By Kathryn Jean Lopez
Thursday, December 11, 2025
“I’ve had paper cuts that took longer to heal than Erika
Kirk.”
You may have seen this comment on X in recent days. And
yes, by the author of a book titled, If God Is Love, Don’t be a Jerk.
I’ve also read that she’s “hawking her dead husband’s book.” And that’s far
from the worst of what’s out there.
Erika is doing publicity for Charlie Kirk’s final book,
on keeping the sabbath, because he can’t do it himself because he was
murdered before its publication date.
You may have seen what she felt the need to say to Harris
Faulkner on Fox News Channel Wednesday while talking about Stop, in the Name of God: Why Honoring the Sabbath Will
Transform Your Life:
What the hell is wrong with us?
Okay, so you don’t like Erika Kirk’s rings.
(God bless her sense of humor. She did a mock “conspiracy
rings” infomercial in the Fox interview with Faulkner.)
Or her makeup.
Or her clothes.
Or the fact she has been seen smiling on occasions in the
last few months. Or, as now CEO of the organization her husband founded, she
would dare to raise money as all eyes are on her as she’s in a new position of
leadership at the darkest moment (please, God) of her life.
Or that she let the vice president of the United States —
whose wife she has obviously spent some intimate time with at the most
harrowing time of her life — hug her. (JD Vance and his wife, Usha, escorted
Erika with her husband’s dead body from Utah home to Arizona.)
Am I missing anything? I know there are many opinions.
A seemingly sick woman whom Erika’s husband was kind to
is obsessed with the idea that Erika, her friends, her colleagues, and the
government somehow plotted her husband’s murder. And, as Erika pointed out,
that same woman is making serious money every time she furthers the madness.
But you don’t have to click on Candace Owens to see a rot
among us.
Who are any of us to have an opinion on this widow and
how she grieves? (Or anyone, at any time.) Okay, you don’t look up to Heaven
when you pray or think of your deceased loved ones, fine. I close my eyes when
I pray. If you were watching me grieve my husband’s murder on television, I’m
sure plenty would hate the way I was doing it, too. Every human is unique. And
while there is nothing new under the sun, every grief is unique. People die
every day. People are even murdered daily. But there was one Charlie Kirk, and
his murder was widely seen. If you weren’t there, if you did not watch it, you
may have accidentally wound up clicking on it. It was everywhere in that first
day, during the first hours. That’s a trauma on everyone who was impacted by
it, even in small ways.
Erika Kirk is not just grieving the extremely public
murder of her husband for herself and their children, but for all of the young
people who were invested in his life and hurt by his death. She clearly feels a
sense of responsibility to not just his audience — his “fans” for lack of a
better way to put it — but to the people who hate him and his legacy or what
they think he and his legacy stand for.
Even if some of the out-of-context statements I’ve seen
were masking a darker vision (which I haven’t been convinced of the more I’ve
listened), you have to wonder if you’re ever murdered, will anyone who
disagreed with you on something political decide that while that wouldn’t make
your murder acceptable, it does come with the territory of having not
held the most conventionally sophisticated views. And then there is the
question of: Who among us wants to be remembered for the worst we’ve done, or
even things we wish we said differently?
What I find remarkable, in hindsight, since his murder
got me to sit down and watch more than I did when he was alive, is how many
videos there are of Charlie Kirk being compassionate and considerate and
discerning with his words. Especially when someone was in front of him and
obviously hurting. I say obviously. But the human reflex and the American
incentives are to go and eviscerate and win the argument. But those encounters
on college campuses were not about winning debates for Charlie Kirk so much as
opening doors to Christ. I confess, I did not fully appreciate that when he was
alive. I regret that. And I pray we learn from the example — especially in
hostile situations.
Erika Kirk gave a remarkable Christian witness and a gift
to every human being alive when she forgave the man who murdered her husband.
She could be bitter. She could be spewing hate. She could be thirsty for blood
revenge. Instead, she remembers that it is precisely the kind of lost young man
who killed her husband that her husband was trying to reach with reason and the
grace of God.
Consider that the grace of God is amazing. And has
nothing to do with the pantsuit that isn’t black or the jewelry you wouldn’t
wear, or whatever nonsense thing people are criticizing Erika Kirk for today.
Ask God for His mercy and His grace and consider Charlie Kirk on his best days
is a good role model for young men, in a particular way.
God doesn’t let anything go to waste and if young men
lives are impacted for good in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, that seems to
be his widow’s prayer.
God bless her.
And consider Erika Kirk, too, is a gift for the young
women of our day. A college-educated woman who chose young marriage and
children in faith. And as the target of some of the most heinous hate, she
gives God room to let love prevail even when she’s on Fox News or talking with
the New York Times.
No small miracles.
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