A Turning Point We All Felt
Ada Nestor | My Reflections from the Edge
I watched, along with millions of others, as Charlie Kirk was remembered. And I can’t explain it fully, this mix of heartbreak and amazement. Something about it felt bigger than a memorial. It felt like the ground shifted beneath us.
The First Martyr
When Stephen, the very first Christian martyr, was dragged out and stoned, the authorities thought they were putting an end to trouble. He was bold, he preached truth, and they wanted him silenced. But his final words weren’t curses or rage. He prayed for the very men crushing him with stones. That moment didn’t end the movement. It launched it.
Watching from the crowd that day was a man named Saul. He wasn’t just present, he approved. He thought stamping out Christians was a righteous cause. He believed he was on the side of God.
Saul to Paul
Then came that Damascus road. A blinding light, a voice calling his name, and everything Saul thought he knew collapsed. The persecutor became the apostle. Saul became Paul. And Paul would carry the gospel across the known world. He wrote letters we still read two thousand years later. He planted churches that multiplied across continents. And if you trace it back, all of it, every page, every journey, sprang out of that first martyrdom. Stephen’s death lit the spark that ignited Paul’s ministry.
The Parallel Today
That’s what kept running through my mind as I listened to speaker after speaker at Charlie’s memorial, many bringing up Stephen in their own speeches. After years of cultural silence, we heard leaders preach the gospel plainly, boldly, unashamed. We saw people grieving, but instead of riots, violence, or destruction, there was prayer. There was worship. There was a righteous anger that builds rather than tears down.
The contrast was undeniable. The world expected fury. What they saw was reverence.
The Psalms in the Darkest Moments
This year, in my own Bible study, we’ve recently began our walk through the book of Psalms. How fitting, at a time when we are desperate for comfort, but also reminded that our worship and our trust cannot be set aside when life turns dark. The Psalms are not written from mountaintops of ease, they are forged in caves, in battles, in nights of despair, when no way forward could be seen.
David cried out in Psalm 13:
“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”
That’s raw honesty, the kind many of us feel in this season of loss. And yet, even in the same psalm, David shifts:
“But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.”
The psalm begins with anguish but ends in praise.
Psalm 23 reminds us:
“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”
Not the absence of evil, but the presence of God in the middle of it. That is what sustains us.
And then Psalm 46 declares with boldness:
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.”
If David could say that while surrounded by enemies, surely we can hold onto it now.
Psalms shows us what faith looks like in the real world. They are grief and praise, side by side. They are cries of “How long?” met with “I will trust.” And they remind us, even in the heartbreak we feel now, to lift our eyes higher and believe God is not done writing the story.
The Spark That Comes Next
History tells us martyrdom never works the way tyrants intend. What they mean for silence only multiplies the voice. What they try to bury becomes the seed of something larger.
Stephen’s death gave us Paul. Paul’s life spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. And now, after Charlie’s death, I can’t shake the sense that we are watching a new spark catch fire.
I can’t explain it fully, but I know what I saw. Heartbreak, yes. But also amazement. And maybe, just maybe, the beginning of something that will outlive all of us.
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