I don't know if I can do this, guys.
um,
[I AM SECOND CONVERSATIONS UNWORTHY]
[BETH NIMMO]
[In April of 1999, Beth Nimmo watched her daughter leave for school on the day ]
[that is now known as the columbine high school massacre.]
[Her daughter never returned home]
[TJ STEVENS]
[In November of 1982, TJ Stevens walked into his Virginia High School]
[with a rifle in his hand and began shooting.]
[Today Beth and TJ listen to each other's stories for the first time.]
My step father was an alcoholic
and I just lived in fear most of my life
and fear for my mom's life and fear for my brother's life.
If you ask any police officer, they'll tell you
the most dangerous call to go on is a domestic call.
Well, the child takes that to school.
I was the black sheep in the school.
I was the one that was on my on,
this quote on quote think I am, this bad ass.
I don't know the exact date, but
my girlfriend came to me and said, "I can't see you anymore."
She was the one thing out of everything I'd lost in my life
I refused to lose her.
I finally came to the conclusion
that I would just take my own life.
Got down on my knees in a dark room,
no lights were on,
put the barrel in my mouth,
put my thumb on the trigger.
As I'm applying pressure to this rifle,
pushing down on the trigger,
this voice says to me in a soft tone,
If you do it the way I show you,
I'll give you the peace you're looking for.
Of all the lies of a coward, you'll show them.
They're gonna pay. Revenge.
I'm methodically counting each shell.
I'm putting names on bullets.
If I kill this person, innocent person,
it'll take away my pain.
9 'o'clock that next morning,
on the 10th of November,
no tears were falling,
no emotion, no trying to talk myself out of it,
in the car, drive straight to the school,
grab the rifle, put it under my trench coat.
walk methodically, towards the school.
Rachel was very outgoing,
she made friends easily.
and that morning, picked up her hat,
yelled for Craig to come,
'cause my son Craig was always making her late for school.
Yelled that she loved me and ran out the door.
My oldest daughter Bethany called me at work and said,
"Mom, there's been a shooting at Columbine"
she said you might want to turn on the news.
Craig called me, and he said,
"Mom, I just need to let you know I'm ok,
but I can't find Rachel.
and this is bad mom, this is really, really bad."
As they secured the school, they were bussing kids
to one of the two places, and they were posting those lists
of the kids that were accounted for.
And we waited.
And about 7 'o' clock they said,
"If you haven't heard from a hospital,
or your child wasn't on the bus, we need to have you fill out
missing persons reports."
I gave a detailed description of what she had on,
and then they told us to go home.
just go home.
About 11:20 the next day,
I got a call from the coroner's office
verifying Rachel as the first victim of the Columbine High School shooting.
Nothing was real.
Total disbelief.
And I remember just sinking down to the floor
and I'll be honest, there's a lot of those days I can't remember.
So I walk in,
and I just start shooting.
Shooting down the hallways,
but it was always above their heads,
and kids started running and screaming,
I remember telling the negotiator,
"if you don't do what I tell you to do,
I'm gonna line bodies up in the hallway one by one
with your name on it."
So I go inside this room, and all these people are in there,
that voice that I heard in my bedroom the night before,
that voice became many voices.
"You're a failure."
"And you are nothing. Kill these people now."
Something deep in my heart
was fighting me.
Right in front of the hostages I fell to my knees
and said no more.
I'll kill myself, and you can't kill these people.
I put pressure on the trigger,
and a lady to my right, one of the hostages,
she fell on her face
and I jerked my head over with the barrel still in my mouth
She's got her hands over her face,
screaming, "No, don't do this!"
just rocking like this.
She says, "You haven't killed anyone,
you're just a kid. You don't need to do this."
As she was doing that,
something pierced my right eye,
and as she was rocking back and forth,
it was a gold cross dangling from her neck,
rocking back and forth, reflecting off of the ceiling light
piercing my right eye.
Everything changed.
Emotion overwhelmed me.
Pain for not only the people in the room, but their families
overwhelmed me.
And so we walk out, SWAT team came in,
did what they had to do,
No one died.
[TJ was sentenced to 4 years in a maximum security prison.]
We started discovering writings and journals
She'd had a really deep relationship with the Lord
that she was penning, she was putting on paper,
she was drawing about it.
On the back of a dresser that she had put
when she was a young girl,
she'd outlined her hands,
and in the middle of her hand and her palm,
she wrote, "These are the hands that Rachel Joy Scott,
and will some day touch millions of people's lives."
God had put a great gift in our home.
She was loved by all of us, we cherished her.
But we had no idea what God's purpose
for her life and her death was.
And she has reached around the world.
She just didn't know she was gonna have to die to do it.
For Rachel, that day was a life sentence for her.
She doesn't get to live any more life on this earth as we know it.
They took that from her.
But they didn't take mine.
[Stories told, they meet each other to discuss what they have heard.]
There's no words that can console
a mother for losing a child.
Only God can do that.
- Just know I love you, - Oh I appreciate that, thank you.
Most people that lose a child will never speak.
How do you get through day to day?
There are times when I'll go home and cry.
I cried today. I may cry tomorrow.
You know, it's not that you don't feel the pain,
but God gives you those moments,
where you feel that pain and then he lifts that from you,
and puts purpose and direction, and um, resolve.
But most of my anger is towards the enemy of the soul,
who comes the kill, steal and destroy.
Your story is one of thousands that we've heard.
It's happening again, and again, and again.
Truth reigns, and I know that it prevails.
And with all the voices you were talking about,
you recognized the voice of truth, even if you didn't identify it as such,
you still- there was something still in your heart,
that caused you to reach out towards that hand that came towards you.
Because, that was the voice of truth.
I don't want- I don't want to waste what he's given me.
And you haven't wasted.
You turned your pain into passion,
and you're changing lives.
My prayer is that I can do the same
with the pain I created
and the two words: Earn it-
Can I encourage you on something though?
Sure.
Rethink the words "earn it." You don't have to earn anything.
God doesn't expect things of us because
without him, we can do nothing.
Instead of earn it, you just walk in it.
You walk in the gift
That's what I see with you, yeah I see a man,
who understands second chances.
Who understands what it is to be in the depths of despair,
and the hand of God pulling you out of that pit,
and saying, "I really never let you go"
You did experience the torment of what hell looks like and feels like.
But my hand sustained you during that season.
I don't feel worthy of this conversation.
- Oh, you're worthy - But I'm honored
honored to be here with you,
and grateful that you came out.
I'm sorry for your pain,
I'm sorry for the events of your life
that led up to feeling so desperate to take that kind of desperate action.
I'm sorry you had to experience that.
I am sorry, but I rejoice in your redemption.
I never imagined
I never imagined,
in a thousand lifetimes,
that my God my God that you were going to do this.
To show the world what you can do
with a high school shooter.
[2 years into his 4 year sentence, TJ chose to put Jesus first in his life.]
[His sentence was later reduced, serving less than 3 years in prison.]
You know, they talk about faith is the substance of things unseen.
and the word substance is sub- is under,
and stance is standing.
Faith is understanding.
Faith is understanding that God has purpose
and anything that he allows to come into your life
if you allow him, he can use that for his purposes.
[I AM SECOND CONVERSATIONS UNWORTHY]