It’s been 11 years since “American Sniper” Chris Kyle was tragically murdered, leaving behind his loving wife Taya, and their two young children, Colton and McKenna. And while the family has endured a lot both in and out of the public eye in the decade since, the three recently sat down with The Washington Times’ Higher Ground to share what God has done in their lives and the hope that comes from relying on God in life’s darkest moments.
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“If God had asked me at the time, if God had said, ‘Taya, listen, you’re gonna be a better person, you’re gonna be forged differently, and you’re gonna know more of Me and you’re gonna be more faithful and your kids will be stronger, you know, we just have to take Chris.’ I would have said no. Absolutely, like, no, I don’t, I don’t want that for any reason,” Taya noted. “And so, I do think it’s interesting how the devil can make a move and God can just redeem it and just flood it with goodness.”
Colton and McKenna were just 8 and 6 when their dad was taken from them, and they are thankful that they were able to grieve their loss out of the public eye. But that didn’t make the experience any less painful for them.
“Obviously it was hard for me,” said 18-year-old McKenna. “I think I started off trying to just find the positive in it all. And one of my biggest things was to not focus on my own pain and to just focus on my mom and my brother and how can I help them and what can I do for them and that kind of started a little bit of people pleasing, which it can be helpful, but it’s also not always the best when it’s at the expense of yourself.”
“Losing someone you love is never easy for anyone, certainly not when it’s unexpected and entirely unexpected, so my coping mechanism was to not feel as much as possible,” added 19-year-old Colton. “Our whole family has gone to therapy for it with a Christian therapist that comes at it from a faith-based perspective, which I think has been monumental to my emotional and mental healing. My faith has been paramount in healing, the fact that I can trust that God is at work and that He brings good things through it.”
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While the Kyle family’s experience supports the fact that everyone grieves differently, the three are united in their belief that God walked alongside each of them through it and provided the healing and peace they so desperately needed in His perfect timing.
“I think the fact that we all had different coping mechanisms, I hope makes it relatable, our experience,” said Taya. “And I also just feel this tremendous gratitude that we’ve come as far as we have, because you know, there are times along the way as a parent that you wonder, ‘Am I doing what I can do?’ And I was in tremendous grief and one of my things was, you know, it was easier for me to stay busy… And so going through all that at the same time, I recognized that I was not the mom that I wanted to be either during this time. And so, it feels miraculous that God is so good that He would do the work to heal all of us.”
Part of that healing, especially for young adults like Colton and McKenna, was moving forward and figuring out God’s plan for their lives outside of their grief journey. Colton is taking a gap year to focus on building the “American Sniper” brand, while McKenna is considering a career in law enforcement after graduation. And while their paths are strikingly different, they both pay homage to their late father in their own ways.
“I’ve had the blessed perspective and opportunity to see this as not, I’m not trying to fill his shoes and I’m not trying to take on anything he’s done, and the way that he would have done it, but I’m going to do this in my way, and honor and respect him and his legacy in this way,” Colton explained.
“I do feel like I somewhat carry on his legacy is through law enforcement,” McKenna agreed. “I know he also held law enforcement in very high regards. He [always] said that they deploy every day, whereas, He deployed for months at a time. And so it’s just, it’s cool for me to be able to kind of experience what he was interested in as well.”
“Even when the kids were little, we talked about how it’s God’s calling on their life, not ours,” Taya added. “I feel like they, their relationship with God is so strong and their love for Jesus is strong. And so I feel like that component is in place, which means that I trust that God really is leading them…They’re just kind of forging their own path. I think [Chris], he’d really like that.”
But they couldn’t move forward without first learning to forgive. For McKenna especially, coming to a place where she could forgive the man who killed her father was freeing in its own way.
“The guy who killed my dad, it took me a while to be able to say I do forgive him, but that doesn’t mean that I’m okay with what he did,” McKenna acknowledged. “I think forgiveness is more for ourselves and saying it’s not okay what they did, but it’s okay for me to let go of it and I don’t have to hold on to it…I don’t have to carry it and I can give it to God. And I know that it’s really amazing that we can give it to God and that He will take care of it and that He’s in control of it all. He already has the plan.”
That’s not to say the family doesn’t often wish that things could’ve been different and that Chris was still here. But his memory continues to live on in them every day — something they are eternally grateful for.
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“There were times when I was younger that I got scared that maybe I’ll forget him someday or maybe I’ll forget what he looked like or things like that,” McKenna said. “But I haven’t and I won’t because he was a big part of my life and that’s not something that I can forget.”
“I often wish that I would be able to have certain conversations with him and ask him about life experiences and all manner of things and just talk with him,” Colton added. “That’s what I miss the most.”
And while the Kyle family has come a long way in the last 11 years, they know that grief is a journey that lasts a lifetime and can hit in unexpected moments. Thankfully, they also know that they can continue to rely on God to see them through it.
“I just hope that when people hear somebody say, ‘God is good,’ or ‘He’s always there,’ it can sound trite if you’re really in the middle of [grief],” Taya noted. “And yet, it is the truth and it’s about giving it time, right? That’s what I noticed most of all with God is that the things, we live in a culture where everything’s immediate. And God is not handcuffed to our immediate culture. He will do what He will do. And He will do it in ways that we cannot imagine usually.”