{"id":21950,"date":"2024-04-29T14:33:47","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T18:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=21950"},"modified":"2024-04-29T14:33:47","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T18:33:47","slug":"columbine-survivor-craig-scott-recalls-brutal-attack-i-heard-god-speak-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2024\/04\/columbine-survivor-craig-scott-recalls-brutal-attack-i-heard-god-speak-to-me","title":{"rendered":"Columbine Survivor Craig Scott Recalls Brutal Attack: \u201cI heard God speak to me.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Katherine Welles \/ Shutterstock.com | Inset: Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

April 20th<\/sup> was the 25th<\/sup> anniversary of the Columbine school shooting in 1999, where 12 students and a teacher were murdered while 21 additional students suffered injuries from gunshot wounds and 3 were injured in the chaos. It was the deadliest school shooting in America at the time and opened up conversations about mental health, the impact of media violence on adolescents, and gun control. Columbine survivor Craig Scott was sixteen at the time when gunmen Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, entered the Columbine High School library, armed to kill. Although Scott didn\u2019t know it at the time, they had already killed his sister, Rachel Joy Scott. She was the pair\u2019s first victim.<\/p>\n

Scott was hiding under a desk when the gunmen entered. Speaking with ABC News<\/em><\/a>, he recalled the scene. \u201cThey came over to where I was. They saw my friend, Isaiah [Shoels]. At my school, Isaiah was one of the very few African American students. One of them called the other one over and started to call Isaiah racial slurs. They tried to drag him out from under the table. And they shot and killed Isaiah, shot and killed my friend, Matt. They left me under there. I thought I was going to die,\u201d he recalled. Speaking to CBN<\/em><\/a> in preparation of the anniversary, he shared how God spoke to him. \u201cI heard God speak to me. And I am careful even with that phrase, \u2018God told me to do something.\u2019 \u2026 But I felt very strongly [that He] told me to, \u2018Get out of there.\u2019\u201d Despite not knowing where the shooters were, Scott stood up from his hiding place and told other students to get out as well. 10 students were killed in the library that day.<\/p>\n

Despite the tragedy, Scott has spent the last twenty-five years speaking about his experiences and how God can use tragedy and pain. \u201c[It] has been one of the biggest, helpful things in my journey the last 25 years, this belief that God has a plan and a purpose for even the worst stuff,\u201d he told CBN. <\/em>Scott and his family have shared Rachel\u2019s story of faith, including journals she kept in the days leading up to the attack. Her story has also been documented in numerous books and the movie \u201cI\u2019m not Ashamed.\u201d Scott travels the world as a representative of the non-profit his family created, Rachel\u2019s Challenge. He will also be starting a new podcast, \u201cPain into Purpose,\u201d which will share inspirational stories.<\/p>\n

He shared how he was able to move on after the attack. \u201cThe biggest factors of my healing were my family, my faith, but also forgiveness. For a couple years, I used to fantasize about killing the shooters. I used to hate them,” he said. \u201cAs I was beginning to travel and share my sister’s story, I was meeting people who had been through far worse than I had been and they weren’t these angry, bitter people. They were very free and open. And someone told me once, it was very helpful, that ‘forgiveness is like setting a prisoner free and finding out that prisoner is you.\u2019\u201d He added how going through his sister\u2019s journals also helped him. \u201cShe had a deep belief that she would have a positive impact and she has. When I survived, I think I immediately felt this deep sense that God had a purpose for me. Whether people have that belief or not, that belief helped me and it’s helped me since to believe that there was a deep reason for why this has happened. And I was able to see through the tragedy to purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April 20th was the 25th anniversary of the Columbine school shooting in 1999, where 12 students and a teacher were murdered while 21 additional students suffered injuries from gunshot wounds and 3 were injured in the chaos. It was the deadliest school shooting in America at the time and opened up conversations about mental health,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":21956,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nColumbine Survivor Craig Scott Recalls Brutal Attack: \u201cI heard God speak to me.\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"April 20th was the 25th anniversary of the Columbine school shooting in 1999.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2024\/04\/columbine-survivor-craig-scott-recalls-brutal-attack-i-heard-god-speak-to-me\" 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