How to duplicate Mighty Men?” Part IV – “Become a Passionate Warrior!”

It was January 21st, 2001 about 1 am….I was staring through by blurred eyes as the endless raining of tears passed through my hands down onto the cold cement floor of the jail cell. I shared the cell with 30 other men who were serving out charges for everything from breaking and entering, shoplifting, drugs, drunk driving, domestic violence….I had never thought I’d ever see the inside of a prison and yet it was nothing like I had expected. It was worse. Not because of the conditions where we were kept, but for the reason why I was there.

You don’t realize how good you have it until you spend the night in jail with 30 other men who’d give their right arm for 1% of the lifestyle I came from. I had it all…brought up in an upstanding Christian home, loving parents, college degree, married, 2 healthy kids, great job, beautiful house in the country, deacon at church, family, friends…… all of the makings of “leave it to beaver”….well almost.

I laid the wool army blanket on the ground and curled up in ball trying to make sense of this madness? “Why me Lord?….Why me?...Why now?”…”I don’t understand?....What did just happened?”….. “Why did Michele say she wanted a divorce?”…. “I thought she loved me?”…. “I thought we’d spend the rest of our life together?”…..“How could she have called the cops on me?”….“Didn’t she know we didn’t need any help?….we could work it out ourselves?”...”come on… why the police?”…“Did I really seem that upset?”… “I’m her husband, how could she be afraid for her life?”….”What about the kids now?...What are they going to think of me now?”…”What are my folks, my friends, my peers going to think of me now?”….”I’m in jail….how can this be?...I’m a 30 year old loser!”..

....then as fast as the barage of negative questions came…they disappeared…and where replaced by an enlightment that only God can provide…a simple prayer came to mind….a prayer that started developing in my head.…..a prayer that has changed my life forever….I prayed “Lord, please give me Wisdom, your wisdom Lord, to open my eyes to the good in this. I’ll do anything if you’ll just help me understand why I’m going through this? Lord that no matter how tough this hill is…I’ll climb it….let your will be done!” They were words that today sound very honorable and well thought out. But, at that moment, they were as confused and uncertain as any thoughts I’d ever had. I just wanted my life back bottom line....or did I?

Honestly, now that I look back at it, you might say I prayed down a death wish on myself…..on my “old self”…the poser. I called in the airstrike on my coordinates. No…. these weren’t smart bombs or guided missiles to hit one area of my life…heck no…God nuked the hell out of my entire life…”game over”…”reboot the system” type of attack...and in no uncertain terms I told God….”Go ahead make my day!”...and that he did!

It’s sounds great now and it may sound heroic, but I had know idea what I was in for from that day forward.…it’s the kind of prayer, that if you’re one of those “extreme sports junkies”….watch out dude…surfs up!….the ride will be bitchen’!

As soon as the prayer left my mind, a peace swept over me. Not a peace that everything will be comfortable, it’s the kind of peace you experience on that roller coaster for only seconds while you approach the top before the bottom drops out from under you and you’re thrusted down hill at 100 mph into a maze of curves, turns, loops, hills and valleys.

The following months were no different, the downward spiraling of my marriage, was still headed for divorce. Our counselor said, “It would be a miracle if they got back together?”….when he said that to me I almost felt the earth shake!…honestly, I believe those words almost challenged God’s worthiness…as if He couldn’t restore our marriage.? I look back though and imagined God’s response under His breath….“Oh yeah!...you’re challenging Me?...they think they can’t work this out?...I’ll show them!...trust Me!”

Although, I spent only a night in jail, it felt like a year. It was the columniation of guilt, embarrassment, bitterness, resentment, uncertainty, anxiety coupled with a huge dose of a revengeful spirit. It was immediately obvious that God was already on to me. He was ahead of me. He was going to answer my prayer but in ways I sure didn’t expect.

I had to serve a one year probation. Under my probation, I had to serve 120 hours of community service, 8 weeks of anger management, and the kicker was there was chance that If I was found guilty…. in my now “Domestic Violence Charge” I could serve another 90 days in jail and this charge could be on my record for 7 years.

But, “God”….the court gave me one opportunity….one “loop hole” to restore my name…which today was God’s challenge to me that helped to answer my question “Did I have what it takes?” Under article 769, I had a 1 in 50 chance of starting over with a clean slate. But, that would come with a tall order and I really didn’t have choice.

By May, which was only a couple months away, I needed to prove to the judge and court that I was a “new man”. A man that had learned my lesson. That I was in fact a born again husband. I say that in tongue and cheek, but that’s what I felt. I didn’t have to like it. I had to change my way of thinking. Convince my wife that I’m a new man, which ultimately helps to convince the judge that I’ve changed my ways….all in a matter of less than 2 months. This wasn’t for the weak at heart. Yet, God was purposely setting me up to wack the ball not 300 yards, but more like a 1,000 yards down that fairway. He didn’t want me to go through that to just say "I’m sorry…I won’t do it again....Will you forgive me…and weeks later be doing the same thing again." No, remember I prayed for His Wisdom and gave Him permission to change me no matter what the price.

