Marked for Life by Crystal Miller, Ashley F Wiersma

From the Publisher

What marks and defines you? Your social status? Your family relationships? Your career or ministry? Some circumstances and events can permanently brand our lives. They are moments that can deepen our character. Crystal Woodman Miller is a young woman whose life was forever changed by the tragic events at Columbine High School in 1999—seven eternal minutes that served as the ultimate wake-up call. And in the aftermath of tragedy, Crystal found herself at a crossroad of fear and faith. Marked for Life is the remarkable story of Crystal's journey from suffering to healing—a journey that challenged her to choose hope and faith over bitterness and despair. She shares her extraordinary testimony worldwide to comfort and inspire thousands with a message of hope. Her desire is for us all to discover that we can be marked for life by a redeeming God who brings hope out of the rubble of earth-shattering loss.

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MARKED FOR LIFE

TH1NK

Chapter One

Our hope is that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ, not even suffering and death. Our hope is not for an easy or comfortable or secure life on this earth. Our hope is that the love of God will grant us joy in the all-satisfying glory of God which will continue through death and increase for all eternity.

JOHN PIPER, "A SERVICE OF SORROW, SELF-HUMBLING, AND STEADY HOPE IN OUR SAVIOR AND KING, JESUS CHRIST: A RESPONSE TO THE ATTACK ON THE WORLD TRADE CENTER"

I'm a huge fan of the Today show. In fact, hardly a day goes by that I don't catch at least part of it. It's uplifting and informative. And somehow, my day is just a little more complete when it's kicked off with Katie, Matt, and Al.

One morning in 2005, though, the snippets of headlines that reached my ears while I was boiling water for my wild orange hot tea felt like an assault. Officer tells of finding eight-year-old Florida girl buried alive. Bomb kills at least ten at Baghdad restaurant. Supreme Court reenters abortion debate. Blasts rock two New Delhi cinemas. Pastor arrested in child sex ring.

Wasn't there any good news out there? it reminded me of thedays after Columbine when my family and friends and I sat glued to the TV, absorbing more information, more bad news, about all that had gone on the morning of April 20, 1999.

This morning, unable to brush the memory aside, I turned off the TV, walked into the study, and went online to do a search on school-related shootings in the last few years. I knew other ones had occurred, and for some reason I just needed to know that day that someone else out there could relate to what I was going through. I was shocked by what appeared on the screen.

A pale blue chart popped up, detailing line-by-line accounts of school shootings in various places around the world. This particular list dated back to 1996 when a fourteen-year-old boy opened fire on his algebra class, killing two students and a teacher and wounding another student. How long is this list? I thought as I scrolled feverishly to the next screen, and the next, and the next.

I counted forty incidents. Nearly five hundred innocent people dead.

As I scrolled back to the top of the gruesome inventory, my eyes darted up and down, taking in a random assortment of the descriptions:

March 1997: Mohammad Ahman al-Naziri killed eight people in two different schools in Sanaa, yemen.

April 26, 2002: A nineteen-year-old student at Johann Gutenberg secondary school in Erfurt, Germany, killed thirteen teachers, two students, and one policeman and wounded ten others before killing himself.

February 29, 2000: Six-year-old Kayla Rolland was shot dead in her elementary school by a six-year-old boy in her class (yes, six years old!) who had possession of a .32-caliber handgun.

September 1, 2004: The Beslan school siege.

February 19, 1997: A sixteen-year-old boy in Bethel, Alaska, shot and killed his principal and a fellow student.

March 21, 2005: Sixteen-year-old Jeff Weise killed his grandfather and companion before arriving at school in red lake, Minnesota, where he killed a teacher, a security guard, five students, and finally himself.

May 21, 1998: A fifteen-year-old student in Springfield, Oregon, who had been arrested a day earlier for bringing a gun to school, killed two students and wounded twenty-two others after shooting and killing both parents at home earlier that day.

December 1997: Michael Carneal, age fourteen, shot and killed three students and wounded two others, all of whom were participating in a prayer circle at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky.

I did a double take when I saw Columbine listed among so many other similar events. The tragedy that had stolen my friends' lives and forever changed the worlds of thousands of people in Colorado was just one of nearly three dozen others. The plain description noted only the facts:

April 20, 1999, Littleton, Colo.: 14 students (including killers) and one teacher killed, 23 others wounded at Columbine High School in the nation's deadliest school shooting. Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, had plotted for a year to kill at least 500 and blow up their school. At the end of their hour-long rampage, they turned their guns on themselves.

I thought I'd moved on from the horrors of Columbine - and I suppose in many ways I had. But as I stared at my computer screen, reading and rereading that sterile paragraph, the memories marched through my mind, my heart, my throat. It was all happening again, in real time.

