in it and they don't know any better until they they shine like the light of Jesus on. So fast forward when I said I was like crying for two weeks after leaving, I was reading online about like, man, how how long am I going to be messed up over like seeing this third world country? And they said certain people that leave after that are weak mentally, they'll kill themselves because they just can't do it enough to they can't help or change the whole country. Since I've left there, it's been so much has happened. The orphanage was overran by gang members, they kicked them all out. Thank God all the kids were able to get away. Um a lot of the townsfolk thought it was safe to go back. They went back and they got murdered by the gang members. And since then, even there's been um military police or some police force that went back in. I think the United States finally decided that it's a terrorist situation, so they offended them with uh money aid at least. And they went in and killed a lot of the gang members, but the the children are still not back at the orphanage. So I'm praying that one day God will open the door that I can help them in any way, um, financially or not, that arms of hope. Hope ministry, I can give you a link to that if they want. Like help them in any way. Great, great um mission, missionary group there. But, you know, I was still single and just living immorally at this point. And I I went out to Lebanon one night on a date and the thirsty turtle or something like that. Everybody remembers, but I don't. I'm not from out that way. And I'm kind of living in like an in-between car, a Land Rover that's not even mine. I mean, I could paint you the picture, but it's dark. It's about to start to lighten up. And I'm I'm drinking a bunch of beers with this girl, and I'm we're kind of making out at the bar, and I'm thinking, you know, I'll close the deal, it's kind of my idea. And then no, I strike out and it's like 17 degrees outside, and I'm like, man, I'm pretty hammered, and I get in my car and I start driving home. Good enough I could see straight. I shouldn't have been driving though. And I get on the interstate and I start heading the wrong way, not the wrong like side of the road, but just on heading the wrong direction, like going out towards Knoxville. And I run out of gas. Pretty much have all my belongings in the back of the car. My and I'm like, man, what am I gonna do? My cell phone doesn't even have service. I don't know where I am. I have to be at work at like six in the morning at a trash got job that I had as on the back of a trash truck at this point. And I'm like, well, I could sleep this off a little bit. So I take take a little short nap. I wake up in the middle of the night and grab like some car heart overalls my mom had gotten me when I was uh in solar electric. And I put them on, I start walking down the road and get to the next exit because I don't know which way to go. I just start walking the way I was going. And it's totally abandoned. And I I walk through and start going the other way and kind of repent. You know, I turn. And a sheriff sees me. He picks me up and he's like, What are you doing out here? And I'm like, Well, I'm running out of gas over here. And he's like, Well, get in the back, I'll help you out. He wasn't the nicest sheriff either. And I'm thinking, you should be taking me to jail right now. But he takes me down to the gas station, puts a gallon, gives me a gallon of gas in his in his jug, and I put it in this Land Rover, it's like a push button start, and it won't start. So I'm like, okay, I've either messed the fill filter up or I need more gas because sometimes SUVs need more gas when you run all the way out. And he's like, Well, I can't help you anymore. So I'm gonna take you back to the gas station and just leave you there. I'm like, all right. So I head back and there's this little old lady. I asked her to help me. This nice elderly woman, better way to say. And sh sh she took me to get more gas. We had to buy a gas can, and I I put it in my car. It's enough to get it started, and she follows me to the gas station, and she tells me that she has a word from the Lord for me. And she asked me to get in her car, and I was like, okay, sure. God's speaking to you, you hear that stuff a lot in apostolic churches and other people, and I didn't know quite how I felt about it, but she told me that God just told her that he was gonna use me to lead thousands of people to him, and how it wouldn't be about religion, but it'd be about relationship. She said, Some people will think you're crazy, but some people will turn to him right away. I thought, lady, you're crazy. Like you don't know me. Like where I'm at right now. I mean, this was a Damascus robe moment. I was living so immoral. And I thought to myself, who do you think I am? Billy Graham? Like this number she threw out was huge. And then she starts like asking me if she can speak in tongues and starts prophesying over me. And I record the floorboard. And um, I don't think much of it. I posted online, and I'm