April 7, 2009

CHICAGO – Anne Marie Hochhalter stepped outside of her Colorado high school in 1999 just as two seniors armed with guns began shooting. They killed 12 students and a teacher at Littleton's Columbine High School before killing themselves.

Many others were injured, including Hochhalter, who was left paralyzed. In the aftermath, her mother's long struggle with depression intensified. Six months after the shootings, Carla Hochhalter walked into a pawnshop, asked to see a revolver, then shot and killed herself.

"After my mom died we stopped going to church," Anne Marie Hochhalter, 27, told the ELCA News Service. "I was angry with God because of what happened. I didn't understand what God was about."

At the time, the Hochhalters attended Christ Lutheran Church, Highlands Ranch, nine miles from the suburban Denver school. The congregation is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

The school tragedy aftermath brought an endless cycle of debilitating trauma and grief to countless families. Still, time marched on. Students graduated from high school, then college. Families moved in and out of suburbia. Pastors came and went.

The 10th anniversary – April 20 – is a measure of how much has changed. It falls a few days after Easter, when Christians celebrate their belief in Jesus' resurrection. For Christians, Easter always lies on the other end of suffering.

"For me, Jesus was taking a bullet that day," said the Rev. David Jensen, pastor at Christ Lutheran in 1999. "Jesus was with our kids. He was not punishing this culture, but suffering with this culture. Belief in resurrection means we cannot stop at our wounds."

Jensen left the ELCA in 2004. Several church members left, too. Most there now weren't members a decade ago, said the Rev. Tom Shelly, Christ Lutheran's current pastor.

"No one really talks about Columbine in the sense of a firsthand memory," Shelly said. "We're still in recovery mode from the split. We're also preparing for our 25th anniversary in 2010. It's kind of a looking ahead and survival mode."

The Rev. Don Marxhausen led Littleton's St. Philip Lutheran Church in 1999. After the massacre, he remained an outspoken presence in the media. He also officiated at the funeral for Dylan Klebold, one of the Columbine shooters. Conflict erupted in the congregation, and he left the following year.

"Whenever there's trauma, usually pastors wind up leaving," said Marxhausen, 68, now serving in Idaho Springs, Colo. "As time passes you start getting perspective. My message is that God raises us up."

When the Rev. Nathan Doerr arrived at St. Philip in 2003, he said the congregation still struggled with grief management.

"Initially there was a sense that ‘you've not been through my suffering,'" he said. "It was an attitude of ‘nobody knows the trouble I've seen.'"

Church members continue to work on healthy ways of grieving, including how suffering can make them more compassionate to others' pain.

"Tragedy now drives us deeper into the arms of God rather than driving us apart," Doerr said. "It's shaped us in ways that we can be sensitive to how God brings life out of death."

Doerr said the murders are also becoming "more of a distant piece" in the life of the congregation. "The Columbine tragedy is still part of our life, but doesn't continue on a daily basis to control or direct our ministry," he said.

Hochhalter said it took her a long time to accept her losses through the eyes of faith. "When Columbine happened, I didn't believe in God," she said. "I was a selfish teenager. I wanted to sleep in on Sunday mornings. My mom always had us go to church. Her faith was strong."

Most students at Hochhalter's church attended a different high school.

"I didn't feel connected at church," Hochhalter said. "At the same time, I will never forget the love of that church after mom died. That church was there for us."

She eventually moved 30 miles away to Westminster, earned a college degree in business and certification as a court-appointed advocate for children. But the most important change is that she "opened her heart to Jesus," she said.

"I kept thinking about my mom and how, if I don't believe in God, that means there's no heaven and she's just in the ground," Hochhalter said. "I didn't understand what Christianity was all about. Then a friend invited me to her church. She was an absolute gift. She answered my questions so patiently."

With faith, her perspective on suffering changed.

"God doesn't cause suffering. He suffers with us," said Hochhalter, who now attends a nondenominational church. "I'm certain God cried over Columbine. I'm certain he cried along with me when mom died."

ELCA News Service