← The Kristan Hawkins Show
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- [00:00]
Kristen Hawkins
Hey, proud life Jen. It's Kristen Hawkins. And welcome to this special episode of the Kristen Hawkins Show. For this episode, I've dug back into the archives of my podcast because I want to bring to you a very special interview I had the privilege of having with Mrs. Erica Kirk a number of years ago. And I know there's a lot of Internet speculation as to who Erica is, but she's been a dear friend for a number of years and a pro life leader. And so I want you to hear from her heart about what motivates her, what she's been busy with while building a family with our friend Charlie and before she now takes the helm of Turning Point usa. So enjoy the episode. I actually brought a new guest today, Erica Franze. She is the founder of Proclaim and Lead Ministry. She's based in New York City. Erica and I met years ago in Phoenix. I think it was like all four children ago. I think that's how long I measure things by kids.
- [00:59]
Erica Franze
Yeah.
- [01:00]
Kristen Hawkins
I met you between two and three. Right. So we did a. We had a board member there who's a mutual friend who did a fundraiser at home, and then we had like a gala.
- [01:09]
Erica Franze
I think it was 2012, maybe.
- [01:11]
Kristen Hawkins
Oh, so maybe I had a kid 2011. Okay. So, okay. I was one and a half kids. Maybe in one. Pregnant. Yeah. So anyway, so it's been a while.
- [01:20]
Erica Franze
Right.
- [01:21]
Kristen Hawkins
So I knew Erica was going to be here in Washington the same time I am, and so she's very busy with her travel schedule, so we wanted to kind of introduce you to her. So, Erica, can you tell us just a little bit about you and how you got to where you are in New York? You're from Arizona, you're in New York. What is the Proclaim and Lean ministry?
- [01:44]
Erica Franze
Awesome. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. It's so good to see you. I'm so proud of all that you're doing. I know that it is not an easy fight that we're up against and. And I feel like you have really been called and chosen for this. So I commend you on all of your hard work and your organization. Cause you're doing a phenomenal job.
- [02:02]
Kristen Hawkins
Holy Spirit. I'm just like the ruling body. Yeah. Put me out there. Sure.
- [02:09]
Erica Franze
You're like the pin cushion, essentially. Right. But no, thank you so much. I appreciate it and I'm grateful to be here. Sparknote's version of everything. Since we were together in Arizona, I had lived all over the world, traveled for my nonprofit, lived in China, Puerto Rico, California, and then landed upon New York. And it was one of those things where I bought a one way ticket and one suitcase and knew that that's where I needed to be. That's where God was calling me to be. And really just being a light in a dark place. And my whole goal for being there was just getting plugged into the community from a Christian standpoint, going to churches, being able to network with non believers and bring them to church. Like, I know that sounds so simple, but my mom was like, what are you gonna do for work? I'm like, I'll figure it out when I get there. Because I can. As long as I have WI fi, I'm fine. But being in New York is one of those things where it really challenged my faith to be able to put it on the forefront and be able to essentially proclaim and defend the gospel. So that's where Proclaim and Lead Ministries came from, basically. I've had my nonprofit for 13 years. Internationally, we support and sustain several orphanages throughout Europe. But it's really. This has become a project of everyday heroes like you. So Proclaim and Lead Ministries. We've been challenging the millennial generation to be able to read the Bible cover to cover, which I think is very important, because there's nothing more powerful than being able to know scripture and be able to use the word of God in a way to protect you and in a way to guide yourself through this spiritual warfare battle that we're in. So that's kind of the Light SparkNotes version of.
- [03:58]
Kristen Hawkins
I think it says a lot about your personality that you're like, oh, New York's really dark and not very Christian. I think I should be there. We should go there.
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Erica Franze
Yeah.
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Kristen Hawkins
There are certain people who would say, no, absolutely not. Like, I'm staying as far away as I can from New York. And you just rushed right in.
- [04:12]
Erica Franze
Yes, I did both. And there's some amazing people in that city. There really are. And yes, the politics are less to be desired. And there's some laws there, especially within the abortion world, that are absolutely disgusting and sinister. But there's little bright lights within that city. There really are. For instance, I remember this was probably about a year ago, just walking down the street and there was a Planned Parenthood right by my uncle's building. And walking past it, there was every single day. Because when we would go to lunch, we'd walk past this area every single day. There was a nun that was standing outside of Planned Parenthood saying the rosary.