like, man, that is crazy. I don't really think I can ever do what she's saying that God told her. Now, fast forward, I meet my wife, thank God. And we this the moment I first saw her, I just knew it was just something about her. It wasn't her looks because she's a beautiful woman, but I just knew I was gonna marry her. And it end up, you know, two and a half years later or so, we end up getting married. Our blended family came together nice, you know. We did some premarital counseling on you know how to make that work, and it's been a a very um blessed, blessed hard road at the same time because the mother of my kids had custody of them up until uh almost four years ago now. So she had custody of them for five years. And the state of Tennessee just handed them over to me. I had evidence of neglect and abuse, and and they just gave them to me. I was just blown away. Um I thought the whole reason I was fighting again, I thought there's no other way for me to get them out of that situation other than me become like a UFC world champion or something. Like that was my goal. I wanted to put Legion Jiu-Jitsu on the map. I wanted that so bad. Like I wanted to be in the spotlight. And God had a different way. He his way is better than our ways, and his thoughts are better than our thoughts. So, and uh when they just hand them to me, I I just couldn't believe it. Me and her, we it was like literally two months before we got married. So we're like trying to like navigate like having full custody like all the time. Not you know, uh, she only had like visitations when I was present. So um that made it, you know, a little bit more rocky uh right before, but we we navigated it. I actually had my my neck blew out, one of my disc in my neck blew out, and I was scheduled to have surgery like a month after we got married. So I could fight again, because I still wanted to be, put them on the I still wanted to be that you know in the spotlight. It's funny how we can be a follower of Christ or claim to be following God and and still him not have that top spot. Even within my marriage, for um, I'd say two years or so of our relationship on and off, you know, I would put, I I used to say and still say I'd put her above God, but that's not even true because it wasn't like I was being a better husband. It wasn't like I was putting her wants and needs before God. It was I was putting my want for her above God. I was still putting that woman on the pedestal. Right. Um and I knew it. Like she would, like if she rejected me or something, I would just get upset and she would see it and she would feel it, and she would get upset, and then I would go out to the garage and pray, and 10 minutes later I feel better because I knew it wasn't right. Um before I read, you know, if you do not hate your mother, father, brother, sister, even your own life, you're not worthy to be my disciple. You know, Jesus isn't saying that we have to hate anybody. That word in the Greek it means love less. There's only only like a couple translations that translate that correctly, because he wouldn't be asking us to break one of the Ten Commandments. He wouldn't tell us to love our enemies and then turn around and tell us to hate our own family. But the Holy Spirit convicts of sin, and I knew. I knew it was wrong. You know, putting anything above him. And thank God I got that in order now a little more. So um I saw a man kind of jump ahead. The mother of my kids had neglected my kids so bad that my 11-year-old boy at that time, Wyatt, he wasn't allowed to use the restroom and their house. If he stopped it up, he'd get in huge trouble. So he's using the restroom, but like if he stopped up, he'd get in trouble. So he was trying to like hold it so much that if you don't know, like your your bottom has a sensory, that if you hold it so much it can like mess it up and open it up, you can lose the sensation of knowing when you have to go to the bathroom. So he was um 10 or 11 and had to wear diapers. Literally could not sense when he had to use the restroom. And when we got custody, it was hard. Um, they had been so neglected, so treated so bad that, like my youngest daughter, she was throwing stuff at school. They almost kicked her out of station camp, all kinds of stuff. Night and day, we've seen a difference. My oldest daughter, she said that we kept the house too clean. And we're not like we're not like super clean, we're not, but we're clean, you know, just and my son was hiding like poopy diapers in the house and his drawers and stuff. I don't know why, like ashamed or just whatever. And my wife was at her wit's end with it. And I went up there one day and I just started yelling at him about it. Had this anger that I knew wasn't right. I had been slowly getting better and you know, trying to lay that down, and I just wanted that stuff gone. And I was just so mad because my wife said, she's like, she doesn't know what she's gonna do. And so I'm yelling, I'm cussing at him for hiding these diapers, and he looks at me and he says, Dad, he says, Can you just buy me some underwear?