Darkest of Days

The Colorado skies are hazy and gray that early spring morning. The sound of my father's heavy-duty pickup truck pulling out of our driveway interrupts what has been a deep sleep. I twitch my cheek and wonder where my good-morning kiss is as I try to remember why he's leaving so early today. It's his busy season, I decide. Maybe he has a meeting before his landscaping appointments. I stuff my pillow farther under my chin, propping my head up so I can make out the numbers on the clock. 6:32, it proudly beams. Ugh, seventeen minutes late already, and I'm still not out of bed.

I flop onto my back, now suddenly enamored by the way the shadows are hitting the ceiling above me. I gotta get going, I think. "okay, get going," I say, groaning. Groggily padding into the bathroom, I stick a toothbrush in my mouth to kick off the daily routine. I step into the hot shower and am jolted awake by a strong sense that today will not be an ordinary day. What is it? I wonder as I point my face toward the shower head. It's my dad, I realize as my heart sinks. Something bad is going to happen to him today, I just know it. A car accident? My mind trails off as I try to decode the eerie premonition. I can't shake the anxious feelings but know I have to get moving if I will stand half a chance of being on time for first period.

Clothes. I need clothes. I hop unsteadily into my favorite jeans, thrusting my feet into a pair of cute sandals as I pull on a green-and-navy-striped sweater tank and a navy fleece jacket. I comb my wet shoulder-length blondish brown hair and hastily brush on mascara as I hustle around my room shoving stuff into my backpack. I'm so scattered today. Maybe I'm still coming down off prom, I think in my own defense. I eye my french-manicured nails, left-overs from the dance just a few nights ago. They still look so good! I relish the memory of feeling like a princess in my stark white tea-length gown.

Mom interrupts my thoughts of James and friends and laughter and dancing as she cranes her head around my open bedroom door. "Gotta run, sweetie," she says as she blows me a kiss.

I'm in too big of a rush to ask why she's dressed up so early in the morning, so I opt instead for a quick response. "Bye, Mom. I love you!" I holler, meaning it.

Wheeling around to make sure I haven't forgotten anything, I glance at my beloved alarm clock once more. 7:24, the numbers glare. No breakfast today-again. "Four hours till lunch," I mutter to myself. "I can make it."

At the first stoplight en route to school, my morning turns from bad to worse as I remember I'm supposed to take a make-up physics exam this afternoon. When am I going to study for this stupid test? It's today! How could I have forgotten that? The light turns to green as I land on a plan. Lunch! I'll make Seth and Sara ask me review questions all period. I'll be fine. We'll hit the library instead of going off-campus to eat, and they'll make sure I'm ready. I crank up the radio again and head toward Columbine.

It's 7:35 as I pull into my assigned parking spot in the parking lot designated for juniors, a little late but probably not enough to land me in trouble. My toes freeze as I step out of my car into what is now a cool drizzle and head for the entrance. April in the Rockies, I remember. You never know what you're going to get. I wrap my fleece jacket tighter around me, wishing I had made a wiser shoe selection.

First period is drudgery but finally ends. I walk into second period - math class - and ease into my desk, finally waking up after a good night's rest cut short. My friends and I stop chatting as the monitor in the corner buzzes to life with today's video announcements. Today's anchors are a couple of kids from media class who were selected to host the broadcast on our school's rebel news network.

Seeing nothing that intrigues us about today's news, my girlfriends and I giggle back to life only half-listening to today's lunch menu, the location of the baseball team's next game, and when yearbooks will be available. As usual, the broadcast ends with a tickertape quote across the bottom of the screen that today is running to really bad techno pop. I look up as it crawls across the monitor:

... April ... 20 ... 1999 ... You'll ... wish ... you ... weren't ... here ... today ...

Well, what's new? I think to myself. I wish that every day! I mean, I live by the mountains. Who does want to be at school? I could be home sleeping or hiking or biking in the Rockies - anything would be better than this. How stupid.

* * *

Two periods later, I sit through Mr. Webb's language arts class and grow more anxious by the minute. The lunch bell's about to ring, and then I can bolt, I think in an effort to calm myself down. My physics test is looming, and I Know I will have to pull off a bona fide cramming extravaganza in order to pass.

The shrill Brrrrrrrrring bursts through Mr. Webb's homework instructions, and I grab my backpack, stuffing my language arts textbook into the largest pocket as I fly toward the door. Instantly, I am greeted by my friend Seth who, unbeknownst to him, is one-third of my study team for our working lunch. I grab his arm and head toward the library - surely a better bet than the cafeteria for some quiet study time - as I explain that he's going to have to help me instead of enjoying a nice, normal lunch.

