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by
Stephanie Wood
Five
years ago, almost to the day, she wrote in her diary,
“Honestly, I want to live completely for God. It’s
hard and scary, but totally worth it.”
Five
years ago, she was an average high school student
who’d recently undergone a major conversion in her
life – from drugs, suicide attempts, hate mail to her
parents, and the wrong crowd of friends – to a life
lived 100% for God.
Five
years ago, she woke up and kissed her parents goodbye
for another routine day at high school.
Five
years ago, almost to the day, two guys named Eric and
Dylan held a gun to her face and asked her if she
believed in God.
She
said yes, and she impacted my life forever.
When
Cassie Bernall said yes, an entire nation started
talking about her “unlikely martyrdom”. She wasn’t
your average “little princess” or daddy’s girl. She
was more of a wild child parents’ nightmare who had a
conversion experience at a youth group campfire that
changed the entire course of her life.
I
remember April 20, 1999 well. I was driving around in
my car that day, listening to radio stations report on
the Columbine tragedy. Tears streamed down my face as
I imagined Cassie – life and death hanging in the
balance – making the decision to live and die for God.
Like
the rest of the country that mourned her death, I was
asking myself that day: “If it had been me, what
would I have said?” I wanted to die for God, too.
I wanted Cassie’s courage, her faith, her
selflessness.
And
yet, as the weeks passed, Cassie’s martyrdom made me
realize that living for God was just as important (and
hard to do) as dying for God. I began to understand
that just as God gave Cassie the chance to publicly
and heroically acknowledge Him, He gives me the same
opportunities every day to testify to His love.
I
started my freshman year of college (at a state
school) the semester after Cassie died. My dad had
given me a WWJD-style bracelet to wear that said “Yes
I Believe”, as a reminder of Cassie’s “yes.” I wore
that bracelet every day to classes, and I can’t tell
you how many classmates asked me what my bracelet
said, or what it meant. I had many opportunities to
tell the story of Cassie Bernall, and share with them
what I believed in. I remember one guy in particular.
He was so moved by the story of Cassie, and challenged
to recommit his life to Christ, that he asked me where
he could get a “Yes I Believe” bracelet. I took mine
off my wrist and gave it to him.
While God may never call you and me to physical
martyrdom, he’s asking us to live our lives boldly,
radically, courageously for Him every minute of every
day. Jesus said to His disciples:
“If
any man would come after me, let him deny himself and
take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would
save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life
for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a
man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his
life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life?
For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the
glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man
for what he has done.” – Matthew 16:24-27
Whether it’s at school, at work, at the gym or the
grocery store, the challenge is before us: live for
Him, so that in all we do we will reflect His love
to the world (Matthew 5:16).
About a year before her death, Cassie wrote this in
her journal:
“When God doesn’t want me to do something, I
definitely know it. When he wants me to do something,
even if it means going outside my comfort zone, I know
that too. I feel pushed in the direction I need to go
… I try to stand up for my faith at school … It can be
discouraging, but also rewarding … I will die for my
God. I will die for my faith. It’s the least I can do
for Christ dying for me.”
Thank you Cassie.
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“He is no fool who gives what he
cannot keep,
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to gain what he cannot lose.”
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- Jim Elliot, 20th
century missionary and martyr
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