SPEAKER_01 59:25

So uh I don't have to wear a diaper in my basketball game tonight. I felt like a jerk up there yelling at my son. So I thought, oh yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna shut up and I'm gonna go get my son some some underwear.

SPEAKER_02 59:43

It's a simple request. And I I even kind of asked God, I'm like, should I go to jujitsu now or go to Walmart first? And my stepdad's like, you know, if you hear your conscience say, like, you should go do this, that's God. I mean, you need to test the spirits because sometimes still I was like, okay, kind of led me, like, you need to go to Walmart. So I go to Walmart, and I'm telling you, right by the little boy's underwear section, there's a man like fell out of his wheelchair and he's dying, like, right there. I like run to go help get the like I run to the pharmacy trying to get a guy. There's a guy already trying to do CPR. He's big and got like scars on his stomach, so he's obviously had health issues already. I get the pharmacist to run over there. I I run, find a police officer who's trying to find him. I run him over there, and I'm like just sitting there, like, man, just you know, in shock seeing this man die, like right next to there. I I finally I get my son's underwear and I'm walking as I'm checking out, and I as I walk out, like I can literally see them with him in the ambulance, like pumping on him. And I say it was literally something right out of a movie. And I knew it was something I was supposed to see witness. And after that, I I went and told my Sean Patton, special forces commanding officer, you know, what happened when I went to jujitsu after. And, you know, I kind of confided in them because they've they've seen a lot of death in war and stuff. And, you know, they're just kind of there for me for that moment. And so I go on like this 10-mile run that night. I'm just I'm just gonna run this out of me. Um, I thought, you know, I just kind of run this emotion out. I'm got a 400 song playlist, and halfway through my run, I'm like, you know, wouldn't it be something if the Till the Day I Die comes on by Toby Mag? My wife had bought us tickets to go see him. Literally, that Sunday night we're gonna go see him. And that album's all about his son that overdosed and passed away. And I'm running, and I thought, you know, it'd be funny if it came on, but wouldn't it be something if it came on at the end? And I'm telling you, a half a mile left of that run, that playlist on shuffle, that song came on. And I was just blown away. I was like, God is always trying to speak to us if we're listening in so many ways, through his word, through people, through testimonies, all the time. And I just knew stuff had to change. I knew something had to give. Like just in my life, still, with this anger I still had, as I'm obviously up there yelling at my son. So I just start listening to the Bible. I'm dyslexic. I claim, and I'm just not the best reader, didn't like reading, didn't go to college. You know, I was pretty good math guy, good common sense, good with my hands. And I start listening to it every morning. And I spend time in prayer every morning. And I knew I would say the Lord's Prayer quite often, and I knew I needed to forgive the mother of my children for what she had done. I just couldn't. I was let I would ask God like over and over, Lord, like you help me forgive her because I cannot. And I listened to the whole Bible throughout that year, and man, things just started coming alive from the Bible to other circumstances, Bible verses, the word of God is alive. And by the end of the year, I had um a friend of mine that needed a roof from the gym, and his wife's dad had just passed away. My mom had been sick for about six years at this point, and she was looking rougher and rougher, and I was over at his house getting him a roof, because I saw roofing on the side at that point, and he his his wife came in and told me a story about her father passing, and then he said he had had a vision of um her father, and he said that he kind of saw him through like a veil, and he came out of it and handed him a letter, and on it he said, you know, tell my girls that I love them. And she said that her father always wrote letters like that. He wasn't good with his words, like you know, emotionally, and he wrote letters. I thought, man, that's awesome. This super awesome blessing that they had received from God, and they were Catholic, and um, go to Our Lady of the Lake, and he was getting me interested in that. And I'm not Catholic, but I at that point knew nothing about theology and knew nothing about the differences between all this division in the church. I was just