- [04:53]
Kristen Hawkins
Probably a Sister of Life so precious.
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Erica Franze
And to Me, like, that absolutely melted me because there might be so many people walking by that don't even pay attention to that because you can be crazy in New York and people think that you're just normal. But at the same time, seeing that, being a Christian and seeing her act of faith and her boldness, it really challenged me to be like, well, what are you doing? Like, what are you doing within New York City, within your own community, within your own company? What are you doing to stand up for your rights and the rights of others who can't speak for themselves?
- [05:29]
Kristen Hawkins
That's awesome. I love that. I think that's our strongest students who have groups or leaders, people that we hire that were students and we've worked with. And they make me feel old because I'm like, I knew you were 14 and now you're working for me. What does that say about me? But it's so fascinating because you would think that those people would come from a liberty, a wholesale. It's not where we're getting them, actually. We're getting them from the darkest campuses. We have the strong, like Washington State. We have the strong, strongest students for life groups in Washington State. It's amazing. And so it's. I actually think the more kind of under fire, and you've probably seen this, right? And the more under fire you. You become, like, the more convicted for sure.
- [06:14]
Erica Franze
There's no brave notion in preaching to the sheep and the choir and people that are around you. And that's. And just to even go back full circle within a Christian realm, like, Jesus was not chilling in Palm beach with everyone who thought like him, not like Palm beach, you know what I mean? But it's similar to the standpoint of if you want to be able to get your message across in a way that's inclusive and in a way that will bring people to your side, you need to be in the front lines having these discussions because then once you do have someone come to you being like, why do you believe what you believe? Instead of them being like, because everyone's made in the image of God. Which is very true, very true. But you need to have a deep. You need to keep going with that. Instead of just having three one liners that you're. That are your number two, you need to have more backing.
- [07:05]
Kristen Hawkins
Yeah, that's one of the things that I always try to tell, like, supporters because I always get asked questions of like, you know, how do I make sure my kids are like you? You know, I love you students for life. How do I make sure my Kids stay like you. And that's one of the biggest pieces of advice I can give to any parent. Something I'm certainly considering thinking about my children is your children have to be able to defend their beliefs on multiple levels.
- [07:28]
Erica Franze
Absolutely.
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Kristen Hawkins
And it can't be I'm pro life because God made me.
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Erica Franze
Right.
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Kristen Hawkins
It's not gonna work when they go, they enter school and they rush freshman year. Right. And I mean, that's when I lost all of these friends. I was raised in a very conservative, blue collar town, West Virginia. And I got a scholarship and a lot of others got scholarships at this college. And it was, you know, in the same area, but like, in one semester I was like, oh, oh, now we're not friends anymore. They rushed. I didn't. I started a pro life group, which made me like, you know, the epitome of popular. I got blocked from a sorority that.
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Erica Franze
Says that you're doing it something right, though, because if everyone was friends with you, then you weren't standing.
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Kristen Hawkins
Exactly. But it was interesting because they didn't, they didn't know how to defend their beliefs.
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Erica Franze
Right.
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Kristen Hawkins
That they were Christian, they were non denominational Protestant, they were Catholic, and so they had a very not deep understanding.
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Erica Franze
So it's to the point where you revert back, you don't get into the fight because you're so intimidated with or you get converted. True.
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Kristen Hawkins
So either you totally shut up, I'm just not gonna talk about pro life or abortion, gay marriage giving you. Yeah, you do you. Yeah. Or you start thinking, well, maybe there is something wrong with the way I'm thinking. Maybe my worldview is wrong. And then, you know, I think I watched my cousin go through this and he's still praying for him, but I'm like, that's exactly what happened. You went to college and you fell into this crowd and you didn't know how to defend your beliefs. And now look at all of these things.
- [09:09]
Erica Franze
Because college can be confusing.
