Erika Kirk's Unintended Gift to the Grieving

It’s been less than two weeks since Erika Kirk woke up as a wife, and went to bed as a widow. Less than two weeks since she first looked upon her two babies with the agonizing awareness that they will not have their adoring father in their lives, apart from videos and stories others tell. And less than two weeks since she gazed upon the unfamiliarly still body of the man she loved with all her heart - since she saw the gaping wound delivered by an assassin’s bullet.

That level of pain and shock is impossible to come close to understanding without experiencing it yourself. Love comes with a cost. We will either lose the people we love, or they will lose us. There is no way around that.

Whether it is a parent losing a child, a sibling losing a sibling, a husband losing a wife - whomever is left to face each new sunrise with grief beside them where the person they loved once walked, faces a gauntlet of challenges between themself and the beauty on the other side of darkness.

So many of us remain trapped in that gauntlet. We don’t know how to escape:

How do we accept our loss? How do we find meaning in life after that loss? How do we stop being so mad? How do we do all the practical things we now have to do alone? How do we raise our kids without their father? How do we grow old alone? How do we stop feeling so alone? How do we overcome the aftermath of this loss and how do we make the pain stop?

Some of us spend decades or a lifetime seeking those answers. Erika Kirk answered all of those questions in just eleven days.

Faith and forgiveness.

No pill, no bottle, no spa day, or glamorous trip can lead us through loss. No amount of throwing ourselves into work can fill the cavernous void in our hearts. Avoidance may allow us to “forget” the pain for a moment, but it does not heal it.

Only faith can heal.

Only faith can grant the strength to forgive.

Only faith and forgiveness allow a wounded heart to be full again; not just full, but fulfilled.

Yes, one can learn to live with the pain. One can rebuild and even love again, without faith, but much of that new life will be built on an illusion. It will be fragile. Bitterness will seep into your soul. It will emerge in subtle or not-so-subtle ways. Maybe you turn inward. Guarded. Maybe you lash out at others. Maybe you justify unhealthy habits as “self-medicating.” Maybe you doom yourself to a lifetime of self-pity .

Or… you can find faith. You can surrender to the pain not as a means of giving up, but of giving in. Of acknowledging that we are all part of a greater plan, and that even the worst kind of pain can have a beautiful purpose.

Like Erika showed us all last night.

In front of the entire world, Erika acknowledged that her husband wanted to help young men - just like the one that killed him. And then, she allowed us all to witness a very personal experience. Like a mother laboring to give birth, Erika labored right there in front of us all, vulnerable in her grief.

Gripping the podium, head bowed, tears brimming, Erika epitomized a grieving widow. A moment later, head held high, eyes flashing, she pushed through her pain to announce her forgiveness for her husband’s killer.

In that moment, she taught us all how to not only survive our grief, but turn it into greatness.

She is not magically free from her pain. She cannot bring her husband back home. She will not awaken from this nightmare. She has a lifetime of grief and loneliness before her.

But she is not alone where it matters most.

She is not weighed down with bitterness.

She is not surrendering to self-pity.

Erika Kirk is looking grief in the eye and she is not blinking.

I don’t think she designed her message as a love letter to other widows, or survivors of homicide victims, or any person surviving through grief. She might not even be aware of how she taught everyone who is trapped in grief’s gauntlet, to find their own way out.

More likely, she intended to inspire our country to come together. She spoke to represent her faith, and to invite others in. She spoke to honor her husband. She might never know how that ripple effect can help other broken hearts heal. But I hope one day, she finds out.

—
Barb Allen
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