like, cool, man, they love Jesus, like I love Jesus, like thank God for you know this gift that he he has vision, like super cool. I was just finished like listening through the Bible, and I thought, man, how amazing is this that that we're fellowshipping and he ends up giving me like a rosary, this military World War I rosary, really cool rosary. That if you were in World War I, they would have given it to every single soldier. Even if you were an atheist, they gave you this rosary. It's really cool. And then me and my wife got this real sick. All December, I had been sick for 21 days, had lost 17 pounds. My wife ended up in the hospital with pneumonia, had to get a shot that burned like fire, she said. They couldn't even find like a place to put IV in. I saw the beans bust because they put that like radiant, like that, that light. It was super wild. I just knew I didn't reach out online to ask him for prayer. I just know God at this point. I've seen him come alive so much in my life. I'm like, I'm gonna just pray. Like I have faith in him that he is good. And she was fine. She got better faster than I did because of that shot. And I had just recently watched this thing on Jordan Peterson's wife, where she had become Catholic because she had survived like cancer that nobody else had ever survived. And her friend came and prayed the rosary with her. She was diagnostic. They prayed it for like five days or something. And then, like, she went to an like, well, they prayed it, and then she she her friend taught her how to pray it. And then she went here to the States to have some treatment. Her thyroid was leaking or something wild, and it looked like she didn't have much time left at all. She wasn't praying for healing either. I rewatched this recently, and she was praying just to like die gracefully. Like she, as believing in God as she was, she started like praying the rosary herself, the novena, which I still don't know too much about. And day five, she was like miraculously healed. And I thought, this is super cool. Like I can't even um like fathom this healing is wild. Like I don't even see why Jordan Peterson wrestles with the resurrection. Look at this miracle. And she instantly became like a devout Catholic, not knowing anything. She has a podcast, if you don't know, it's super cool. You should check her out. And um so I'm like I said, I've been sick for 21 days, and he had given me a rosary before all this, and a little rosary prayer book. And I'm like, man, if he did it for her, I'm just gonna try to pray this thing. I still didn't, like I said, know any of the theological, and I don't pray to Mother Mary and intercessionists saying all that stuff. I know, didn't care, and honestly, I still don't. I know about it, but I don't, I don't divide the blood of Jesus. And I got on my knees in her parents' bathroom up in Ohio, and she's you know recovering from that getting that shot. She's still sick too. And uh I prayed the rosary for the first time all the way around, and I botched it halfway and took me like 45 minutes. I'm just like, Lord, I just want this fever to break. I was over it. And later that day I felt worse than even ever. She's having to drive us home, and I never let her drive us home if I can. It's always me from Ohio. And halfway down there, about I my fever breaks. And I still, even to this day, I go, it's a mirror, like, thank God. I don't care what nobody says. Like, to me, that's a that's it's a micro miracle. I'll take it. I was so happy. Um, I was very open to um even thinking, you know, maybe I want to become Catholic. I had seen this, my buddy was, and he was pushing this. And and um, I do believe we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So my one of my biggest disagreements with the Catholic Church is the immaculate conception that Mary didn't sin. I'm not saying she's some terrible sinner. I love her to death. Um, but I was open to that. And he recommended me watch a couple of certain movies. I watched Father Stew. If you've never seen Father's Too, you gotta watch Father's Stew. It is so good. It's a true story about this crazy boxer that's in and out of jail, drunk, cussing, and then he he uh joins the Catholic Church for a girl, and he ends up drunk driving his bike and wrecks it one night. And as he's laying there almost dying on the pavement in the movie, there he has an apparition of Mother Mary. She shows up and she's like, you know, Jesus loves you. And he's like, tell Jesus, I don't care. I'll burn in hell.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:18

And she's like, but he died for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:23