- [09:11]
Kristen Hawkins
Instagram messages I get from him about whatever I post. You know, we still love each other and talk, but it's very like, who are you? And where did you come from? That's a real thing that a lot of people face is, you know, it's Thanksgiving dinner and they're like, where have you come from? Like, you didn't go to college like that. Now look at you. And who are you? I think that's what happened. It's a very shallow understanding understanding of their faith, of their worldview. Going back to my earlier point of we're not getting this, like the staunch pro life student leaders, young people. I'm not getting them from Christian schools, I'm getting them from state schools. I mean, these are kids that have, you know, gone, you know, walk through the fire. I think that's a problem. Like we. Why is it that we have these amazing universities like Liberty, like Hillsdale, there's Thomas Aquinas in California. I mean there's all kinds of. But I'm like, where are. Like where are those kids? And so it's very frustrating because I'm like, we need more. Like, you know, when I was working on our strategic plan, students for Life the other day, and I'm like, that strategic plan we did a couple years ago, we need to pull that back out. Because you know, one of the ideas we had had was we're going to need to put, you know, we have regional coordinators spread out all over the country and they work regionally. But I'm like, we almost need to have just Bible school regional coordinators, like Bible school alums. When I was in eighth grade, I was on Bible bowl team. I don't know if they still do Bible bowl, but you memorize a whole book.
- [10:44]
Erica Franze
I was raised Catholic, so we didn't.
- [10:46]
Kristen Hawkins
Well, I'm a convert to Catholicism, so we switched.
- [10:48]
Erica Franze
Okay.
- [10:50]
Kristen Hawkins
But yeah, the Bible team. And so you had to memorize. So the year I did, we memorized the book of Genesis. That's a long books and not really a fun book to memorize. I'm gonna just say there's like a lot like, yeah, descendants. Like so. And I was the lisp person. This is why I have a very good memory because I had to do the bonus round. So it was list like every time Abraham's comes up in Genesis, what word came after Abrahams in the whole time? Like robe, sheep. Wow. So it was crazy. But anyway, we traveled around the country and we did these like little Bible tournaments, all these Bible college and there's small schools which by the way are really struggling. A lot of them are struggling. But I'm like, these are for these future pastors and youth ministers and worship leaders. And they, you know, what we've heard time and time again is if the pastor doesn't feel equipped, feels like he may insult or hurt a woman who's post abortive, who's sitting in the pews, they're not going to say anything, right? Not that they're not pro life, but it's almost like a kid who goes away to college and has a shallow kind of understanding of the Christian they're just. They just shut up about it.
- [11:54]
Erica Franze
No, for sure. There's two parts to that. I think it's one of. One side of it is the pastors are so concerned with their numbers of the church and dollars and the dollars, and they're also concerned with the seekers. So it's like trying. They don't want to scare away the new believers, and they. They. They're just so consumed. But. But at the same time, why would you want to compromise everything that you stand for, everything that the Bible stands for, just for those numbers? Like, there's something not right there. The second portion of that, for me, and I even. I struggle this within the pro life movement. This is. This is probably one of the. There's two things that I struggle with the pro life movement. This one is. One of them is the condemnation and the feeling of if a young woman has had an abortion, the condemnation from the Christian side, making them feel insecure, making them feel like they made a horrible, sinful decision, which they did. But there's redemption, there's grace. There's so, like, balancing that line as well, having a softer approach with the women who have gone through that, because I have family members who have gone through abortions and. And on both sides, guy and male and female. And on the male side, I've seen it completely destroy a young man because he didn't even have the chance to chime in, to be like, that's half of me with that child. So there's two parties in that. But the other side of it is I really feel like the church needs to step up from the standpoint of getting more involved within the foster care and the adoption side of things. I think that's so unbelievably important. We make it so difficult here in the states to adopt. Foster care system needs to be completely reworked. I mean, I'm not gonna. I mean, I would rather have 15 children in a Christian loving home living all together as brothers and sisters, than having them sporadically spread apart getting raised.
- [14:06]
Kristen Hawkins
No, it's a huge. I was actually Abby Johnson and I just recently were getting to get got together. And that was one of the things I was like, how many churches are there in the country, Abbey? And she was like, I think like 300,000 individual parishes or churches. I was like, and there's 150,000 children who are in foster care who are legally eligible to be adopted, that their parental rights have been completely decimated. The parents either are no longer alive, they're in jail, they've given up their Right. To parent. I'm like, so, really, in one Sunday, couldn't we just resolve this problem? Every church wouldn't even have to adopt one child. This is what we're called to do scripturally, is orphans and widows.
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Erica Franze
Right. There's no such thing as an unwanted child.
