Today, we remember the lives lost when the Twin Towers fell on 09/11/2001. And now today, we mourn the loss of Charlie Kirk, a good man, a husband and father, a man who debated people and shared his beliefs and the truth. And they killed him for it, even though we live in a country that supposedly allows us to speak freely, to share our thoughts and opinions, and yet these people decided to kill him, because they couldn’t stand the idea that he was speaking an opinion different from them.
This isn’t the America that I want to live in. Land of the free, home of the brave, a place where you have freedom of speech and can give the American dream, one of the greatest countries in the world, and yet in this country, an innocent man was murdered in front of thousands of people and in front of his wife and children and before the world. This is the place where people are celebrating and rejoicing his death. I would not wish this on my worse enemy. No one deserves to die like that.
Even if someone disagrees with you or has opinions and beliefs that differ from yours, it’s healthy to have conversations, to be open and have discussions. That’s what Charlie stood for—that, the America we all dream of, his family, and most of all, his faith in God. It says a lot of the people happy he was shot and killed just because they disagree with things that he said and believed. How immature, heartless, and utterly devoid of compassion and anything good a person has to be in order to be happy when someone else dies.
Like many of us, though, I’m grieving. I’m angry. I’m hurt. I kept asking myself last night, trying to analyze and figure out why I’m grieving for a man I never met. I expected to mourn him, yes, because he was a good man, and it’s a terrible, tragic situation. But the level of mourning and grief I feel—the heaviness of it, the weight of this—feels deeper almost on a spiritual level. Is that I’m also mourning what Charlie Kirk stood for? Who will take up his mantle and be willing to have those difficult conversations and bridge the gap between the two sides of this country now that he is dead? Who will make such an impact, be as courageous as Charlie was? Or is that I’m mourning this country, America—the America we all want and dream to live in? The America our founding Fathers rebelled for, won a victory only thanks to God because we should never have been able to win our freedom. The America countless men and women have given their lives in during war after war and conflict after conflict just so you and I can be free to say and think and state our opinions without fear. Except now, a man was killed for it. Am I mourning that America, what it should be?
Or am I mourning humanity? This … this horrific, indescribable evil we have seen here today? And countless more with a woman being stabbed on a train, schools being shot up, two Catholic kids being shot while praying, and more and more people losing their lives to violence. Is that why I’m mourning? Because what Charlie Kirk’s assassination did was it opened our eyes to the evil that has always existed since the Fall of man.
Jesus said they would hate us because they hated him first. He was not just a good man or a decent man. He was fully God. He was the PERFECT man, totally sinless—without a single sin or evil in Him at all. And they murdered Him too. They beat Him, whipped Him, and hung Him on a cross to die slowly and in unimaginable agony while they mocked Him and gambled for His clothes. Yet He endured it. He endured it and rose again all for us—for our sin. So that one day, all this evil that we’re seeing, feeling like it’s getting so much worse every single day, will be gone.
Jesus already has the victory. He will win. One day, this evil will be gone. Sin, death, pain, suffering, grief … He will vanquish it all. And we will be with Him as He dries all the tears from our eyes.
Charlie is with Jesus now. He’s okay—better than okay. He’s in paradise with the Father, with our Lord and Savior. He’s happy, feeling no more pain or suffering. And he left behind a wife and children, family and friends who loved him, and thousands of people who followed him. And now we must carry on his legacy while we’re here on earth. That legacy of Jesus Christ, the gospel, and spreading goodness to everyone we encounter.
Now, we’re the ones who need to have those conversations. That’s what Charlie Kirk did because that’s what Jesus did. He talked to His enemies first. He ate with them, spoke with them, taught them, prayed for them, forgave them. So, too, should we. Despite the anger and rage I’ve been battling, as I’m sure others have to.
“I want to be remembered for my courage for my faith. That would the most important thing. The most important thing is my faith.” – Charlie Kirk