"Seth, I forgot to study last night, and my physics make-up test is this afternoon. You have to quiz me over lunch! Please?" I beg. As we swim upstream through the flood of students racing to and from McDonald's or taco Bell in fifty minutes or less, me groveling with each step, we both head toward the lockers to find Seth's sister Sara. She says she is starving and wants to know where we're eating today. Seth raises his eyebrows with a grin and cuts his eyes toward me as if to say, Ask Crystal. She has her own plans for us today. He doesn't seem to care what we do - he grabbed a bagel during his off-period just moments before.

Sara groans but decides to join us anyway. We can't bring cafeteria trays or fast food into the library, so Sara and I will just starve. now I really wish I had eaten breakfast.

* * *

The library is strangely empty as we walk in and head toward several tables in the center section. Must have warmed up enough to eat outside, I think to myself. Seth lags behind and looks perplexed when I cross without incident through the security detectors positioned on either side of the library's entrance. They were installed a few years prior as a way to keep kids from thieving books, magazines, videos, or CDs instead of checking them out.

"Let's sit there," I say as I nod toward an empty table. As I pull my chair out from the heavy oak table, my eyes catch the rays of sun now flooding through the library's floor-to-ceiling west windows. Sure, now that I'm stuck in here studying, the sun comes out!

The three of us get settled and take a look around the library. "There's really nobody here," Sara says as we all eye the empty computer workstations, vacant study tables, and deserted reception desk. I let my backpack thud to the ground beside my chair and lean down to pull out my physics book. As I yank it out, a dorky science magazine falls to the floor. "What's this?" I ask Seth and Sara.

"Well, let's just say you're detector-proof," Seth says with a wry smile. "I stuck it in your stuff last friday to get you busted next time we came in here, but it didn't go off!" I slowly roll up the magazine with a grin, ready to whack him upside the head as he tries to get himself out of the doghouse. Our mock argument catches the librarian's attention, and she is none too pleased. Where'd she come from, anyway? We nod our acceptance of her Pipe down! gaze and determine to get to work.

Still in denial that it's time to help me study, Seth hops up dutifully to return the stolen magazine to its appropriate shelf near the computer workstations. Sara stares at me as I thumb through the physics chapters I have to memorize in forty minutes' time. "Thirty-six pages!" I yelp as she giggles. "There's no way!"

I sigh as I swear for the nth time to stay on top of my schoolwork.

While I'm in midthought, a teacher I don't know bursts into the library. She looks crazed and utterly panicked. I hadn't noticed the several dozen or so students who had filled the tables around us until I look to their faces to make sense of the interruption.

"There are guys with guns!" the teacher screams. She is frantic, rushing back and forth across the east side of the library. "They've got bombs! do you hear me? Bombs and guns! They are shooting at students! Move ... now! Get under your tables now," she belts. Her voice is cracking, her hands flailing around her face that still looks white as a sheet.

There is palpable tension in the air as all of us stare at this hysterical woman. Is this a joke? A senior prank? I wonder. I look at Seth, a senior himself, to see if he's in on the hoax. Graduation is a month away, I reason. The video class is up to something - it's just some weird project.

I stay in my chair, waiting for everyone else to make a move that will tell me this isn't for real. In the halls outside the library, I hear students running and screaming, but it all sounds so distant, so bizarre.

"Where's Mrs. Keating? Mrs. Keating!" the distraught teacher shouts. The librarian doesn't respond. Strange, I think. Mrs. Keating was just at the reception desk a few minutes ago. Where'd she go?

The woman jerks her head toward Sara and me and demands again that we get under our tables. Seth runs over to the windows to see what is happening, then reemerges and looks at me with calm eyes. "it's just the lunch rush," he says. "everything's fine." Without fully buying his explanation, I covet his steadiness.

The panicked teacher hasn't settled down yet, and her hysteria is making everyone's heart pound out dull, heavy beats. I look behind her at a student who is stumbling into the library, his right hand clutching his left shoulder. Blood is soaking through his T-shirt. He falls to the floor just in front of the security detectors, and the room fills with gasps and shrieks of horror.

I feel my chest rise and my chin drop as I try to stabilize myself. "My God, he's bleeding! What do we do? What do we do?" I sputter in Seth's direction. My peripheral vision catches the bleeding student stagger toward the break room behind the reception desk. "Seth, what's going on?" I plead. "I mean it, what's going on? What is happening, Seth?"

Nothing but silence from my friend.

I hear more running, more screaming coming from the halls as another person rushes through the entrance. A man I recognize as Mr. long, the technical education teacher, is desperately sputtering out commands, insisting that everyone leave the library immediately. "Get out of here now!" he shouts in our direction.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from MARKED FOR LIFE by Crystal Woodman Miller Ashley Wiersma Copyright © 2006 by Crystal Woodman Miller. Excerpted by permission.
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