Hi everyone,
Erika Kirk forgave her husband's killer. Charlie Kirk has been dead just over a week, his life cut short by a murderous assassin drunk on leftist outrage. That accused killer sits in jail awaiting trial. If he's convicted he will face the ultimate punishment here on earth—a punishment he meted out on Charlie without trial. In sharing God's grace for the wretched man who stole her husband's life, Erika said something that I've been thinking of for several days.
The man who killed Charlie was the very kind of man Charlie was trying to save. So was the school killer in Minnesota, the child killer in Uvalde, the man who tried to kill Trump, the girl who shot up a Christian school in Nashville—all of these young shooters had souls worth saving.
These are the very people whose souls Charlie was fighting for.
“Charlie passionately wanted to reach and save the lost boys of the West. The young men who feel like they have no direction, no purpose, no faith, and no reason to live,” she told the mourners gathered inside State Farm Stadium. “The men wasting their lives on distractions and the men consumed with resentment, anger, and hate. Charlie wanted to help them. He wanted them to have a home with Turning Point USA.”
“My husband, Charlie, he wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life. That young man. That young man," she said.
“On the cross, our Savior said, Father, forgive them, for they not know what they do. That man, that young man, I forgive him," she said unbelievably. "I forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do.”
“The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”
This is a Christian truth, it is what we are called to do, but that doesn't make it easier at all, it just makes it necessary.
Charlie showed up at colleges, in the belly of the beast, to talk to people who wanted to talk. He was called hateful, racist, and misogynistic, but just spending a small amount of time looking at his work shows that he was none of these things. The notion that he was, perpetrated by leftist leaders, is near instantly disproven with even a short perusal of his body of work.
The impact of Charlie Kirk's life's work and legacy was felt fully in the State Farm Stadium on Sunday where supporters, friends, family, and colleagues all turned out to show their love for the man who did so much for the American mission of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It was stunning to listen to so many men and women speak from their hearts about a friend who felt more like a brother. The room was electric with the energy of the love, burned into hearts with grief, that we all had for this man.
It's hard to believe he's gone.