It’s not a shocker at this point to hear, that with this looming challenge over my head, God decided to make it more difficult for me. In addition to my challenge, I would be restrained from my home, my church, my kid’s school and any other location that I frequented with my wife and family. I wouldn’t be able to see my children on my own, but once, every 4 to 6 weeks, and even then I had a small time limit and a 3rd party supervisor watching my every move.

To pour salt in my wounds, my wife decided to give her wedding ring and engagement ring back to me….”that I could give it back to her if we worked things out!?”….which translated into “I have to do all the work and she doesn’t have to do anything?”….I thought “Could my heart be stepped on more?”

So, in response to her giving back the rings, I made my first smart move to show my change of heart…not! So, I decided to hock her ring and buy myself a brand new Polaris Sportsmen 4x4 Mossy Oak edition with a winch…yeah baby!.....”right, cause that only helps make me look better in front of the woman who now holds my balls in her hands” with my impending date only 2 months away to show the judge how much I changed??…..you’re probably saying….”aahhh Mike that’s probably not the smartest move I’ve made?”….I didn’t say I was smart…I was hurting and I wanted to be right, at least once. She didn’t go to jail? Didn’t have to jump through hoops and change her whole life around…or did she?

For the following 3 months, that seemed like eternity, our counseling sessions were world war III, IV and V all wrapped into one. They just got harder and harder. There was no letting up. I was always tempted to take control and do it my way. Trying to see if I could figure out a better way? How I could plan my escape or exit strategy? I even tried coming up with other women who could fill that void….that could erase the pain…that quick fix….that something or anything that I stand for was valuable to someone? But, every time I started to flirt and “get out of the ring” God pushed me back into the ring. I was looking to put a band aid on a wound while God was trying to apply a “turnakit” to stop my bleeding, in order to do some much needed heart surgery on me.

It was sometime the end of March of 2001 when my wife left and took my kids to Disney World for their first time. A trip that was conveniently paid for before our separation, that included a one week vacation in Disney World staying at the Grand Floridian… of all Hotels, with passes to all the parks….A 1st class trip…and I wasn’t going to be there. You can imagine my anger and helplessness, as a father who wanted to be there to see the eyes of my children light up when they saw “Cinderella’s castle”, “It’s a Small World Ride”, “Mickey and Minnie Mouse”.

But, God was telling me something….it was coming to the surface. That all that I was and owned didn’t make who I was…God did. That, all that I had doesn’t make Mike Kirby. God sits on the throne, He is in control and He is the image I represent.

So, it was on that cold, early Michigan morning, at the end of March, at a “men’s retreat” ….I hadn’t slept much that night and was a bit anxious for the morning to come for some reason.

It was in the high 20’s as I walked outside with a cup of coffee, steaming as it met the slight breeze off of the lake. I sat down on a log, in the snow, cold and tired, yet I awaited the first rays of light to crest the eastern horizon. The irony in what was to come has forever burned in my mind as the turning point in my marriage. That the brimming of a new day, was here and the day was the next step in my role as a leader in my marriage. That finally after close to 3 months of this uncertain battle, God spoke 2 words into my heart….He said “Call her!”

….I wrestled with that challenge rationalizing she’s still sleeping in that nice bed at the Grand Floridian OR that I might wake the kids?...but moments later my fingers dialed her number on my cell phone. In an area of little or weak cell coverage, I looked down and noticed a full bar….In tears and sobbing I waited for Michele to answer on the other line….moments later, waking her out of a dead sleep, I barely got the words out of my mouth….”I love you…I need you…I want to come back home and I want to work this all out with you no matter what!”

…”I threw down my enemy and smout his ruin across the mountain side!” echo’s Gandolf’s description of his battle with the Balrog in the Mines of Mauria.

It was the first time in my life, in my marriage, that I took control of my (our) identity…of my role as the “Passionate Warrior” for my wife and children’s lives. That I had something finally to believe in and stand for and that Michele and my kids needed me to take that stand and provide them the example they had been looking for.

God spoke to my heart that morning… He challenged my manhood while affirming me, that I was the man for the job and that I did “have what it takes!”

I need to stop here. It’s been a long journey to write out this chapter. I do have one final chapter (V) that will pull all of this together and hopefully provide you my (our) recipe of “How to duplicate Mighty Men in your life!”

I’ll leave you with 2 of my most favorite quotes…

“We have to be willing to do what others won’t do, in order to have a life others won’t have!” Les Brown

“What we do in life echoes into Eternity!” Gladiator