By Drake Hunter | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice
As I sit quietly this morning, rather than a nursery rhyme, a children’s tale keeps illuminating my imagination: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with three injuries weighing upon my soul.
Yesterday marked one year since Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Today marks twenty-five years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. And here at home, my wife, Sherrie, has spent more than 300 days bedridden. While being treated for glioblastoma, she was dropped on her head during hospital care, suffering injuries that left her unable to walk.
One injury is political and cultural. One is national and collective. One is deeply personal.
Each has brought pain. Each has produced loss. And each places the same question before the human soul:
When we cannot choose what happens to us, how will we choose what happens within us?
Injury does more than wound the body or break the heart; it can deeply challenge our sense of reality, stirring feelings of vulnerability and empathy in the audience, which is essential for inspiring shared resilience.
Pain and loss often produce fear and anger. When mixed with resentment and contempt, they can settle into coldhearted indifference or sharpen into malice—the intent to harm others because of what they did to us. We may withdraw, lash out, or begin defining ourselves by our wounds.
When that happens, the injury keeps injuring us, which is why embracing truth is essential for healing and maintaining integrity.
Yesterday, at the end of The Mountain Minute, I read an interesting quote from Charlie Kirk:
Greatness, on the other hand, requires the liberty and the drive to make the most of yourself.
I appreciate the heart of that statement. Liberty matters. Personal responsibility matters. So does the determination to make something meaningful of the life we have been given.
But it raises an important question: What do we mean by “yourself”?
If I define myself entirely for myself, “making the most of myself” may merely enlarge my appetites, ambitions, opinions, injuries, and ego, for better or worse, right or wrong, etc. Good intentions built on a ruined understanding of the self will eventually disintegrate rather than integrate the soul.
Greatness isn’t about amplifying a self created by family, tradition, culture, community, church, or government. Instead, it’s about becoming the person God designed me to be rather than conforming to the constrained or biased expectations of self, family, culture, government, and others.
I am confident Charlie would have agreed. A few months after Charlie’s assassination, Heidi (Founder of RMV) and I met in Phoenix with members of the executive faith team that had served Charlie and now alongside Erika Kirk as she leads Turning Point USA forward. That conversation strengthened my belief that Charlie’s understanding of liberty reached beyond personal ambition.
Liberty was not merely the freedom to invent yourself; it was the freedom to seek truth, live faithfully before God, and become the person He created you to be—encouraging the audience to feel proud and responsible for continuing this legacy.
Charlie Kirk’s life ended, but his legacy persists. The ‘factory’ of his work kept functioning—though not a chocolate factory like Willy Wonka’s. Instead, it’s a metaphor for a truth-seeking space that doesn’t produce candy, but fosters courageous inquiry, honest listening, testing ideas against reality, and pursuing truth and goodness. That’s why I stand with Rocky Mountain Voice and remain supportive of Charlie as a martyr saint, continuing to pray for Turning Point USA in his absence.
That is how we honor his legacy—not merely by remembering the violence that ended his life, but by continuing the pursuit of truth without surrendering to the malice that took Charlie’s life from us.
We tell the truth without hatred. We stand firmly without becoming cruel. We remember the injury without allowing it to define our identity.
We honor those lost on September 11 in much the same way. We remember their names, cherish the courage of the first responders, protect human life, and refuse to surrender our souls to terror. If violence leaves us permanently governed by fear, the original injury continues its destructive work within us. And I face the same decision at home.
Sherrie did not choose glioblastoma. She did not choose to be dropped. She did not choose paralysis or more than 300 days in bed with no end in sight. I cannot simply choose away the pain, anger, and loss that followed.
Will I allow Sherrie’s injury to disintegrate my soul? Or will I entrust my injured life to God’s grace and truth? Will I become governed by resentment and contempt, or will I continue loving Sherrie, protecting her dignity, seeking what is right, and caring for her faithfully?
This is where Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:13–14 become far more than directions for the afterlife:
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Many Christians picture the soul as a ghost hidden inside the machinery of the body, waiting for death to release it. Choose the narrow gate, and that little ghost goes to heaven. Choose the broad gate, and it goes somewhere considerably warmer—Hell—and without air conditioning.
But the soul is not merely something inside us waiting to leave.
The soul is the dimension of the person (self) that integrates everything else (you at the helm of your life)—our thoughts, feelings, choices, body, relationships, and direction—for better or worse.
Jesus is concerned not just with our ultimate destination after death, but also with what our souls are becoming during life—striving toward the goodness that closely resembles God’s greatness, now.
As I often share, Christianity is about becoming more fully human rather than more religious.
The narrow gate is our decisive surrender to Jesus. The narrow road is the integrated life that follows—here, now, and within God’s presence. Again, not in a religious way but Jesus’ Way.
The broad road offers many lanes: fear, pride, bitterness, indifference, and malice – you know, bad religion. It allows us to carry our injuries, justify our resentment, and create our own versions of reality. It does not merely lead to destruction someday; it begins disintegrating the person today.
The narrow road also begins its work today. It integrates our lives under God’s loving leadership. It is narrow because truth establishes its boundaries and love determines its direction.
That is why decisiveness is not impulsiveness, stubbornness, or merely having strong opinions.
Decisiveness is the developed ability to choose what is true and good, even when injury, fear, anger, or opportunity invites us to take another way.
Yesterday, we remembered Charlie Kirk. Today, we remember September 11. Tomorrow morning, like today, I will return to Sherrie’s bedside. Her cancer and injuries will still be there—and so will my decision about what they will produce within me.
We honor Charlie by keeping the truth factory operating. We honor those lost on September 11 by remembering courageously without living fearfully. I honor Sherrie by seeking what is right while loving her faithfully, refusing to surrender my soul to malice or indifference.
We cannot always choose what happens to us, but with God’s love and help (grace – both God’s and His people’s gracious support for Sherrie and me), we can choose what happens within us.
So, keep the truth factory running. We may not have Oompa Loompas, golden tickets, or a chocolate river—and considering the price of groceries, that may be for the best. What we do have is the liberty and responsibility to become the people God created us to be.
The broad road will always offer the easier tour. But Jesus stands at the narrow gate and offers life.
So, embrace the pursuit of truth with enthusiasm. Choose goodness in all your actions. Act confidently, knowing that each step keeps you on the narrow path—a path where your decisiveness nurtures goodness. This path follows the divine design, guided by the Way, Truth, and Life, and grounded in a deep reality not just within Charlie’s factory but through Charlie’s genuine preference—the Jesus factory of Grace and truth. Keep this journey close to your heart, and let it inspire your everyday choices, even in moments of injury. We miss you, Charlie, 9/11 souls—we’ll never forget. Sherrie, I love you more than words can possibly express!
As always—God is here. God is able. God is good.
I’ll be continuing this conversation later this week on the Just Sayin’ podcast, where we’ll take a deeper look at The Decisiveness Weapon: Charlie and the Truth Factory.
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so, we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.