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Kristen Hawkins
No. And it's so frustrating because I get where I get. When you're on campuses, foster care comes up all the time.
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Erica Franze
Right.
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Kristen Hawkins
Every single. Every single speech I give. What about children who are suffering? Isn't it better to abort? And I'm like, okay, I understand. You're coming from a good place. You don't want people to suffer.
- [15:13]
Erica Franze
Right.
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Kristen Hawkins
But I hate to bring it to you. People will suffer. That's part of the human existence. Right. And not. And there can be good that comes from suffering. So who are you to say, like, just because you're gonna suffer, therefore your life is unworthy of living, like, you're gonna suffer at some point in your life.
- [15:28]
Erica Franze
And how do you know that child will suffer?
- [15:30]
Kristen Hawkins
Yeah. How do you know? You're, like, assuming every single child. Yes. Are there horrific stories? Absolutely. But not every child. Like, I actually got an email today from someone who saw me on a TV show and was like, I just want to let you know I was raised in foster care. You know, it was horrific. And she was telling my story. She was like, I'm so glad I'm here, because my children wouldn't be here and my grandchildren wouldn't be here. So, yeah, it's a. So that's. So those. The two. Your two. Where you struggle. Yeah.
- [16:00]
Erica Franze
My two moms. Yeah. Just being able to have the openness of, look, you had an abortion. You're not a stranger here. Like, come stand with us. Stand by us.
- [16:10]
Kristen Hawkins
The pro life movement. I mean, I think the. The national pro life movement does a very good job of talking about she's the second victim of the abortion industry because she's been betrayed. She's been told, just get this blob of tissue taken care of, and it's nothing. And you're not gonna feel anything. They just had that bullcrap report come out. So 95% of women who have abortions don't regret their abortions.
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Erica Franze
And I was like, the women that I know who've had them do.
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Kristen Hawkins
Yeah. There's hundreds of thousands of them. Yeah. So it's like hundreds signed a Mikas brief not long ago for the Supreme Court. So, yeah, that was bull crap study. But I struggle with. I think you do have largely in the Christian People who call themselves Christian, who don't behave Christian and it's for everything, right?
- [16:57]
Erica Franze
For sure.
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Kristen Hawkins
People who are on Facebook, who are on Twitter, who on their bio said they're Christian and then call some liberal person fat or you're ugly or you're going to hell. I'm like, you know what? Just if you're gonna be like that, like, just strip out Christian from the bio.
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Erica Franze
Because we're, we're held to such a high standard.
- [17:16]
Kristen Hawkins
Yes, we are. We are held to a high standard. And I always try to people, I'm like, well, you know, Christians are just as big as sinners. We just recognize that like somebody will forgive our sins if we simply ask sin.
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Erica Franze
But that doesn't mean that you keep sinning.
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Kristen Hawkins
I know, but I try to point out like, yeah, Christians can be bad people too, and judgmental. Yeah. And that's a sin. Like they're sinning. So you, yeah, go ahead and call us out. But you know, don't, you know, just because one Christian has done you wrong. And really honestly, like if you look on campuses and the people we meet, you know, nothing makes a former Christian faster than a parent who has raised, raised their child in church, who is active in church, and then the parent drives the daughter to the abortion facility. My dad was a deacon and made me get an abortion. My dad was an elder. Oh. And it's very hard to come back when you're. So you're dealing with a post abortive young woman. One, so she's dealing with the repercussions of that. But then trying to get to the point of saying, well, your dad was wrong. Like I understand he was a leader.
- [18:17]
Erica Franze
In your church, but he was making a decision based off of his own.
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Kristen Hawkins
He was making a selfish decision based.
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Erica Franze
On and his ego being afraid of.
