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CASSIE BERNALL MEMORIAL PAGE BY RYAN HICKS © 1996-1999 Ryan Hicks |
2 Timothy 2:11-13
11 It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him:
12 If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:
13 If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.
ABC NEWS COMMENTS
On Sunday, April 25, 1999, on ABC's This Week news program the commentators said the following:
COKIE ROBERTS: Bill, get in here Bill.
BILL KRISTOL, ABCNEWS ANALYST: In churches across America today, ministers and priests are trying to make sense of this. And I hope they’re doing a better job than I could because what can one say when kids kill other kids. What I was struck by—and there are many amazing stories and moving stories—Isaiah Shoels, the young black man killed apparently because he was black, Dave Sanders, the teacher who saved a bunch of students and bled to death in the hours it took the police to get in there.
COKIE ROBERTS: The SWAT team to get in.
BILL KRISTOL: But I think the story that might resonate, and this really could become a day that sort of is remembered in history, is the story of Cassie Bernall and the young girl in the library, who was kneeling and praying, and one of the gunman came upon her and said, do you believe in God? And she said, yes, I believe in God. And the gunman killed her.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And then laughed.
BILL KRISTOL: And then laughed, I mean, that is such an amazing story, it’s something if you read it in a book, you wouldn’t believe it, and I wonder if there’s going to be a religious revival in the country, and I think we may be at the beginning of one. I think this episode will become a sort of famous episode in the sense that if you have a post-Christian America, post-religious America, there’s no right and wrong, there’s no good and evil, you get people behaving this way and then she poses the alternative, so starkly.
THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION'S COMMENTS
The following article can be seen at: http://www.sbc.net/articles/1999/04/27/bpa2.asp?ReturnURL=http://www.sbc.net/bpSearch.asp.
Cassie Bernall's courage followed her parents' courage to intervene
Tuesday, April 27, 1999
By Art Toalston
LITTLETON, Colo. (BP)--Long before Cassie Bernall had the courage to die for her faith, her parents had the courage to derail her from bad choices and ungodly influences.
Misty and Brad Bernall told ABC's Peggy Wehmeyer on the newsmagazine "20/20" April 26 that Cassie -- an ever-smiling child who had loved being with other children -- began changing for the worse as a young teen.
As Cassie entered the ninth grade, Misty Bernall said, "I had that gut feeling that something was wrong. I couldn't pinpoint it, but I just knew something was wrong. I didn't feel like either of us [she or her husband] had any connection with her [Cassie]."
Misty searched Cassie's room and found hidden letters from one of her daughter's closest friends -- letters that left her speechless.
The letters, Brad said, "were talking about things that they could do to parents that could be just tragic."
Additionally, Cassie also was developing an interest in witchcraft and in drugs and alcohol.
Facing the trauma of how to deal with a troubled teen, Wehmeyer noted, "The Bernalls decided the only way to stop their daughter from making more bad decisions was to make good decisions for her."
Wehmeyer continued, "They changed Cassie's school. They began regularly searching her room and backpacks. And they forced her to cut off all contact with everyone she had hung out with, including her best friend."
Said Brad, "It's the hardest thing a parent will ever do, to put your foot down and say, 'It stops right here.'"
Said Misty, "As a parent, I struggled with that feeling of betrayal of a child that you love with all your being who was telling you that she hated you. But we knew what we felt was best for her and what we felt we had to do."
One weekend, the Bernalls permitted Cassie to go on a church youth retreat -- which changed their daughter's life.
Said Brad, "When she left she was this gloomy, head down, say nothing [youth]. When she came back, her eyes were open and bright and she was bouncy and just excited about what had happened to her and was just so excited to tell us. It was like she was in a dark room, and somebody turned the light on, and she saw the beauty that was surrounding her."
Said Misty, "She looked at me in the eye and she said, 'Mom, I've changed. I've totally changed. I know you're not going to believe it, but I'll prove it to you.'"
After she and her husband learned of 17-year-old Cassie's courage in the face of death during the April 20 melee at Columbine High School, Misty said, "We looked at each other and we said, 'Would I have done that? I would have begged for my life.' She didn't."
Not long ago, Misty said, she and Cassie talked about death.
"I don't know how we got on the topic, but Cassie said to me, 'Mom, it would be OK if I died.' She said, 'I'd be in a better place, and you know where I'd be.'"
