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Monday, March 16, 2009

Rachel's Tears


Book Review for RACHEL'S TEARS
Rachel Scott was one of the victims that died in the horrendous school shooting 10 years ago at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. The small book is largely made up of this young girls' personal journals, doodles & letters to friends & family. It is a hard read for parents with kids in school but it does not leave the reader without hope. The authors are Rachel's parents & they share the writings of their daughter to show the world that she was a person of great faith & convictions.
There are a few hints that she may have been one of the targeted students due to her clear professions of faith.
"I am not going to apologize for speaking
the
name of Jesus, I am not going to justify my
faith
to them, and I am not going to hide the
light that
God has put in me. If I have to sacrifice
everything...
I will."
It was, and is, not easy to be a Christian in a public High School. Columbine had the normal groups that students fall into but she managed to not get stuck in the"good kids" group & defiantly tried to be friends with all the groups in the school, including the goths & the loners. Friends told of her earlier attempts even to befriend Harris & Klebold the two shooters.

Her love for people & for God gave her great strength & confidence. She was very involved in many areas of school life, including the drama club. She loved the ethnic variety of her school & once wrote about how she suddenly looked around her one day at the lunch table & realized that she was the only white person in her group of laughing friends.

My only disagreement with this beautiful little book is the idea that one parent gives that this may have happened to Rachel so that God would get the glory as her story was told all over the world. I believe that God does turn things that were meant for evil around & make good out of them, but He had nothing to do with causing this tragedy to occur. But this book is not meant to be a document of theology & it is still an uplifting read as a memoir of a short but beautiful life.

7 comments:

  1. I would agree! My God would never allow something so devasting to occur! I am sure the book is wonderful, but it would probably sadden me because I am tender-hearted. My current book is White Oleander and I am thinking it may be somewhat upsetting as well. Blessings, Lisa

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  2. I try to stay away from the highly emotive books like this- they do my head in....she sounds like a beautiful child, a tragic loss xx

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  3. I hear you Lisa. I would not have normally read this due to the sadness factor, but when reviewing I didn't have much to choose from that they want me to review.

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  4. WOW Brenda, I never even knew this came out. I might give it a look at. Thanks for writing the review. I definitely agree about what you said about God not having anything to do with causing the tragedy. Maybe the one parent is using that (although wrong) as a coping mechanism. Such a sad and tragic loss on a young life who had to much to offer the world.

    By the way, thank you so much for your prayers!! ♥

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  5. Has it really been 10 years? :( And yet we haven't forgotten. It's so raw. I hadn't heard of this. Thanks for posting about it!

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  6. So interesting that you just read this book. I just read a Columbine-related book as well, "The Hour I First Believed," by Wally Lamb. This is a fictional account but it seems pretty well researched. In the book, the narrator (Caleum Quirk) is a teacher at Columbine and his wife is the school nurse. He is not there on the day of the shooting, but his wife is and is traumatized for the rest of her life because of it. It was an interesting book that raised a lot of questions about Columbine, faith, why things happen and so forth. I hope the parents got a sense of peace from putting this book out there -- but I can't even imagine the pain they must still feel.

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  7. Brenda,
    This is a beautiful tribute to such a beautiful person. I read about her story a while back and fell in love with her. I am now going to buy the book to read.

    Shame on those people who have used God to say that a tragedy was necessary. I totally agree with you on the whole aspect of such a preposterous idea.

    love your blog!!

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Hi Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment even if it has nothing to do with the specific blog, it's great to know that you are writing stuff that real live people actually read, ya know?
Brenda