- [18:26]
Kristen Hawkins
Literally turning to someone. This had nothing to do with his Christianity. This had something to do with his sinful nature. Right, right. And so I think that's, that's we deal with a lot of former Christians and it's all because of some Christian at some point was not there for them when they were in crisis. And so yeah, I struggle with that obviously. But I think the pro life movement is actually very good supporting women. The orphan adoption, that's something that I think the national public movement does talk a lot about. I think it's harder for general kind of pro life activists. I don't think the messaging has trickled down. How do we talk about this? How do, when we talk, I think that we need to do A better job with that, for sure. And that's something we've been working on as students for life because we're working on post row strategies. So the thing that keeps me up at night is what do we do the day after Roe's reverse? So I talk about, everyone here is like, probably sick of this. You know, reversing Roe is not like the party. Right, Right. You know, my son Gunnar thinks we're going to a big party. When Trump, when President Trump was elected, he was like, freaking out. He's like, oh, we're gonna have a party. Abortion's gonna be over. Right. And I was like, but we go to a 50 state strategy then. And so that's what we've been preparing for at Students for Life is mobilize. We will be the only force. And I don't say this braggingly, I say this like, stressing out, like, we're gonna be the only force that can mobilize people in all 50 state capitals. And everyone's gonna be calling us at the same time. I've already started. We're doing exercises.
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Erica Franze
No, but you need to. You have to be prepared.
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Kristen Hawkins
Because once that happens, it's gonna be.
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Erica Franze
It's you. You should have been ready yesterday. Like, you have to have it all.
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Kristen Hawkins
Yeah. So what we're trying to do right now with our C4 students who have action is create legislation for a post Roe America. So we just had a delegate, no, a senator, who we helped, who we did voter education for in the Virginia elections, who introduced our first kind of piece of legislation. And it's not anti abortion. It's about the foster care system.
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Erica Franze
Wow, I love that.
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Kristen Hawkins
So it's kind of like a, you know, conservative approach to, hey, home studies take time, they take a lot of money, and it can only be done by social workers. Why can't firemen, police officers, school teachers, other civil servants who've been educated, who we know have been vetted, are responsible people who don't abuse children. Why can't they do home studies? Let's speed this up. Why is this taking so long?
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Erica Franze
Business owners, people who have higher education.
- [21:09]
Kristen Hawkins
So I'm really interested to see where that goes in the state of Virginia.
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Erica Franze
That'd be amazing.
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Kristen Hawkins
So we're trying to kind of develop what are kind of some conservative oriented post Roe pieces of legislation, laws that can be hopefully bipartisan for sure. That start laying that groundwork. Because when abortion's made illegal, when Roe's reversed, and you're gonna have 10 to 15 states that immediately make abortion illegal, so we need to make sure every pregnancy center that's out there is marketed, which they're not marketed. Well, that's a huge. That's my other big shtick in the proliferation. I've said this before. We have to think of ourselves as marketers. Just like, why Christians who go to Twitter and don't act Christian. Like, you are not being a marketer. Like, you are doing the opposite of what Jesus needs. So, yeah, no, it's. I'm trying to think of, like, what are things we can do that are. That the conservatives will vote for. It's not gonna add to the deficit.
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Erica Franze
You know, and too, the churches really need to be involved. They need to step up. The church needs to step up for. Especially for foster care and adoption.
- [22:15]
Kristen Hawkins
What are some things that the church could do that you think would be very easy for them to get involved? Like, my idea was to do like a Compassion Sunday, essentially. Like, why don't we just. I mean, like, I get on the foster care side all the time for PA Because Jonathan and I have been. Unfortunately, with two children with cystic fibrosis, it would be incredibly difficult to bring a foster child into that.
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Erica Franze
Correct.
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Kristen Hawkins
Yeah. Congratulations. You're. Now you have a family who's crazy that never goes out, and you're gonna be home school, and now you'd be a germaphobe. Like, it would be a very rough adjustment for any foster child, you know, because most of the children are like, they want to stay in the city and be active and be like, yeah, right. My children don't go around other people because of germs, so it wouldn't work out.
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Erica Franze
But with the virus going on from China, I think you're making a good decision. All staying inside.
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Kristen Hawkins
I know, but what are some ways if someone is listening to this and is like, yeah, you're right, we're not doing enough for adoption. Foster care. What do you think are some ways they can start in their church or their parish to start the conversation?
- [23:18]
Erica Franze
Great question. I think that a lot of the pastors or church elders need to work collaboratively with their local governments, whether that's buying property to make an apartment complex, a compound housing development area space that's specifically for that can be resourceful for families who are foster care, doing foster care or adoption. Having those types of facilities be available and even being able to help with housing or something. Being able to get involved, grassroots standpoint, being able to also maybe the church is a form of their tithing is to invest into Christian homeschooling. Having that as an option as well. There's so many ways that we can be creative about this. And we get so caught up in the xyz. Does this. Check the box. Is this appropriate? Is that we're no longer in the time and era of politically correct. We are way past that, as you well know. So it's like we need to. Instead of constantly letting the culture define us as Christians, as Catholics, as conservatives, we need to be able to now stand. Stand firm for what we believe in and be able to integrate that in a positive way to say, look, we're here as a resource. We're here to help you. This is what we've laid out. It's outside of the box. It's outside of the norm. And it has to be because we're dealing with situations and issues.
