On the first two tour stops of Turning Point USA’s Make Heaven Crowded Tour, Erika Kirk and Riley Gaines discussed how they relied on their faith during crucial moments in their lives.
On Wednesday, Kirk spoke before an audience at the tour’s first stop in Riverside, California, sharing her approach to recent life experiences and how her faith made them endurable.
Kirk shared advice from her grandmother, suggesting reliance on God.
“My grandma used to say, ‘Your running legs can only take you so far. Jesus does the rest.’ But when you stand firm, that’s not you. That’s God’s strength. You stood the first time, ready for battle, bracing yourself. God says, ‘Just stand firm,’” Kirk related.
“Our world is so evil,” she continued. “Our world is so dark. And we’re all touched by confusion. We’re all touched by disappointment. We’re all touched by loss. We all suffer in different ways that are personal. But what I want to remind you of is that yeah, this world like you might feel as if it is going to break you, but Jesus already broke himself for us.”
On Thursday, women’s sports activist Riley Gaines spoke with Lucas Miles, Director of TPUSA Faith, at the tour’s second stop in San Diego, California. She discussed the difficulty of balancing dental school with activism.
“I remember having this moment,” Gaines said. “I was in school and I was doing the advocacy stuff on the side. I didn’t want any of my peers to know who I was. I didn’t want any of my teachers to know who I was because I was scared that they would ostracize me like I’d been told. And so I’m realizing that I can’t do both [dental school and activism] with the efficacy that I want to.”
“I ended up calling the dental school,” Gaines continued, telling the admissions office her intention to put her studies on hiatus due to personal matters. “‘Riley, just stop,’” a staff member told her. “We know who you are and we know what you do.’ And I will never forget her telling me. She said, ‘And we love what you do.’ She said, ‘I can’t tell you what to do, but you will have far more impact fighting that fight than you’ll ever have being a dentist. We’ll hold your spot. Whenever you want to come back uh, it’s here for you. All of the money that you’ve already spent, we’ll hold it.’”
Miles asked Gaines if anything pertaining to her faith helped her through this situation.
“What are some things that were guiding you, you know, beyond just kind of conservative values?” he asked. “Was there anything that specific that you felt like the Lord was maybe teaching you, reminding you, you know, that you were drawing on for strength in this moment?”
“What is biblically true… he made them male and female intentionally and uniquely in his perfect image,” Gaines replied. “How amazing is it that we have a creator who doesn’t make mistakes? But you mentioned scripture. What scripture has really stuck with me? It’s Romans 8:18, which is, ‘for our present sufferings aren’t worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us.’ And I remember loving this verse when I was little because I applied it to the only thing I really knew at the time which was swimming and my sport, right?”
This verse, for Gaines, reminds her that the suffering that comes from fighting for a cause is pale when one knows for whom and for what one is fighting.
