It’s been 17 years since the Columbine High School massacre tragically claimed the lives of 12 students and a teacher — a shocking event that was immediately singed into the nation’s conscience.
But nearly two decades after killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered their high school and murdered so many innocents, the harrowing ordeal will be the subject of a new feature film titled, “I Am Not Ashamed.”
Produced by Pure Flix Entertainment, the movie — which is based primarily on the real-life story of 17-year-old victim Rachel Joy Scott — is aimed at inspiring and building up the audience’s Christian faith, while using the horrors that unfolded that day to spark positivity, according to Scott’s mother, Beth Nimmo.
Nimmo recently told “The Church Boys” podcast she’s hoping the movie will have a profound affect on America’s young people, in particular, saying she believes youths are “looking for purpose” and “something bigger than themselves.”
She believes her daughter’s story can help them in that existential quest, as Deseret News recently reported.
“Rachel found something worth living for and something worth dying for,” Nimmo said. “It was her faith, and she based all of her writings and her ethics … on her love and trust in the Lord.”
Among the most fascinating parts of Scott’s real-life story were the prophetic elements her family discovered in her journals — pictures and comments that seem to show Scott had a feeling or premonition that her life would soon end.
Take, for instance, a picture she drew featuring two eyes crying 13 tears onto a flower; the tears appeared to turn to droplets of blood once they came close to the flower. Scott reportedly drew the picture just before her death.
But that’s not all. Scott also wrote about her feelings that her life would soon come to an end, with her mother finding one particular journal entry from May 3, 1998, the most shocking — an entry written less than one year before her death.
“(On) May 2, 1998, (she) said, ‘This will be my last year Lord. I’ve gotten what I can. Thank you,'” Nimmo recalled.
Listen to Nimmo discuss these prophetic elements below:
Nimmo didn’t discover that entry until after her daughter’s death. That said, she noted that Scott “wasn’t suicidal,” nor was she depressed. She had, however, often talked about how she couldn’t envision herself marrying or having kids.
“Rachel had a joy for life, a joy for living,” Nimmo told “The Church Boys.” “She never communicated that she considered death, although I have to say she would comment that she couldn’t see a future for herself.”
Nimmo now believes God was giving her daughter a sense that something would eventually unfold, saying the private journal entries were a conversation between her daughter and the Lord.
Over the years, Nimmo has written about and discussed her daughter’s journals, using them to help inspire young people (for example, she co-wrote a book called “Rachel’s Tears”). And an event series titled “Rachel’s Challenge” — a school program that works to stop bullying and to help foster more positive school climates — was also later launched by Scott’s father, Darrell.
These efforts are based on Scott’s life as well as her powerful acts of kindness for others around her during her brief lifetime.
“After her death, many students that Rachel reached out to shared stories with the Scotts about the profound impact her simple acts of kindness had on their lives; even preventing one young man for taking his own life,” reads a description on the “Rachel’s Challenge” website. “They soon realized the transformational effect of Rachel’s story and started the non-profit organization that is Rachel’s Challenge today.”
Nimmo is hoping her daughter’s life as well as the Columbine story more broadly will collectively impact lives on the big screen after “I Am Not Ashamed” releases nationwide on Friday.
“Everything that happens, the Lord knows how that can be turned and worked for our good, even though it’s painful, extremely painful,” Nimmo said. “We saw purpose.”
(H/T: Deseret News)