- [24:42]
Kristen Hawkins
We have to be innovative. I think that's what's hard. Sometimes with a proactive, I get frustrated. I'm like, no, no, no. Tactics can change. Your mission doesn't, your principles don't. But your tactics can change and you can be innovative and you can try new things. And I think we've got to try something. Foster care. The fact that you have 150,000 children a year right now in America who are waiting to be adopted. And these children, I mean, and it's like I said, Jonathan, thinking about it. And it's hard because every child, you go into the. I mean, I just cry because you go into the website and there's these beautiful little children and they have behavioral disabilities. They'll be like, this child be best suited for a family where both parents can devote 100% attention. No siblings. Because all these children have experienced trauma. I was reading something where they said one of the first things they have to. If you want to become a foster parent, you have to understand every single child that will come in your home will have experienced some trauma in their life. And so. And so what happens is parent people are like, oh, I can't foster. That's messy. And I'm like that. I'm a very, like. I don't like mess or complications or drama. So I don't. There's enough drama in the national Pro life to like. Like, in my home life, there's no drama. My mom will call me about, you know something.
- [26:02]
Erica Franze
I'm like, you're like, not today.
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Kristen Hawkins
I just tune out. Cause I can't, like, I don't have the capacity to deal with like family drama. And so that to me, I'm like, oh, gosh, that would be really. It's gonna be really messy.
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Erica Franze
Right.
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Kristen Hawkins
And it's gonna. But that's what social justice is, though. Like engaging with somebody and seeking justice with them. And it's really, like, messy work. Like, when you're at the crisis pregnancy center and you're doing a pregnancy test and you're walking alongside a woman, it's not like, transactional, like Planned Parenthood. Like, if you're saying, I want to help you get to where you feel good, where you're not in an abusive relationship, where you feel true empowerment, like, that's seeking. Right. Justice with them, and that means getting in the mess and the muck. And I think the churches are, you know, if you had some sort of compassion Sunday, essentially, where you're like, okay, somebody in this church is going to, you know, foster. Become a foster parent today, and the rest of us are going to pledge to support that family.
- [27:01]
Erica Franze
Exactly. It takes a bunch of people to come together. That's mentors, that's counselors, Christian counselors. That.
- [27:09]
Kristen Hawkins
That's.
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Erica Franze
What if they want to play sports, it's coaches. There's a bunch of people that can rally together around this child so that the weight doesn't just fall on that immediate family and that nuclear unit. So there's ways to be creative about it, and it's not easy. Life is messy, period. And you get it. And as a mother yourself, there's never a dull moment with. With everything that's going on. But you learn to find a balance within the imbalance. And that's the thing is if you're surrounded by people who love you, who encourage you, who empower you, who speak life into your heart, when days that are the hardest, you're able to be like, you know what? After praying on it, I feel like I'm in the season to be able to foster. Not everyone is meant to foster. Not everyone is meant to adopt. That's not what we're trying to. To say. And I think that's another thing that needs to be spoken about is like, we aren't trying to shove that down people's throats, but it's an option. And it's something that if you say, gosh, I want to be able to help, that's how you can.
- [28:14]
Kristen Hawkins
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, rightly so. Like, when I'm on campuses and somebody will come up and yell at me about, if you're so pro life, why don't you foster? And I'm like, I would love to. I can. I have two children with cystic fibrosis. I'm not in that season in my life, but that certainly doesn't stop me from saying we should do this and advocate for it and promote it.
- [28:33]
Erica Franze
But you're doing your part.
- [28:34]
Kristen Hawkins
Yeah, yeah. I'm playing my role. Right. Like all of us play a role.
- [28:37]
Erica Franze
Right. So it's not like all of us are meant to. You play such an important and needed role where you are, you're the voice for a lot of people. You're the organizer. You're pulling all these resources together and you're creating a space where people can go to. To feel like they. To actually know that, what they stand for, how to come together, how to raise their voices together. So what you're doing is just as important as someone who's foster caring.
