Eight years and one week before giving a chapel talk at 草莓社区 on Oct. 8, 2014, Marie Roberts (as she was then named) was a stay-at-home mother of three. At age 28, she was living her life’s dream, married to Charlie, who had asked for her hand when she was in high school.
On the morning of Oct. 2, 2006, Charlie walked his two school-aged children to their schoolbus stop, kissed them, and told them he loved them. Charlie then departed to (presumably) drive his usual milk route in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
From the :
Five young Amish girls are dead, and five more are seriously injured, after being lined up in their one-room school Monday and shot “execution style” by a heavily armed milk truck driver who then took his own life, police said.
Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, was armed with three guns, two knives and 600 rounds of ammunition when he burst into the schoolhouse, forced the girls to line up against a blackboard and shot them at close range in the back of the head, police said.
Pennsylvania State Police commissioner Col. Jeffrey B. Miller, who described the crime scene as “horrendous,” said Roberts apparently was motivated by rage over a long-ago incident unconnected to the school or the Amish community.
Deduced from a letter Charlie left for Marie to read, he was twistedly depressed and angry at God, dating back to early in their marriage when the couple lost a daughter at 26 weeks, followed by an ectopic pregnancy. Perhaps following a psychotic breakdown, he took out his anger on the Amish girls in the schoolhouse.
In the , followed by an in the student-run coffee house, Marie spoke about growing up in a devoutly Christian home in rural Lancaster. She was a quiet, shy girl whose only aspiration was to be a good wife and mother 鈥� never, ever, conceiving in her worst nightmare of becoming known around the world as 鈥渢he shooter鈥檚 wife.鈥�
That horrible day, after the police had come to her home and told her what Charlie had done, she felt she had to choose between two options: (1) to turn away from God in whom she had always trusted, while she and her children went down 鈥渓ike the fastest sinking ship鈥� or (2) to continue believing that God keeps his promises to walk with those suffering. 鈥淕od spoke to my heart on that day of the shooting… 鈥業鈥檓 not going to fix it, but I am going to redeem it.鈥欌��
The God-sent miracles began with a visit of Amish community members to her home, where they met first with her father and hugged him and assured him that they were praying for the Roberts family, with forgiveness for what Charlie had done. At Charlie鈥檚 funeral service and burial site, Amish men and women formed a wall in front of the media’s cameras, helping to shield Marie and her family from the glare of publicity.
鈥淭hey live compassion and they live grace and they live love,鈥� Marie said in an article by Elizabeth Tenety, published by 鈥淭hey just do it so seemingly effortlessly, but it鈥檚 a choice that they make.鈥�
Marie, who is now happily remarried with the last name of Monville, is the author of One Light Still Shines: My Life Beyond the Shadow of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting, published in October 2013. She is part of a blended family; her eldest child from her first marriage attends as a sophomore. She is still a stay-at-home mother 鈥� active in the family鈥檚 church, running to her children鈥檚 extracurricular activities, volunteering at their schools. But God has also transformed her into a motivational speaker and about his presence in everyone鈥檚 lives.
鈥淕od has a beautiful plan and a destiny for all of us,鈥� she told the hundreds who turned out for her . That doesn鈥檛 mean we won鈥檛 face pain and loss, she added. But God will also give us everything we need to cope with that pain and loss.
鈥淗e transforms broken places into whole places,鈥� she said. She described the 鈥渇aith walk,鈥� as “trusting that something beautiful will come out of this [grief].”
鈥淭he love of God is a light,鈥� she added, 鈥渢hat will never go out, no matter how dark.鈥