It was a Thanksgiving message Erika Kirk probably never dreamed of sending.
But less than three months after her husband’s assassination in September, the widow of conservative activist Charlie Kirk took to social media to demonstrate that her gratitude to God didn’t end with her husband’s death.
And in some ways, it has even grown.
“Charlie and I always loved Thanksgiving because it drew us back to the simple, but holy practice of gratitude,” Kirk wrote in an Instagram post accompanying a video that was both heartwrenching and heartwarming at the same time.
“And even now, well, especially now, in the depths of the ache, I’m reminded of that gratitude.
“God blessed me with being married to the love of my life, with our beautiful babies, with our family and friends, and with people from all over the world who have sent us letters, toys, artwork, and Bibles.”
Charlie Kirk’s death from an assassin’s bullet fired Sept. 10 on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, sparked an outpouring of rage and grief among conservatives across the country, and even abroad.
But no household felt it more painfully than Kirk’s own wife and two small children, a 4-year-old daughter and 18-month-old son.
Still, Erika Kirk’s public poise has been impressive — including the forgiveness of her husband’s killer at a massive memorial ceremony.
The voiceover of the video she released on Thursday offered a glimpse of the reality of a woman left with two small children to raise thanks to the act of a murderer.
Kirk talked about how she tells her children that her father is in heaven, “orchestrating” events like the cards and presents the family receives from well-wishers.
She said that she tells her daughter:
“Daddy is telling all of his friends to send you gifts and letters and, you know, Daddy is orchestrating from heaven to make sure that you always feel so loved…
“Heaven is… heaven’s our home. So I just want her to know that Daddy is having so much fun and building a place for her and our family.”
Kirk’s message of faith came through just as strongly in the written part of her Instagram post.
“It’s easy to fixate on what’s been taken, at what’s missing,” she wrote. “But my goodness does the Lord meet me in my weakness, and His strength gently shifts my eyes to what I still have on this side of heaven.
“What remains is sacred.”
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