Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

I remember when I first heard the news. I was shocked. Charlie Kirk had been shot at a Utah University. It was a cold-blooded assassination, Martin Luther King Jr.-style. Charlie was a devoted father of a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son, and the loving husband of Erika.

Before he died, I had watched between 30-50 Charlie Kirk videos over the last five years, but not always to the end. Since his death, I have watched over 100 videos.

Furthermore, my wife and I got up at 4 a.m. to watch his 5-hour funeral service. We were not alone. Along with the 90,000 who were there on site, over 100 million watched online or on TV. Erika Kirk’s forgiveness speech to the assassin was deeply moving.

I have also read 50 articles about Charlie Kirk and will write one of my own soon at The Daily Declaration. I have never before in my life organised a candlelight vigil in honour of a man’s passing, but I did so for Charlie Kirk. His passing has touched me deeply.

Charlie was only 31 years of age when he was killed, and yet he knew more than most 90-year-olds. His wisdom and understanding about life, family, relationships, love and politics were staggering. Charlie Kirk’s insight into why men wear dark suits at their wedding was both provocative and profound, to say the least. Watch the short below.

Mike Mason, author of my favourite book on committed love, The Mystery of Marriage, would agree with Charlie Kirk. Marriage is a process of death from which life usually springs in more ways than one. I often tell men it is a wonderful way to die.

I will let Mike Mason share in his own words found on his website:

“From the moment I met my wife, I sensed that a process of interior disintegration was beginning to work in me, systematically, insidiously.

In other ways, of course, I was being rejuvenated, tremendously built up. But a thirty-year-old man is like a densely populated city: nothing new can be built in its heart without something else being torn down.

So, I began to be demolished. There were many times when I felt quite seriously that everything my life had stood for was being challenged, or that somehow, I had been tricked into selling my very soul for the sake of a woman’s love!

In short, there was a lot at stake as the wedding day approached; in fact there was everything at stake. Never before had I felt that so much was riding upon one single decision.

Later I would discover, very gradually, that this is one of the chief characteristics of love: it asks for everything. Not just for a little bit, or a whole lot, but for everything. And unless one is challenged to give everything, one is not really in love.

But how hard it is to give everything! Indeed, it is impossible. One can make a symbolic gesture of giving all, accompanied by a grand dramatic public statement to that effect (which is what happens at the wedding ceremony). But this is just a start. The wedding is merely the beginning of a lifelong process of handing over absolutely everything, and not simply everything that one owns but everything that one is.

There is no one who is not broken by this process. It is excruciating and inexorable and no one can stand up to it.

Everyone gets broken on the wheel of love, and the breaking that takes place is like nothing else under the sun. It is not like the breaking that happens in bankruptcy or in a crop failure or in the loss of a job or the collapse of a lifetime’s work. It is not even like the breaking of a body wracked by a painful disease.

For in marriage the breaking that happens is done by the very heel of love itself. It is not physical pain or natural disaster or the terrible evil world “out there” that is to blame, but rather it is love, love itself that breaks us.

And that is the hardest thing of all to take. For in the wrestling ring of life, love is our solar plexus. This is where things really hurt. No hurt is like the hurt that happens in the place where we love.

And when anything at all goes wrong in a marriage, this is the place to be affected. This is the vulnerable spot, of course, in all human relationships; what is on the line, always, with every person we meet, is our capacity to love and to be loved.

 But whereas in most other relationships our vulnerability can be hidden, more or less (and how expert we are at hiding it!), in the relationship of marriage it is this very quality that is exposed, exalted, exploited.

This is what makes marriage so arduous, so overwhelming that many give up and run away, their entire lives collapsing in ruins. But those who hang on also face inevitable ruin, for they too must be broken.”

Strong words for those who can bear them. Nor can everyone accept these words because true love demands everything. Even life itself. That is why a man’s blood can be his most eloquent speech. Watch the full context of Charlie’s 53-second short in the longer 5-minute video titled “Charlie Kirk’s Take on Marriage“.

Lovework

Tell your wife about Charlie Kirk’s passing if she already doesn’t know. Make her a cuppa, or pour her a drink and ask her to sit with you to watch the video below: “Charlie and Erika Kirk’s Love Story“.

Yours for the Cause of Love,
Warwick Marsh

___

Republished thanks to Dads4Kids. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.