Zack Goytowski, a season four cast member of the Netflix dating show “Love Is Blind,” shared intimate details about his tough childhood on Instagram, saying that learning about Jesus helped him forgive his mother shortly before she died. In the post, Goytowski said, “We all can be someone’s hope in the hopelessness.”
His post started with his life circumstances when he was in high school, dealing with a mother with drug addiction and mental illness. He shared, “My senior year in high school, I was filled with anger and rage. My mother’s mental illness and addiction were out of control.”
Goytowski shared that he typically avoided going home after school because he didn’t know what state the house would be in once he got there. Sometimes, he’d go into his room to find his mother smashed the walls with a hammer, or the house would be filthy with clothes thrown all over when his mother went into a manic rage.
He wrote, “There was no stability. Every time I made a friend, I’d have to move on and say goodbye,” remembering the numerous times they moved to different houses, adding that he and his sister had to change schools. However, during his senior year, a friend invited him to her Christian youth group. That was where Goytowski gained a sense of community and learned the power of forgiveness through Jesus’ example. He learned “about a man who sacrificed everything so others could be forgiven.”
Goytowski said his mother had lost custody of his sister and had been committed to mental institutions several times during his junior years in college. Almost six months passed before he saw her again. When he started volunteering at a homeless shelter and heard the stories of people who hit rock bottom, he realized his mother’s behavior and refusal to see him was likely because she was embarrassed to tell him she was homeless.
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He recalled praying, asking God to help him see his mother. Then, he looked at his phone and saw she had called. She tried to cancel their meeting at the last minute, telling him she was too sick to see him, but he insisted, and she gave in. He said, “When I saw her, her face was gaunt. She looked like she hadn’t eaten or slept in weeks. I sat down with my mother that day. I hugged her, and I told her I forgave her for everything. She had still not forgiven herself.”
Goytowski continued, “She was living at the time in a storage unit, using her space heater at night to keep warm. She was at rock bottom, and she didn’t want me to know. I prayed with her that day. I prayed that she would overcome her addiction. I prayed she would be able to overcome her mental illness. And I told her how much I loved her. And it was after that day that everything changed.”
God had heard his prayers, and his mother changed her life. She stopped using drugs, her medications stabilized, and she spent the next few years serving others who struggled with mental illness. Goytowski and his younger sister finally celebrated a few happy Christmas’ with their mom. He added, “There are moments that I never would have gotten if I held onto the pain of the past and chosen not to forgive. Grace isn’t fair. But if we choose to give it every day, we make the world a better place for everyone.”
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