Daniel Burke of CNN tells the story of Marie Monville, who has put her life back together seven years after her late husband Charlie Roberts murdered five girls and wounded five others before killing himself in a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa.
Burke writes:
Monville said she kept silent for so long because that story, the grace and compassion the Amish offered her family, was already making headlines around the world.
“There wasn’t much more for me to say,” she said.
Even if there had been more to say, the intensely private Monville was reluctant to speak publicly. Shy and quiet, she sometimes joked that the label under her high-school yearbook picture should have read, “Most Likely to be Forgotten.”
But as the shooting’s psychological wounds began to heal, Monville said she heard God calling her to a new mission: to share her message of hope. To tell others that, even after Charlie’s crushing actions, her family not only survived, they thrived.
“I now saw a grand purpose in telling my story,” Monville writes, “I wasn’t afraid anymore.”