I don't want to ruin the movie for you because it's a great movie. True story. He becomes a priest and goes on, not marrying that girl. And deals with some very hard health issues, but very good movie. So I was wide open for the whole Mother Mary apparition, this or that. So since we had been sick, we didn't have a Christmas um, didn't have a Christmas party like normal during that season. So we were having a Christmas party on like January 6th. My same friend that gave me the rosary, he'd been calling me asking for prayer, middle of the night, dealing with he's he was saying some demonic oppression and stuff like that. And I would pray with him for 30, 40 minutes, like talk to him and stuff, and um just on fire for the Lord. And I had invited him to the party, but he was just getting in from Mexico. It was a Saturday night, and he was gonna come and we were gonna go pray at the Our Lady at the lake. He said they're open, you know, 24-7. You can get into the Catholic church. They're always doors open. I was like, cool, cool. Well, he was like canceled on me because he was like, I'm just tired from traveling. I just saw him again, Jim just gave him two rash gear because he just got his purple belt, and I don't have a purple belt anymore. I was like, I got a couple of these rash gear, gave it to him. And I'm in my kitchen that night, and he said, you know, he canceled, and I'm like, all right. And I'm opening the the kitchen drawer for some silverware, and over to my left, I hear the most beautiful woman's voice I've ever heard in my life. She said, two and a half. Like two and a half. What? Who said that? That's crazy. I walk around, there's only a couple people at our party so far. I'm like, anybody say two and a half? They're like, no, no, they're like, you're crazy. You're crazy. I'm like, whatever. I heard it. Like, whatever. My buddy calls me up because I was telling him I'm gonna go to this church at 11 o'clock anyways. I just feel drawn to go there and pray. I just felt it. And he was um struggling with alcohol on and off. He's been um dealing with that. And I told him a week and a half before, I was like, man, for you, I'll quit drinking for the rest of my life. I only drank it a few times last year. I didn't like it. It hurts like my neck fusion. I just I'm done. I've had enough of that for a lifetime. I meant it. And I haven't touched it since. I haven't had alcohol and going on three years. I mean, in my soul, I ain't gonna again. Gave that man my word and I meant it 100%. And he said, Look, don't go to that church. At 11 o'clock, you won't even be able to find a spot to park at 11 p.m. on a Saturday. I'm like, what? That's weird. What do you mean? They're having some big event or something. I didn't know till months later it was the day of Epiphany, Three Kings Day, it's January 6th, like every year. They do a two-week Christmas celebration ever since like the 70s or something. Of like God speaking and divine stuff. And I was like, I didn't know nothing about that. So, but he told me don't go. I was like, all right, well, that's fine. I was kind of thinking, whatever. God's been kind of moving this past week. I feel like like this two and a half voice, I thought it was Mother Mary. Like, I'm like, all right, is Mother Mary? I know it. Um what's two and a half? What's two and a half? So I think about it and I'm like, well, two and a half is two and a half hours past midnight. That's two and a half. That sounds crazy. I don't care what people think. That's the funny part, is I am crazy, Kyle. Just like that lady didn't even know. That was my nickname long before she get told me that they would think I was crazy. And I kind of put two and two together. I take a nap. I'm like, well, I'm gonna get some rest. I watch my my health stuff. People go, oh, you're hallucinating this and that. I'm like, no, no, I've trained ultra marathons. I know when people get so tired they hallucinate. I've done my research, read my books, my body battery was 30. Like I was good. You'd have to be down to zero for a long time before you start to hallucinate. I know what I'm talking about. I've trained mental training for years, like book after book and all kinds of stuff. And I wake up with my daughter before I left, and she's uh my oldest, and I like took communion with her. I bought like these whole things of communion for the party, and um people didn't seem like they wanted to, so I did it with her before I left. And I dressed in like an all-black suit. And I've told my buddy, like, hey, I'm going. I Mother Mary spoke to me. I'm going at this time. And he's like, sure. Like he'd been calling me, I said, at three o'clock in the morning for prayer. And he guided me to the door that should