{"id":1178,"date":"2025-09-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/2025\/09\/23\/erika-kirk-forgiveness\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T06:00:00","slug":"erika-kirk-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/2025\/09\/23\/erika-kirk-forgiveness\/","title":{"rendered":"Erika Kirk Had The Grace And Strength To Do Something That Seems Impossible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By now you have seen this incredible offer of forgiveness<\/a> by Erika Kirk to her husband’s murderer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her incredible, grace-filled response to the sudden and tragic loss of her husband has been nothing short of a miraculous demonstration of God\u2019s grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My wife, Jayne, and I watched her initial reaction her husband\u2019s death just hours after the news. She was hurting and did not deny or hide her pain. She was forced to acknowledge her unfortunate and tragic new circumstances, and she did so with the strength that only comes from God. And then again on the Sunday of his memorial service, she again addressed the entire country with the grace and strength that finds its source in Jesus alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She found the grace to forgive someone who unleashed unbelievable pain and grief onto her household, but she did it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“On the cross, our Savior said:\u00a0\u201cFather, forgive them, for they know not what they do.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That man\u2014that young man\u2014I forgive him<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I forgive him because it\u2019s what Christ did.
And it\u2019s what Charlie would do.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer to hate is not hate.
The answer\u2014we know from the gospel\u2014is love.
Always love.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus tells us that we will all experience storms in our life. Many of you already know what it is to lose a loved one, be betrayed by a spouse, friend or co-worker. Your storm might be health related or financial, but storms are inevitable. Jesus encouraged us in Matthew 7<\/a> that those who hear and practice His words their house will stand because it is built on a rock. The rock of faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t profess to know the grace that has been given to Erika. To be honest, I am not sure that I could do what she has done, and certainly not that quickly. Suffice it to say, I am moved to dig deeper in my faith, and I hope that you will follow Erika\u2019s lead and do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’ve been moved to find out more about Jesus in recent days, you can find out more about how to have a relationship with Him here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’ve made a decision to follow Jesus, please let us know<\/a> as we would like to help you get started on your journey of faith. God bless you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dick Whitworth
Retired Director of Operations, STAR 99.1 | Listen Now<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suffice it to say, I am moved to dig deeper in my faith, and I hope that you will follow Erika\u2019s lead and do the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-13 17:08:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star1015denver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}