ERICKSON: New chapters and new adventures
I have written before about the incident that largely defined my path in politics to this point. Around this week nine years ago I was sitting in the rain, cradling my 1-year-old, crying. My wife was dying. My job was ending. I was at the end of my rope. The only thing keeping me together was the thought of the little girl in my arms rubbing my face as if to tell me it would all be OK. The mud was over my shoes, the cold and wet had penetrated my shirt, soaking my skin, and my brain was shutting down. My website RedState was coming to an end coinciding with the end of my life as I knew it. Only a year before I'd left a career as an attorney to blog about politics.
My wife had been given six months to live and on the same day RedState had been given two weeks. Doctors had told me cancer had spread into my wife's lungs from parts unknown, then they had to rush to help an overwhelmed emergency room deal with a car wreck. I was left alone in recovery waiting for my wife to wake up from surgery to tell her she was dying and my career was ending.
We were out of money at RedState. Everything was turning upside down and spinning out of control. God has a way of taking you down to a low point so you see him in your life more clearly than before. He was about all I had left and all I could do was pray.
My wife and I sat in a hospital room planning my life with a child who would have no mother. Regardless of what happened, she confided that she saw my role in politics developing as a catapult for causes and candidates. I should use whatever role God gave me to catapult ideas, causes and candidates into the arena. That is the event that has defined this past decade for me.
As it turned out, my wife was actually fine. She is still with me trying hard to keep me in line. RedState, too, was fine. A buyer came in and saved the day. It was a Christmas like no other. This Christmas, God willing, there will be no health scares and no turmoil, but there is something new and different and worrisome and exciting.
William Perkins, the 16th-century preacher, called theology "the science of living blessedly forever." As I have become a seminarian I find the struggles of faith and politics more and more clash and sometimes seem incompatible. It is something I want to explore.
So, too, I see conservatism now as less red vs. blue and more and more a merry band of resurgent conservatives against a rising tide of Washington interests in both parties who think government is a solution and friends should be rewarded. I want to go explore that. I want to focus on radio, from which I now draw most of my income, and in which my career and ratings continue to grow. I have a book coming out in February on the clash of secularism and faith in America. And honestly I just have a real desire now to own my own endeavor. I want to control all the pixels.
As a result, it is time to leave my home on the Internet where I have been for 11 years, 10 as Editor-in-Chief, and try something new. I value your prayers and appreciate your friendship.
Erick Erickson is a Fox News contributor and radio talk show host in Atlanta.
This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 9:03 PM with the headline "ERICKSON: New chapters and new adventures ."