have been opened down at the Our Lady. I like knock on the door, he says should never be shut. It's shut, it's locked, nobody shows up. And I look over and there's like a statue of Mother Mary. I'm like, hey, I'm I'm where I'm supposed to be, man. So I got his rosary that he gave me, and I say just kind of my normal prayer, and then I get on my knees and say, an Our Father holding the cross. And I instantly, right after that, I heard God's voice like I've never heard before or since in my head, loud and clear. And along with the multiple things he said to me, he said, Since you came here when we told you, you no longer have to be here to hear me. I don't. I can remember exactly what he said, how he said it to this day. Oh, his voice is so good. He loves us so much. It was in this moment that I was able to forgive the mother of my kids. And I understood how much he loves all of us. He told me one of my friends from the gym was gonna be more than okay because he was going through some family stuff. I didn't even know what it was, but he was a person I love dearly at that time. He mentioned him by name. He said, He's gonna be more than okay. Then I told God, back with my own conscience, I'm speaking to, I mean, loud and clear, like Morgan Freeman type voice in my head, you might say. And I said, I don't deserve this. And I meant hearing his voice. And he told me, he said, This isn't salvation. That's for all men. That still hit so hard. And then he said, I am gonna use your bullheadedness. I'm like, man, I don't ever even say bullheadedness. Like, I've never used that word in my life. But I am hard headed. And I see exactly how he's gonna use my bullheadedness. And then he said, the last thing he said at that church outside it, he said, You were chosen when you went to Haiti. I thought for a long time it was like faith without works is dead, since I didn't care about you know dying when I possibly went to Haiti that you know I had earned my salvation. But no, if you look at the gospels, he chose the disciples. He chose the ones to go forth. Apostle means to go forth, to represent. Doesn't mean to just follow. It means to show, and I'm not saying I'm some apostle like back then. I know people say there are no modern apostles, but I have been sent forth. So I was like, whoa, my stepdad had been telling me all year that many are called, but few are chosen. I thought, wow. Um there's more to this story. You can even look, check it out on my own YouTube, but I'm gonna skip some things for the sake of time. But I go home and I'm like distraught. I'm like, man, that was crazy. Like that is crazy. I go like start petting my cat because I've listened to this book recently by Jordan Peterson about like anytime you have a chance, go pet your cat. My wife earlier that week, she's like, you're losing track of like these, the world around you. You're being so spiritual. Ironically, what Dude was saying, I should have been somewhere in the middle, because it's in the middle. And I'm getting close to wrapping up this. So I'm petting my cat in my hallway, and then he comes to me again. And I asked God, I said, Where is Mother Mary now? And he said, Outside of you. I'm like, well, that makes sense because it was an external woman's voice. That's where a lot of people thought I went crazy, but I got one hard mic drop to prove it. I don't need to go down all it's a 15-minute story of its own if you want the full, the full Mother Mary, I got you, but not here. Um And then I asked him, I said, Well, when I was there, you said, uh, since we, you called yourself we, like what like who are you? And he said, the one name I never call God. He said, I am. I was like, Well, I know exactly what that means. Thought I did at the time. I knew who he was saying he was. Then the very last thing I asked God was related to an event that happened to me when I was five. I fell off a slide when I was five years old off the very top, and I fell, and it was like I didn't get hurt at all. I didn't feel pain or nothing. That night, I had a dream, and there was a figure wearing all white robe, long blonde hair, and he caught me and laid me down on the ground. My grandfather on my dad's side, he had the same, he saw the same figure right before he passed away. A few years later, my dad was with him, and he said that he described the same exact figure right before he passed. And so I asked God, because I was all in this guardian angel stuff with the rosary, gave me like a Michael the Archangel pending on it, and I'd seen my guardian angel. It's funny how we can become agnostic even after something like that. I asked God, I said, Where is my guardian angel right now? And he said, All around