- [29:07]
Kristen Hawkins
Yeah, no, it's. And I think that it is. It's very frustrating. So I'm like, well, if you're yelling at me about foster care, why don't you be a foster? We can just keep arguing back and forth, but I think ultimately it always comes down to the question of suffering. Like, yes, my children with CF will suffer, and they will potentially live a much shorter life than my other children without cf. But that in no way says that their life is any less valuable than my other children or yours or mine. Right. And no one who would meet them would say, oh, yeah, Bear is more valuable than Gun. Like, no. And if Bear was being his Barry self that day, you would say, be careful when you name children, because their names tend to reflect their personalities in shockingly crazy ways. It's really unbelievable. But it's so hard because they don't. There isn't a theology of suffering. And it's really hard on a college campus and like a 30 second rebuttal to say, well, good can come out of suffering.
- [30:14]
Erica Franze
It can.
- [30:14]
Kristen Hawkins
We don't want suffering. We want to end suffering. But good can come out of suffering. And so it's really hard.
- [30:22]
Erica Franze
It is.
- [30:23]
Kristen Hawkins
I've been trying to, like, work on, like, my rebuttals because I have, like, in my standard one liners where people watch them like, oh, yeah, you really gave it to that liberal that time. I'm like, yeah, but I probably didn't change their mind. You just really liked it because I said what you were thinking. And so it's like, how do you kind of impart this nugget of wisdom on someone of thinking maybe I am thinking about suffering backwards? And I think that, you know, talking about, is Jesus a socialist? That's definitely a question that millennials need to think about and talk about and be able to kind of think through. Also, the question is of suffering too, for sure. Because that's how the left is using the whole abortion. You know, the whole abortion debate, which, which.
- [31:05]
Erica Franze
And just. When you're a Christian, you are constantly praying for your heart to be broken, for what breaks God's heart. You're constantly in a posture of prayer where you are wanting to be more Christ, like. Like your ultimate goal is to be like Christ. And that. That involves suffering. He was the exact epitome of suffering. But it even says constantly in Scripture, God will bring good out of some of the most painful situations. Every situation, no matter what it is, God will use it for good. And if you want to define yourself by the suffering, that's not biblical. You know, we're constantly being broken and repeated, molded and broken and remolded because we're sinners. And we're basically recreating ourselves in the image of Christ each time after we fall from sin and then we were forgiven and we have to start all over again to some extent. But to me, when it comes to suffering, some of the most beautiful and powerful moments come from the other side of that. And you then realize, wow, after going through that, I would not be the woman that I am today. I would not be the man that I am today. I would not have this testimony. I would not have this victory. I would not be able to say these convictions on my heart in a way that can transform culture, in a way that can bring people together. And there really is. It sounds strange to say, but there really is beauty and power and suffering. And as you can agree and know that there are women who have had abortions that have gone through immense suffering, but now they're on the other side of that, and they're advocates and they're champions for the other side of things. And it's really beautiful how good can always come out of situations.
- [33:06]
Kristen Hawkins
That's right. God can use any situation. And you don't know the suffering that you're in. Maybe your suffering has led somebody else closer.
- [33:16]
Erica Franze
For sure.
- [33:16]
Kristen Hawkins
Right? Them watching you walk through whatever you were enduring challenge their worldview and their faith.
- [33:25]
Erica Franze
Exactly.
- [33:26]
Kristen Hawkins
So, yeah. So thank you so much for coming on today. You're amazing.
- [33:28]
Erica Franze
Thank you for having me.
- [33:29]
Kristen Hawkins
It was good to catch up with you.
- [33:30]
Erica Franze
Likewise. After. Hopefully it's not another 10 years.
- [33:35]
Kristen Hawkins
Thank you so much for watching or listening this week. I really appreciate it. I hope you found some nuggets of wisdom in this conversation and hopefully something that will help you. The next time you're having a conversation, maybe with a young evangelical or Catholic Christian millennial who's kind of been questioning their faith for sure, because I think that this is a good conversation and this is a conversation we need to be having. So thanks for tuning in and make sure you share this podcast around and tell the one you know subscribe. Alright, bye guys. Sa.