you. I was like, Oh, that's so awesome. I went to bed and I was at peace. Um, six months later, I was listening to John Bever's book on the the awe of God. And I'm not a scholar, I don't know the Psalms through and through. And he said, one of them, one of the verses he mentioned at the very end of the book, Psalms 34, 7, he said, The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them. I was like, that's what God told me, all around me. So I know beyond a shadow of doubt, my guardian angels all around me. Is the angel of the Lord? Is it the angel of the Lord? Is it Christ? Is it the Holy Spirit? I don't know. That's too complicated. But I know. And it's funny because you know, my wife thought I was crazy after this encounter. I'm telling everybody at the job, I'm like, man, this is crazy. I'm not even a mystic by choice, I'm a mystic by experience. And long story short, a lot of them, especially because like the woman's voice, my dad was a as a Protestant, he's heard the father's voice this way, he says. And I know he has. And he was like against this whole mother married thing. That's a long story, but to make it short, my first cousin on his side, because my dad was saying I'm crazy on my mom's side, like, Manic, you're hearing voices. I'm like, no, I know what happened. Like I said, this is a 15-minute just itself story. But the very end, my cousin told me that four years prior in 2020, he was at the Fatima Shrine in New York, which if you don't know is based after Fatima, Peru, I believe. Portugal?

unknown 1:20:51

Portugal.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:52

One of those two. I'm not a scholar about that, but they made a movie about this apparition. It's really good. And it's where these three little kids have like six apparitions, and Mother Mary, they give her the Fatima prayer, Fatima prayer, Fatima. And it's one of my favorite prayers. These little kids didn't make it up. It's Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of your mercy. And he visited this shrine that's after that apparition. And he said he came home, he sat down in his chair, and he heard the most beautiful woman's voice he's ever heard in his life say, Jonathan, don't be afraid. After I told my dad that story, he doesn't deny that at all anymore. We don't even talk about it. Nothing is impossible with God. And after that encounter, that anger that I used to feel bottled up inside me is just gone. You can get deliverance from a man, they can lay hands on you, but the Father Himself can deliver you. And the peace that surpasses human understanding can guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. I know. But if you go tell them that at the hospital, they'll think you're crazy. My wife thought I was so crazy, even to the point where I said, Look, if you really think I'm crazy, if you're worried, like take me down there and put me in the hospital. So I went. I put myself in there. I wasn't going to deny that what God did. Because if I deny him on this side, he'll deny me in the next. And 90% of the hospital staff, they believed me. They even like gave me joking around. One of them punched me before I left. I'm like, man, you guys are awesome. So I'm gonna be I saw crazy when I was in there. But the funniest part is that I have had a personal revelation that Jesus is exactly who he says he is. As I already quoted John 3 16 earlier, many times you hear pastors say, and this is true too, that eternal life is going to heaven one day, living forever. That sounds good. It's it sounds right. I mean, yeah, that's it's true too. But Jesus himself said in John 17, he said, Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son, so the Son may glorify you, since you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. This is eternal life, that they may know you, the one true God, and the one you have sent, Jesus Christ. So Christ alone says right there that eternal life is knowing God and Jesus. It's funny because as I tell people this story that are agnostic or I wrestle with, you know, I I'm telling them about knowing that Jesus is who he says he is, that he did not lie, that everything he said came from the Father. I hear a lot, oh, that's your truth. Truth is subjective. But that's not how truth works. No, not absolute truth. There's something as I step reading, so after this encounter, I started reading the Bible every day, every day, circing, searching and seach seeking the Lord. Now I read a chapter of the New Testament every morning in order, and I just start over when I do it again. I highly recommend if you're a believer in Christ, to study the New Testament in that fashion, because testament means covenant. And this